This is a personal story from 2012 which I wrote about immediately after the experience, and kept it because the experience made such an impression on me. Hopefully, the prevailing mindset of golf teaching professionals, which this story reveals, has changed. But I know it still exists and is often even more prevalent because of the emphasis on golf swing mechanics promoted by the golf instruction industry.
So, here’s the story: Early on in my development and trials of the instinct-awakening golf exercises, a friend and I were on the practice range trialing a few of the exercises – one was hitting 9 irons with our right foot pulled back from the target line and on its toe. We were both puring every single shot while feeling and expressing the joy and excitement of swinging so freely from our instincts. We were alternating turns with each of us saying, “Can you believe this, how easy it is?!” as we continued to hit each ball purely.
Eventually, another fellow who was struggling to find any consistency hitting balls must have noticed our enthusiasm and asked what we were doing and what we were working on. (Do you recognize the effortful mindset of having to ‘work on something’?). We told him we were exploring and experimenting and we suggested that he try hitting a few balls with his right foot pulled back and on its toes to see if it worked for him. I can still ‘see’ his swing! It immediately changed from a long awkward backswing and dip at impact to a flowing compact swing, and he began to hit every ball solidly. We could see that he was now swinging from his natural instincts!
He became as ‘giddy’ as we were and as he saw his regular teaching instructor walk by he suggested that he take a look at this. Our friend seemed like a kid wanting to ‘show off’ to a parent what he just discovered. The pro came over and watched 2 shots – which were hit perfectly, which the pro did not seem to notice – and said to our friend, “Nice, but your club is out of position at the top” and proceeded to walk away.
This is not a story about the pro’s personality, we knew him to be a courteous and intelligent person. It’s about the mindset of the conventional teaching approach instilled in many golf instructors. The ‘kicker’ in the story is that our friend listened to the professional’s ‘expert’ advice and immediately went back to trying to get his club in the right position at the top of his swing and immediately went back to his awkward swing and inconsistency.
We watched as our friend lost any ‘giddiness’ and joy and continued to struggle in private working on his mechanics and trying to get his body to do it the right way. We both shrugged expressing a bit of sadness. It was like seeing a parent shut down an enthusiastic kid who has just discovered his or her own genius and instinctive ability, but being told how they should be doing it. Some examples that come to mind might be when a child wants to show a parent how they learned to walk, ride a bike, or catch and throw a ball on their own……and being told “let me show you how to do it the right way.” The child listens to the ‘expert’ (as our friend did) and stuffs their joy and enthusiasm, and squashes any inclination that they might have any unique creative or instinctive ability……and possibly shut down permanently!!!
The purpose of relaying this story on the Blog is not to judge the golf professional or our friend. But to critique the golf instruction industry by sharing a real-life experience of the difference between the ease and joy (and positive results) of swinging from one’s natural instincts versus the stifling effort (and poor results) of trying to control the mechanics of one’s golf swing – which seems to be the prevailing training methodology of the golf instruction industry.
As you know, my simple approach to learning and improving one’s golf game is to establish an effective grip and effective posture, and then just ………
Awaken Your Inner Golfer! Let it flow!!!
Keep it Simple Golf 