For a man like Ben Hogan, knowing what he is doing when he swings a golf club may well involve consciousness of the workings of a dozen different parts of the body, all welded together in a composite “feel”. For Sam Snead it might be largely an instinctive, natural “feel”. For the majority of golfers, the right way is somewhere between these two extremes. And the easiest manner in which they can focus their knowledge and swing ability is by the use of key thoughts, or gimmicks.
Before any important round you must always hit a few balls in order to loosen your muscles, and to decide upon your “swing thought” for the day. Every good player follows this policy. (Joe Carr, the great Irish amateur, even used to write things like “Turn, you fool!” on his golf glove, where he could see it at address.) No matter how much in practice you may be or how “grooved” your action, the “feel”, timing and “shape” of your swing will alter fractionally from day to day — even from round to round. It is vital, therefore, having discovered with a few preliminary shots or swings how your action is working, to decide upon a thought, a gimmick, that will keep it ticking over nicely.
The gimmick itself can take many different forms, depending on your ability and how you are playing at the time. It might be simply to ensure that your set-up — aim and stance — is right; a basic thought, as is the way the hands are gripping the club. It might be keeping your head still. It might be a push away of the club with the left side, or a slight drag back with the hands. You might think of not starting down to the ball until your left shoulder has gone under your chin — a “complete-the-backswing” thought. You might concentrate on starting the downswing by unwinding your hips. The possibilities are endless.
Every player of accomplishment has a personal set of swing thoughts or gimmicks, which he will have discovered and proven effective in practice. If he is a thoughtful golfer, he will have indexed them in his mind in terms of cause and effect — “If I do this, that happens, and if I do that, this happens.” In most cases the modifications will be very small — fine tuning. But such thoughts are vital to keeping a golf game in balance. The great thing is to find gimmicks that enable you to think quite clearly of what you are trying to do.
To derive maximum benefit from such gimmicks a clear understanding is necessary of what kinds of actions produce what kinds of shots, which is why the ambitious player must thoroughly understand the “ballistics” of the game — the flight characteristics of the ball when struck in a particular way.
A very useful thought for the good player is to remember how he finishes the swing when he’s playing well, and to determine to finish that way on every full shot. Often this stops the common tendency — especially under pressure — to hit at the golf ball, rather than swinging the club through the ball.
There are scores of gimmicks of this kind. They all help you to “know what you are trying to do.”
Related posts: