ILLUSION:

TO DO BETTER, TRY HARDER

Before tackling this powerful illusion, you the golfer must understand the large difference between learning and performing. When you `work’ on your game, perseverance furthers. Discipline and trying hard can bring you a long way to better golf, on the range and the practice green. But when it’s time to play (perform), that trying can now become a hazard.  

I would call it the wisdom of not trying. The more you can let it happen, and play from awareness rather than ego, the better you will perform. There is no I in golf; get out of the way and let it flow through you.  

Nowhere is this more obvious than in putting. Trying to get the ball into the hole adds layers on the simple act of making a good stroke. Those layers of what if I miss, or gotta get it to the hole, or general spacing out, will be seen as excess baggage, once the golfer stops sweating bullets to get it in, and just relaxes into the simple act of swinging the putter. All you can do is start the ball on the intended line, with the proper speed. What happens beyond that is up to the golf course, or the golf gods, or just luck. Don’t push the river; it is already flowing by itself! 

In driving, the teeing area is a stage illusion can add trying too hard to the process. Just putting the ball in play can go a long way toward easing the try- too- hard neurosis. Again, less baggage makes for a simpler approach to every shot.  

This is a real zen koan; on one hand you are not being a jellyfish with the motivation of melted ice-cream; there is a sense of doing your best. The shot is planned and visualized, and there is preparation for success; but when it comes time to swing the club, no extra help is needed. Your body can do quite well, thank you, without help from the chatterbox on your shoulders shouting directions. 

ILLUSION #1:

THE TEEING GROUND IS A STAGE

There are a number of distinctly different terrains on a golf course; greens, fringe, sand, fairway, rough, and the teeing ground. The latter, called the tee box, is usually rectangular, raised, and clearly defined. To many golfers it has the feel of a stage. Often you are standing there alone, as your fellow competitors (audience) are seated in the box section (golf car).

There is a natural tendency to show off under this circumstance- to impress. Just like an actor wants the play to be a big hit, we try hard to hit the big one in play! But this becomes a problem, because home-run hitters also strike out a lot. In golf you have to play your foul balls. The first tee is an especially stressful situation, almost like an audition in front of many critics. Good players tend to want to show off, while poor players freeze with `stage fright’.

The way to dissolve this illusion of being on stage and feeling pressured to perform, is to look back a couple of hundred years in the history of golf. In the early days of the game clubs didn’t have numbers; they each had names. The 1 wood was called the `play club’, not the `driver’. Look closely at the attitude a golfer will have when `hitting a driver’ as opposed to `putting a ball into play’. When you hit a driver, there is a sense of big deal, important event. Put a ball into play, and you might think of the opening kickoff at a football game, or first move in chess. It simply gets the game started.

 If you are able to keep the correct attitude in mind, then the first shot on each hole will have the quality of good start rather than the whole show. Your stage fright and self-consciousness will dissolve and you will truly be playing the game.

GOLF`S ILLUSIONS

Why is golf so difficult? A swing thought works for 10 shots, then disappears into that black hole where socks and perfectly good swing thoughts go. Why can’t it be more like riding a bike? (Once you have it, you never forget).

The answer is, in my opinion, that we are constantly being fooled by illusions. Riding a bike is easy to understand, because it is straightforward; you are trying to remain vertical while propelling forward and not smashing into things. Golf is harder to fathom, so we make things up based on what we see, or think we see. Similarly, we tend to take for gospel what people tell us. Perhaps these people are also being fooled and unwittingly passing this false information to us! The web of illusion becomes `THE TRUTH’ when everybody believes it.  

As a teaching professional, I spend my days helping people to improve at this game of golf. I have always had a knack for quickly diagnosing swing problems, but early in my career I wasn’t getting results. As I looked more closely at what was happening inside the golfer (what they were thinking), I began to develop the illusion theory, and my teaching improved immediately. When I first made the discovery on the extent that illusions exist, I was blown away. I kept a 3X5 card handy for recording when they came up; I have discovered enough illusions for 3 books, and through the revolving door, the mirages keep coming! Still, almost daily on the lesson tee, I discover another false notion that is fooling yet another golfer. I believe that at all levels; golfers are laboring under illusions that are holding them back from playing better

From a book by Les Fehmi...

Information from The Talent Code.................................

Six steps to mastering the mental game of golf..... introduction

I first played golf with Dr. Joe Parent  in 1976,

In October, 2010 I attended a conference in Dallas, along with many of the top golf instructors in North America.One presenter at the Dallas Teaching Summit in October 2010, was the short game guru Stan Utley. Author of The Art of Putting, and The Art of the Short Game, Utley has become one of the top short game teachers on the PGA Tour.

The next presentation was AimPoint founder, Mark Sweeney, who was named one of golf's Top Innovators by Golf Digest Magazine, and was called "the best kept secret in golf" by the Golf Channel.

Another  speaker at the teaching conference in Dallas was Rick Jensen, a sport psychologist `who works with 50 top tour players, who have combined won 33 majors. His opening statement was a bombshell. Addressing many of the world’s finest teachers he started with `The business you all are in, golf instruction, is BROKEN’.

In October, I attended a conference for teachers and coaches in North America. One of the keynote speakers was Chuck Cook, a  PGA teaching professional from Texas.  Mr. Cook has been a top teacher for many years; his students include Payne Stewart and Tom Kite.