Granted, it wasn’t strict GSC setup, but there were both stepping in with the right foot and keeping the clubhead grounded behind the ball as the looked down range and set their feet…HMMM!

I didn’t teach them this directly or they would have hit the ball even better, but it shows that this setup routine does a lot to make up for a not-so-perfect golf swing. Maybe they saw it on the website… You never know who’s watching.

If you haven’t used the setup routine, check it out. The link is over on the right.

Regards,

Tracy

Well think about it… One minute it’s the swing, the next a bad decision, later it’s lack of focus… The  strokes add up and the cause for them keeps changing. How can any golfer expect to find it, let alone fix it. The way it moves around, it has to be Gremlins.

Here’s the BIG NEWS!!!

I found the little bugger and I managed to trap him. He almost ate his way through the cage, so I moved him to a titanium cage.

WHAT??? (I’m sure you’re thinking that I’m nuts right about now…)

Let me explain. The big debate in golf instruction is whether the “secret of golf” is in the golf swing or if its all mental. You’ve heard me say its all mental because the mind also controls movement…

But I guess I was wrong. (You won’t hear that one very often!)

You see, the golf swing is controlled in the mind, but the very same golf swing can be a distraction that causes the mind to make mistakes. The physical body causing the mind to screw up… So which came first; The golf swing or the thought that made it happen?

Confused yet? Can you see why nobody has been able to corner this sneaky little devil?

I finally figured out the answer… Mental or physical? Neither!.. and Both! (I told you this wasn’t an easy task.)

The Gremlin messing with your golf game is a combination of doubt and unsupported conscious thought. Doubt is the mental Gremlin. If you doubt your ability to make a shot, the worry itself will be enough of a distraction to your mind to mess up the shot. No golfer is beyond this Gremlin. Think about Tiger Woods revamping his golf swing… While he’s winning everything! Why, because he knows that he won’t ever have a clear mind if he has doubts about his golf swing.

But what in the world is “unsupported thought”? I’m glad you asked!

Unsupported thought is an idea that isn’t supported by physical evidence. For example: Where are your hands at the top of your backswing? You might think you know, but for most golfers, until they look, they really aren’t sure. (There’s also that doubt again.) Few golfers I have taught ever been able to get that one correct(before instruction) because what they think they feel isn’t correct. The feedback they were trying to use to answer that question was incorrect… Unsupported thought is the physical Gremlin.

So how do you fix it?

Doubt comes from not knowing your golf swing well enough… Which is also caused by feedback which the brain cannot accurately interpret. So is it the golf swing? Not quite… It’s the knowledge and confidence in the golf swing. You see; mental AND physical.

If you can confidently eliminate golf swing gaffs AND make any shot at will, you would in fact, OWN YOUR GOLF SWING. That is the real goal that Tiger is working towards.

Tiger wants to make every golf swing in complete control of his movement. The key word is: CONTROL.

Do you see where I’m going here? Why do you think my course is called Golf Swing CONTROL? GSC is designed NOT to teach you a new golf swing, but rather how to get the most out of YOUR GOLF SWING and get it under CONTROL.

But to help you do that, I have to explain how the golf swing works, which is why the course goes through the workings of the complete golf swing. Once you have your best golf swing, Golf Swing Control shows you how to OWN YOUR GOLF SWING. No other instruction course shows you how to own your golf swing because nobody else knows where the Gremlins that mess up your golf game are hiding.

You’ve seen all of the articles on this blog about balance. If not, you should read them. I talk a lot about balance, because it’s something you HAVE to HAVE if you ever hope to achieve ownership of your golf swing or golf game. As long as there is gravity, balnce will either help you hurt your golf swing, depending on whether you are swinging in balance or not. This is a physical law, so there isn’t a choice.

Here’s the bonus. When I work with advanced golfers and professionals, I usually only have to fine-tune their balance. When I do, their swing self-corrects. Their posture improves, their tempo improves and their swing plane sets itself. A miracle? No, just the laws of Dynamic Balance working for them.

Do you want to get rid of the Gremlins? Would you like a golf swing that self-corrects, one you can own? The only path is Golf Swing Control…

If you choose to go the way of Golf Swing Control, remember one very important point. Its NOT about the golf swing; its all about the CONTROL.

Hit’m well,
Tracy

For more information on How to Own Your Golf Swing, go to Own Your Golf Swing

Well, here’s your answer  - and the secret that makes Golf Swing Control work like magic:

GSC shows golfers how balance works and how to make it work for them so they don’t have to work at their golf swing.

But it doesn’t stop at the golf swing…The most important 6 inches in golf is between a golfer’s ears.

Balance will help there as well! Please allow me to explain…

The very first rule you need to know before you will ever master golf or the golf swing is the rule of Dynamic Balance.

Dynamic Balance states that the brain’s first priority when your body is in motion is to keep your body in balance so that you don’t fall and hurt yourself.

So why is this so important? Good question!

If you start your golf swing from an out-of-balance stance, your brain’s first priority will be to try to get your body into balance. By doing so, it will REDIRECT THE GOLF MUSCLES IF NEEDED - whether you like it or not.

But the fight to keep your body balanced gets into physics and Newton’s laws of motion, so the body has a tendency to over-correct for the original imbalance, and then re-correct for the over-corrections.

It can’t just fix the situation and be done with it, so the out-of-balance pendulum is swinging back and forth in smaller increments while you’re trying to swing a golf club.

Even if the body gets balance, the club will not be in the position it started, so who knows what will happen when the club gets back to the ball.

Here’s the rub, most golfers (even pros to a lesser degree) start their swing from an out of balance position, which means that their body is actually FIGHTING AGAINST THEIR GOLF SWING the whole time they are moving.

Doesn’t sound promising, does it?

Here’s why balance is so important: If you start movement from a balanced position, your brain WILL FIGHT TO HELP YOUR GOLF SWING accomplish its goal.

So Balance can be your best friend or your worst enemy…

But getting into balance isn’t as simple as it might seem at first.

Ask any guru HOW balance works in the body and you probably won’t get an answer that will help your golf game. You could probably hold a million dollars in front of them and they wouldn’t be able to answer the question properly to get the money.

Why? Because they take balance for granted and most of the pros are in pretty good balance… most of the time… And they have drills you can use to get into balance, so it doesn’t matter.

But it DOES MATTER, and I’ve proven that with the results of thousands of golfers around the world who play better just because they understand balance and how to use balance in their golf game. If you go to just about any golf instructor and he sees that you are woefully out of balance (and unfortunately too many don’t because they don’t recognize balance issues), he may try to correct the balance situation with a simple drill.

He’ll give you the drill because it gets results, but he won’t be able to explain what the drill is really doing for you or how you know its working. So, later when you get on the golf course and the old habits start to creep back in, you can’t see the problem, you don’t know how to recognize the problem any other way, and you may or may not have the mental clarity to try the drill he gave you to hit the ball better.

The result is a bad day on the course with no idea of why, and no idea as to a way to correct it. Sound familiar?

But what if instead, you were able to tap into a reliable feedback in your own body that would tell you exactly what is wrong?

Better yet, what if that same feedback gave you the means to fix the problem right there?

But what feedback can do that? NOT MUSCLE MEMORY…

Why? Because as you warm up or cool down, your muscles change the feedback they send to the brain. Since the feedback is always changing, there’s no way to know just what your muscles are trying to tell you.

For example: When’s the last time your backswing felt fine, and then an instructor told you that you were flat or too upright, maybe sliding or reverse-pivoting?

The feedback I’m talking about is balance feedback and you already use it 24/7… to keep yourself in balance. You just don’t realize it yet because it is used “behind the scenes.”

When’s the last time you tripped and instantaneously threw your arms or legs out to catch your balance? That was balance feedback and dynamic balance at work.

Balance in the body is not the simple as balancing a stick on a pivot. The stick doesn’t have the ability to change relative shape as the human body does by throwing out arms or legs. Balance in the body is satisfied when two requirements are fulfilled.

First the whole body has to be balanced as a stick would be on the points of contact. But the complicated part is that each muscle and its opposing muscle must be working evenly.

If one muscle is pulling more than its opposite muscle (all muscles work in pairs - like your bicep and tricep in your arms) then when the muscles are relaxed, the body will change shape (arms drop for example) and the basic balance will be lost.

It is this principle that makes the golf swing such a challenge.

For example; If you are set up and your lower back is getting tight, it’s because those muscles are out of balance with their opposing muscles in the core. If you take the time to feel your leg muscles, you’ll find that the muscles in the backs of your legs are probably real tight also.

Even if the weight feels balanced in your feet, you are still out of balance because your muscles will want to even out with their opposing muscles as soon as you start moving. If they can’t move because they are too tight, you’ll lose the use of those muscles and their opposing muscles in the golf swing.

So step one - and the most important step in golf for a consistent swing - is getting into a properly balanced setup.

Doing so makes the golf swing work much more efficiently with less effort and better results.

But the setup and the golf swing the golf aren’t all there is to golf. No, each shot has certain obstacles to overcome, such as the elements, and to make matters worse; the mind is constantly getting in the way of doing it properly… But as I said before, balance can fix that…

How do you fix the mind with balance? Glad you asked!

First the problem: If the mind is in the way, any golf psychologist will tell you to quit thinking.

RIGHT! They’ll tell you that if you just focus on your target, your swing will take care of itself.

But does it?

You have to think on the golf course. You have to consider the parameters of each shot and adjust the plan for each shot accordingly. You can’t “not think” on the golf course.

The problem is that you can’t “think” your way through a physical motion either.

When you trip and your arms or legs suddenly shoot out to keep you from falling, do you think about it?

Do you think about your arm movement when you turn the steering wheel in your car? So how does it work?

The answer to the brain-in-the-way problem is again, an understanding of how the brain works with body motion.

Here’s how it happens:

Before you move any muscle, the brain creates a visual signal; a map of sorts to guide the movement.

That picture is based on two types of input to the brain; the external forces acting on the body or around the body, and your balance feedback.The brain has to check balance feedback because it must create a balanced movement if possible.

When you monitor your own balance feedback, you’ll start to see the pictures the brain creates for movement. Once you see the picture, your mind will focus better and the movement will be more accurate.

So balance feedback initiates visualization.

Let me prove it with a simple exercise: Take a walk. Every time you set a foot down, try to get an exact idea of where the greatest amount of pressure is felt under the foot.

As your body moves on the foot, try to get an exact idea of where the weight moves along the foot; i.e. along the outside of the foot, inside the heel to the outside of the toe.

Do you push off of the big toe or the smaller toes? Keep working on this until you know exactly where the foot has the most pressure for each moment that foot is in contact with the ground.

If you are relaxed, you will see a picture of this pressure map in your mind.

Now change the patterns by changing where you want the weight to be felt.

You’ll see that your mind will change the picture and the body will follow. That is what we are doing with the golf swing.

If you can feel and control how you walk on your feet, you can feel and control how your body makes the golf swing.

Here’s a bonus nobody realizes until a friend compliments them on how their swing looks…

By making the golf swing in balance, your swing will naturally adjust itself to match your body structure. And YOUR SWING PLANE?… That’s decided automatically by balance as well!

One less thing to think about.

The last step is using this visual thought to increase focus on the course.

Focus will automatically be increased, but there are some tweaks I do for competitors that increase it further.So can you see why it’s so important? It’s all in the Golf Swing Control course and that’s why so many golfers are playing so well by studying it.

Please post your comments below - let me know what you think!

Hit’m well,

Tracy

To learn how to find a perfectly balanced setup, click: Setup Routine Video

To quickly gain confidence and accuracy in your swing, click: Golf Swing Control

Nick had another secret and without it, he never would have been able to make the swing work. What’s his secret? To find out, simply listen to his commentary when he’s covering golf. Specifically, listen to his comments concerning the mind in golf. He talks about visualization, feel, staying in the present, and not letting the brain get in the way.

OK, what’s the connection? Nick Faldo’s real golf secret was his mind. It was also Hogan’s secret… and Tiger’s secret. Starting to see a pattern here?

The simple fact is that nothing happens in the body until it first happens in the mind. Nick Faldo, Tiger Woods and Ben Hogan all used their minds in a way that allowed them to have complete control over their body movement. Nick used what was considered to be a technically perfect swing. Although other PGA golfers have used this same golf swing, none have been able to repeat Faldo’s success. The difference is in the mind.

Tiger has won multiple times… with three different golf swings, AND with a “broken” left leg! How? A super-focused mind.

How about Ben Hogan… A flat swing, weak grip, yet incredible accuracy. His secret, contrary to all other theories, was how he used his mind to create his swing and use it to control his movement in spite of intense pain from his near-death accident.

So how does all of this information about the golf swing relate to a focused mind? It’s not what these famous golfers were thinking… As I said before, it was and is HOW they use the mind.

This is where golf psychology fails because it deals with what you think. Golf Swing Control works because it shows golfers how to use the mind. But for many who have the instruction course, it’s not evident right away. GSC is not a mental game course AND it’s not an instruction course about the golf swing.

NO, Golf Swing Control addresses both the mind and the golf swing, because it’s the only way to gain real CONTROL over your golf game. Hence the name of the instruction course. Funny, it was the only name that fit, and even though it probably didn’t help sales with a name like Golf Swing Control, no other name would work… But I digress.

So if you really want to improve your golf game, spend time in your mind. It’s not what you think, but how you think. It’s using visualization, getting in touch with feel and using the mind in such a way that thinking doesn’t get in the way of playing golf.

After all, it worked for three of the best…

Think about it.

Tracy

Does feel come from hitting thouands of golf balls, or is there another way to attain this level of golf?

Most golfers would kill for this instinct… But is it really an instinct or can any golfer learn to play by feel?

My answer is that golfers can learn to be feel players without spending every waking moment on the driving range.

Let me enlighten you…

First, where does feel happen? Is it physical touch or is there more?

Feel is an interaction between the brain and the body… Just as golf requires the use of both brain and body.

Please indulge me for a second while I go off on a slight ranting tangent, because this always gets my blood boiling…

For years, golf has been taught as either a physical game or a mental game. Like it or not, it is both and separating the two only screws up golfers. If you try to teach them something physical, they have to find a way to remember it. If you try to work on their mental game, they find that all the great thoughts in the world are useless if their golf swing ain’t working that day.

Feel golf is the best example of mind and body working together. But feel is somewhat of an enigma for many golfers. That’s because feel requires the golfer to use a different part of their brain. It requires the use of the “non-thinking” part, or subconscious. In other words, it uses a process in the brain that is separate from conscious thought.

For golfers who learn to play by feel, they find that the special brain process also helps them in other areas of their lives. For example, feel players are often well spoken and they are better than average problem solvers.

What process am I talking about? I call it the Monitor.

The monitor is that part of your brain that watches out for you. It tries to make sure you don’t say embarrassing things. It tries to make sure you don’t hurt yourself. The monitor is there to keep you safe. Most people don’t realize they have this process working, but it is present in every human being. Once you start to tap into the monitor, your life and your golf game start to improve.

People ask me why it is that some people improve quickly with Golf Swing Control while others struggle. The answer is that those who improve quickly make better use of their monitor function.

The best example of the monitor function is the classic freckle-faced kid asking the pretty girl for a date. He doesn’t think he’s worthy and he’s trying to work up the courage to call her. The conversation in his mind is between his conscious and his monitor. The monitor says, “Just do it.” and the conscious says, “What is she says no?” The conversation creates a twisted feeling in his stomach.

In golf, the monitor function has another role. It is used to monitor feel.

I know that right now you’re cussing at your computer because you’ve been trying to pinpoint how your golf swing feels for years and that just hasn’t worked. I’ve been there too. But there is a reliable place where feel never changes and that feel can be used to make your golf swing more consistent.

The monitor can also help you to stop making bad decisions and to control your emotions on the golf course as well. From the mental game standpoint, the monitor will do things for you that golf psychology can’t touch. The monitor is the secret to sub-par golf.

So how do you use it? I’ll start with two exercises; one for your physical game and one for your mental game.

Exercise 1) Take a walk. As you make each step, try to pinpoint where the greatest weight is felt under your feet at every moment. In other words, if you land on your heel, is it the inside or outside of the heel? When you roll forward on the foot, does your weight go to the outside of the foot or do you move from the heel to the ball of the foot? When you push off, does the weight center in the big toe, or do the smaller toes do more work? Do this drill until you know exactly how your weight moves across each foot. You’ll probably find that each foot feels differently.

Exercise 2) Listen to yourself speak in every conversation. Count how many time you say, “um”, “ah”, or “you know”. That’s it. Let me know what happens as you continue to monitor your conversations.

What I’ve just given you is the first step towards developing a mental game that rivals Tiger Woods mental game. A word of warning: Tiger has been doing these things since he was a toddler, so he has a big head start. That said, anyone can make up ground in this area… And it doesn’t involve hitting thousands of golf balls.

I want to hear your feedback on this. But before you write, do both exercises, re-read this post and take some time to let it sink in. Like everything else I do, there is much more in this post than is immediately seen during the first read.

Regards,
Tracy

The PGA professionals that work in your local golf clubs DO NOT learn how to teach golf in their PGA Program!

I want you to digest that for a minute before I move on…

You may feel a little foolish if you’ve ever taken lessons and wondered if the pro really knew what he was doing… You’re probably asking yourself some questions…

So what do they have to learn to be a PGA club professional? The program they must pass is called the PGM program… Professional Golf Management. They learn to manage a golf shop and the amenities that go with it. They learn to manage tournaments. They learn how to display and sell merchandise.

So what makes them qualified to teach golf swing instruction? To get into the program, you must pass the PAT (Play Ability Test), which is playing two rounds of golf back to back and scoring around 148 or better for the two rounds combined. The PGA believes that if you can do that, you can play golf… and therefore you should be able to teach…

RIGHT…

Any wonder golf instruction is so far off the charts these days?

So how do you know if any golf pro really knows what he’s doing? Well you could do like I did and become an Interrogator, survive a war, and spend twenty years researching the golf swing so that no professional could feed you BS…

…Or you can apply common sense! Yes I know that common sense isn’t common any more, but there are some easy ways to know if your guru or instructor really knows what he’s doing. Yes, I slipped the word “guru” in there because many of them don’t really understand the golf swing either. Some do, but can’t explain it in a way anyone could understand. (this may get me in hot water.)

The first rule you need to remember about golf instruction is that there are two crucial areas to the profession. First is the knowledge of the golf swing. Second and just as important is the ability to teach, which means to be an effective communicator.

A teacher’s job is not just to know the information, but to be able to explain it to you so that it makes sense. Many golf instructors feel that if you don’t understand what they’re saying, it’s your fault… WRONG.

So, before you decide to get lessons from ANYONE (including a so called “guru”), see if that person speaks in a language you understand. Ask him the following question:

WHY?

He’ll look at you funny and stutter…

Then let him know that you understand WHAT happens, or what should happen, you just want to know how it works and WHY it’s supposed to work that way. You see, they never get this question, so be ready for an unexpected change of direction in their answer.

I did this one time at a show (of all places). I couldn’t help it. The pro was demonstrating the commonly taught misconception that the arms drop before the body moves. It goes completely against the rules of Biomechanics. He had no idea who I was, so I acted as an innocent golfer and asked him a couple of questions:

First I stated that another instructor was telling me that the arms have to move with the body or they’ll get out of sync and cause a slice or hook… and he agreed…

So I asked him, “If the arms have to stay with the body turn, why do you start them first?”

He tried to ignore me at first, but I really needed to know, so I asked again, very politely, but a little more forcefully. The most I got out of him was that they just do… there was no reason other than it had to happen or the golfer would hook the ball.

So I asked how in the world can a golfer time the arms and body correctly to stay consistent? He answered… Practice.

Then I asked about what to do next and his answer was to turn the hips.

I then commented in a wide-eyed manner that it’s a wonder we can hit a golf ball at all, and he agreed.

The crowd stared on in glassy-eyed amazement…

I try to maintain a bit of professional courtesy, and I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of the crowd so I nodded my head and let it go. But what happened next… Or what didn’t happen next is what really shocked me.

Nobody in the crowd apparently saw or heard what happened. No other golfer in the crowd became the least bit curious to know why the arms were supposed to go first according to that instructor. They just accepted it like a bunch of mind-numbed robots!

It was then and there that I realized the golf instruction disease in the US was not just because of crappy instruction. No, this problem is a two-way street. The whole crowd was completely oblivious to the situation that unfolded before them, and worse, altogether apathetic. They were being taught incorrect information and it never occurred to them to play devil’s advocate, or even apply what little common sense and ask follow up questions… Which is exactly why poor instructors get away with teaching incorrect information.

This article was written, for two reasons. First, I want to give golfers an idea of what is wrong with golf instruction today, but I’ve been screaming THAT stuff from the top of the roof for twenty years…

So instead, I would like to believe I could get golfers to look at their own goals and try to figure out what they are really looking for when they’re reading golf tips on the internet.

The golf swing is one of the most complicated moves in sports. Do you really believe that there is just one tip that will set your game free?

After over twenty five years of reading the same golf tips in the magazines, re-hashed year after year to sell subscriptions… Do you really believe they have your best interest at heart, or is it possible that those magazines rake in the cash by stringing you along with enough information to keep you salivating for that one “golden tip?”

Here’s the truth: The magazines care as long as the supscriptions stay up… AND… There IS one tip that will change your game, but they’ll never tell you that tip. If they did, there would be no reason for the instructional articles in the magazine. That why it took me so long to find it.

That’s why I wrote Golf Swing Control. You see, there IS one thing in golf that will fix your golf swing AND help you focus better for a better mental game… One thing!

Here’s the crying shame. I spent over twenty years to find it, prove it, develop it, and simplify it for golfers of any handicap, but when I tell you what it is, you’ll never believe it…because most of you have been brain-washed without ever knowing it!

So… Are you going to prove me wrong?

That one thing that can fix your golf swing and your mental game at the same time is:

BALANCE

Of course it’s not that simple or it wouldn’t have taken twenty years to figure out. Ask any professional how the balance system works in the body and you’ll see what I was up against. Heck, ask any so called guru… You’ll get the same non-answer. They don’t know.

Ask me, and I’ll explain it in detail so you can easily use it to improve your whole golf game faster than any other method you’ve ever tried. I took the time to find out. But don’t email me for the answer. It’s in the Golf Swing Control Instruction Course, and that is the only place on Earth you’ll find it.

And the crying shame is that laid out in front of you on a red carpet and a gold platter is the answer to golf’s frustrations…

And at most 10% of readers will believe it.

Statistics don’t lie.

If you would like to prove me wrong, it won’t cost you a dime. Just check out the rest of www.ultimategolfsystem.com look at the videos on the site and then go to www.golfswingcontrol.com

If you have questions, ask them ONLY after you have done all of that. I’ll know if you have, and I’ll gladly answer them.

Regards,
Tracy
www.golfswingcontrol.com

Here’s how to get it back without endless lessons or arrays of gadgets to improve your muscle memory.

Imagine…

It’s perfect weather for a round of golf. Your pre-game practice was good and it has amazingly tranferred over to the course. It seems that every shot is crisp and on target. It could be that perfect round. You’re smiling, thinking about the bets you’ll win today; finally getting some money back…

Then without warning your shot squirts to the right. Suddenly you feel your stomach drop. Your face is flush. What just happened?

Shake it off, it was just a fluke. That ball is lost; hit another. Just relax, it’ll be ok…

What the…?

Not again! The only thing worse than hitting a stray shot is hitting two identical stray shots! And the round was perfect to that point!

Most golfers have experienced this tragedy more than once. Actually, most golfers think great golf is almost a fluke, because this happens just about every time they have a great round going.

Is it the golf swing? It could be. But if you have ever hit a shot that was accurate, then it says you CAN hit the shot again… and you should be able to do it every time.

The question Is: Why don’t you?

I will answer this question at the risk of exposing a growing problem in golf today.

The problem is that when a golfer goes to a golf instructor with this problem, the instructor usually give the golfer golf swing instruction.

Why is that a problem? Because the golfer already knows how to swing the golf club!

You probably think I’ve lost my mind, but if you’ve ever hit the ball well, you don’t need golf swing instruction.

So what’s the problem?

Your golf swing is merely a little out of control. It’s the same as if you lost control of your car. You still know how to drive; you just lost focus or got distracted. You don’t go back and get driving lessons every time you swerve slightly, do you? You don’t try out a new method of driving your car after a fender-bender, do you? Maybe you focus on what you’re doing more, but learn it all over? I think not.

Just like driving a car, hitting a golf ball requires focus. Since the golf swing is a little more prone to errors, the golf swing requires more focus than driving your car.

You’re probably thinking: “Wait, I play my best when I don’t think!”

The same goes for driving the car. When’s the last time you actually tried to think about turning the steering wheel as you went through a turn?

What I’m saying is that there is a huge difference between thinking and focus.

Why am I writing this? Because unless golfers can see how they “think” when making another movement and compare that with how they “think” during the golf swing, golfers will be stuck on the golf instruction merry-go-round, until they either run out of money or just get sick of instruction that doesn’t fix the real problem. 

So how do you get your golf swing back? By applying the same type of focus you use to steer your car around a corner to your golf game.

Try to imagine what was going through your mind when you first started driving. If you were like me, you were trying to figure out if there was something you could look at to know where the wheels were so you didn’t run off the road or get too close to the car beside you. Now, you never give it a thought… OR DO YOU?

This is my point. If you can capture the same type of thought; focus, that you use for driving a car and apply it to your golf game, you would instantly play better golf.

The next question I hear from golfers is: “How do I stop thinking?”

Well, I have always said that the answer was to think in pictures. And if you can do it without distractions, you will play better right away. My Golf Swing Control Instruction Course will show you how to focus properly during the golf swing…

… But I have found that most golfers have another step before they can start improving their focus during the round…

They have to get their “thinking” mind out of the way.

I have finally found a resource that can help you do that. Yeah, I’m not a psychologist. I learned this part of the game on my own and never realized how much trouble most golfers have trying to clear their thoughts. Well, the guy I found is a lot like me. He doesn’t believe in practice… Not hitting a thousand golf balls anyway.

His name is Craig Sigl. I like his program because it is simple, just like Golf Swing Control, and it is straight forward… just like Golf Swing Control.

You probably know by now, I don’t endorse other people’s products because I haven’t found many that have been worth the time to look at. Well, I finally have, and believe me, I didn’t do it very easily either.

Actually, Craig did a sneak-attack on me by helping my business partner, Eric, without telling me. After Eric started using Craig’s program, he went out to play golf without having any practice for almost 3 months. He told me that Golf Swing Control kept him in play,and Craig’s program kept his mind from talking himself out of a good round of golf.

That got me to look at Craig’s program, and I have to admit, once I listened to it, I knew it was a winner. I knew it, because Craig handles the same situations that I handle one on one with my professional golfers when needed. I figure if professional golfers have these problems, amateurs do too.

So that’s it, I think Golf Swing Control has found the one program that complements it perfectly. It’s Craig Sigl’s, How to Break 80 without practice. Don’t let the name of the program throw you off like it did me, it should say, How to break 70 without practice, but then I guess a lot of golfers would miss it that way too.

At any rate, whether you have Golf Swing Control or not, Craig’s program will certainly help you play better golf. Check it out by clicking this link: How to stop thinking during the golf swing.

Prior to stepping on the first tee, according to Steve Williams, Tiger was having difficulty walking 9 holes due to severe pain every time he swung the club. So how was he going to walk 18 for four days straight, let alone play golf?

His pain helped him focus as much as it hurt his golf swing. Yeah, that sounds absurd, but I’ve seen and experienced similar situations where somebody felt there was no choice (maybe Tiger did) so they kept going despite the pain.

Think about what had to go through Tiger’s mind every time he made a golf swing. Once he decided on the shot, he had to make a swing that would give him the best shot he could make without doing any more damage to his injury. In other words, once he was committed to a shot, his mind was completely on the movement AND blocking out the pain so it didn’t affect the movement.

All of you golfers with back injuries probably know what I’m talking about. It isn’t easy.

But in Tiger’s case, the major distraction of the pain and the injury forced him to focus on the same thing every time. No distractions, just movement. The shots weren’t always perfect. Who could expect that? But Tiger is so mentally tough, he was not only able to keep playing, but focus to make his best swing on every shot.

What Tiger had to do at the US Open is to use his huge distraction of his injury and his pain to focus on the task at hand. And that’s the key; staying on the task at hand without distraction.

I’ve seen this before. My brother was playing in Little League regional chanpionship baseball game as the pitcher. It was his turn in the rotation, but he developed an earache so bad, no amount of pain medication short of morphine would stop the pain. He felt that if he didn’t play, he would let his team down. Not only was his fast ball hotter than I’ve ever seen it, he also hit 2 home runs in that game … a long way out of the park. Lots of focus plus a little anger at having to deal with the pain.

My wife played softball on her college team. In one game she hit a base wrong and fractured her ankle. The problem was that they were a few players short already and leaving the game would force a forefit. She opted to stay in, so they moved her to right field, but the opposing team knew it and kept hitting the ball there. She hung in there and they won the game. Focus.

In my case, I was enlisting in the ARMY as an Interrogator. To get the position, you have to take a language, which meant taking a special test and passing it, which very few could do. This test was essentially 4 hours of learning and becoming relatively profficient at a new language. But the language was completely made up, so there was no way to stack the deck. The night before the test, I was served some bad food at the hotel the ARMY placed me in and had a major case of food poisoning. I threw up all night, had no sleep and was in absolute pain from the top of my head to the bottoms of my feet. Imagine a full-body migraine on top of no sleep for 36 hours. When they saw me that morning, they didn’t want to give me the test. I could have stayed another night and recovered, but taking another chance like that in that flea-bag hotel wasn’t going to happen. I had to sign a waivor in order to go ahead with the test. I not only passed the test, but got a higher than average score. Focus.

Back to golf… Focus on the task at hand.

So what is the task at hand in golf? Is it the shot or is it the swing?

This argument goes to the whole Past, Present, Future thing. The shot is in the future, and you’ll never get there, but the swing is in the present, which makes the swing the task at hand.

Since every swing must be a little different to account for the constantly changing variables that affect each shot, the shot variables have to figure in to the swing in such a way that you can make the proper swing and stay focused on it to get the proper outcome. That’s what Tiger does better than any other golfer in the world.

You see, focus isn’t just in the mind. If you have a picture of the perfect swing, but there is no connection of mind and body, the body won’t be able to make that swing consistently.

So is muscle memory the connection? I’m sorry but it isn’t. It’s not the connection simply by the way athletes try to train muscle memory. They use repetition and rely on the muscles to somehow know just what to do. But where does that “muscle memory or knowledge” come from? That’s right, the mind! Your mind has to tell the muscles what to do, so the memory is in the mind, not the muscles. Since the muscles change state as they warm up or cool down, the signals your mind has to send must constantly change to adjust for conditions. So there are an infinite number of changes the mind has to make every time it tells the muscles to move, if every movement is to be consistent.

So if Muscle Memory won’t do it, what is there? That’s why Golf Swing Control was created. Because there is a system in the body that is always constant, because the forces it has to work against don’t change. The force I’m talking about is Gravity and the system in your body is Balance Feedback.

Balance feedback is like the measuring system that the body uses to constantly adjust the signals it sends to the muscles as they change state. The Balance Feedback system works 24/7 while you are in movement, but few people even realize that it is there. Why, because it works quietly behind the scenes and only gets noticed whenever you trip or lose balance. If you have ever done that, you probably remember instantly moving your arms or legs or leaning one way or another without any thought. That’s the system at work.

Balance feedback sends reliable signals we can use to make our golf game efficient and consistent. You simply have to ask to see the feedback and learn how to use it.

This is why I often say that Golf Swing Control is for golfers who want to go beyond ordinary instruction. It’s also why golfers of all handicaps, using different style swings can all see great results.

If this makes sense, take some time to read other blog posts and look further into Golf Swing Control. If you like what you see and decide to use Golf Swing Control with your golf program, I’ll be here to answer your questions.

Yes, it’s all about focus. Focus is the factor that separates Tiger from every other golfer in the world. Don’t you think it might help you too?

Oh, by the way, don’t go out and hurt yourself to get better focus. There are somebuilding blocks that must be in place before that will help. What am I saying? Getting hurt is NOT a good idea!

Hit’m well,

Tracy

If you have a set of clubs already, there’s no need to buy new ones. If you go to a reputable clubmaker, he can fit those clubs to you. There are some caveats here.

First, your setup routine should be proper, complete, and a habit. If the setup is wrong, the clubs will not be properly fitted.

Second, the clubs should be fitted using a strike board in combination with watching the resulting shots. If you are hitting a different shot every time, the clubmaker will have no clue what to do, so find a swing that fits you and stick with it for the fitting.

If the clubmaker suggests that there may be an issue with the swing, listen, stop the process and get back to work on your movement (without hitting golf balls) If you work on movement without the distraction of hitting golf balls, you will create a consistent swing pattern that will assist a clubmaker in fitting clubs to your swing.

Clubmakers can do wonderful things to help golfers hit the ball better. If you look at the golf clubs on the market, manufacturers now make clubs for slicers and those who hook the ball. (Notice I didn’t say hookers?) The problem with special clubs is that if you ever decide to fix the swing, the clubs no longer work for you. It’s best if you can to get the swing down first and then get the clubs to match.

Golfers have asked why I have so much movement. It was a deviation that allowed me to play with my back as bad as it has been for the last twenty years, Now that the back is better, it’s time to get back to the golf swing I am teaching. The good news is that I hit the ball even better with the “real” golf swing. The bad news is that in the last three months, I’ve played only 6 rounds with that new golf swing and have had only two weeks of intermittent practice to make that swing my own… Which means, I can lose that swing at any time, and I do. How do I get it back? The same way I teach my students to do it.

First, I want to emphasize that the tenets I teach apply to me and every golfer I teach. When I play golf or hit golf balls, I play through my feet, which means I play by feel. If something doesn’t feel right, I could be lost, and I have been from time to time, because the immediate frustration interrupts my ability to think and recover. If I’m playing with a student, my mind is on their game, so my game is usually my B or even sometimes my C game. It’s tough being a teacher playing a C game, but there are usually extenuating circumstances. Plus, I stay busy so I don’t get to play or practice much, and it is a new swing.

So first, I do practice at home, at night, with a weighted golf club, using super-slow golf swings, and I emphasize getting the right feel in my feet and hands (just like I teach my students to do). That alone usually gets me around the golf course reasonably, but now and then, I lose what little grip I have on my new swing and I have to get it back.

Recently, I had a month from Hell. I had golfers getting ready for tournaments, one son graduating from High School and getting ready for Marine Corps Boot Camp, two major remodel projects in my house (Do it yourself projects), my mother in Pennsylvania in the hospital for emergency surgery, and relatives (my wife comes from a family of 9 who like to stay up and party) staying at my house to celebrate my son’s graduation. Oh, and I had David  from Spain in town for lessons. David only knew a small part of what was really happening behind the scene.

David and I played two days while he was here. He wanted to see great play. I wanted to get him something he could take away that would allow him continued his improvement. With all that was going on, my concentration on my game was not there. I was doing my best to keep an eye on him and hold together a C game. It was almost embarrassing. I never was able to get my swing working the way It should, and deep down I was frustrated… So if you’ve felt that way, I know how you feel, believe me.

About a week and a half later, the relatives went home, my mother was ok, both projects were almost finished and my son had left for Boot Camp… in other words, the smoke cleared and I could once again see where I was. I had a minute (literally, one minute) to reflect on what happened on the golf course for those two rounds and it hit me. I had neglected the one drill I used to groove the new golf swing. If I had not been so distracted and remembered that drill, I could have been playing much better… So I decided to give it the acid test.

Instead of practicing (even at home), I decide to go out to the golf course cold… armed only with the golf drill that I used to groove my new swing. Believe me, I wasn’t armed with a swing as the first tee shot showed, but the object was to go from a lost swing to a found swing (a relatively new and little-practiced golf swing) while playing on the golf course. Yes, I practice exactly what I preach.

The results? I was in the woods on #1 and recovered for bogey, birdied number two with a tee shot to a foot and finished the round in four over par. Not bad for no practice and no swing starting out. On a few swings, I used my swing drill to actually hit the shot. My playing partners thought I was nuts… until they saw the shots.

What was the drill? It’s killing you to know isn’t it? Patience is a virtue… especially in golf. The drill I used was very simple, yet very effective. I take my normal stance and before I make any move toward a backswing, I turn only my wrists until the club is parallel to the ground and the handle is pointing towards the target. From that position I swing, keeping my club on a balanced swing plane and feeling the swing in my feet. But the trick to making this drill work is the real secret.

It’s the secret to making any golf drill work. You see, every drill is designed to force your body to do something correctly. Every time I use the drill, I try to be very aware of what part of my swing the drill forces into a correct movement. I want to feel exactly what it feels like and then look for that feel in my normal golf swing. When I can transfer the feel to my normal golf swing, the drill has done its job.

I want to emphasize, it’s not the drill, because every pro has a different drill that gets them back, but rather what you do with the drill in your mind that makes the drill work. The key is your awareness of feel.

If you’ve ever hit a few hundred golf balls and gotten nowhere with your golf swing, think about what was happening in your mind. More than likely, you were thinking and trying something a little different every few shots. I’ve done it too. If you’re going to practice, find a drill that gets you to swing properly, practice the drill and use your awareness of feel to transfer the drill’s proper movement to your golf swing.

I don’t practice hitting golf balls… I practice FEELING hitting golf balls. It makes all of the difference between frustration and improvement.

Give it a try and let me know how it works out.