I guess if you play golf you have the idea how to hit a ball with a club and hit it. I do not take that statement lightly. It is not an intuitive act, and you have to learn to do it. Turning that into a golf swing is the next step.
Everyone has a different golf swing. That’s because everyone has a different body structure, a different strength, a different flexibility, a different personal history of movement. You can go to the salon and get your hair done like your favorite movie star, but you can’t go to the shooting range and have the professional swing you like your favorite golfer. There is a swing based on who you are, and if you find it, you will play good golf.
Get a hand towel. Roll it into a ball and hold it in front of you with both hands. Stand as if you were about to hit a golf ball. Calm your mind and let go of any thoughts about hitting golf balls. Reach your arms back and “swing,” letting go of the towel as you pass the bottom of your swing, as if you were throwing the towel to a friend a few feet away from you. In effect, he throws in the towel with a golf swing.
It will help to turn your head and look where you are going to throw the towel as you release it. By throwing in the towel, you’re figuring out how your body wants to move when you make the turning and steering motion that is the golf swing. After a while, you should get used to a movement that feels natural and effortless, and your own. It won’t have anything to do with golf either, and that’s a good thing.
At that point, pull out an 8-iron and start over. Calm your mind and let go of any thoughts about hitting golf balls. Now swing the 8 iron the same way you threw in the towel. Just don’t throw the 8-iron, unless you’re (a) outside, (b) won’t hit anything that shouldn’t be hit, and (c) don’t mind walking behind it every time.
IMPORTANT! Move it the same way you threw in the towel. DON’T think that since you now have a golf club in your hand, you have to go back to your idea of what a GOLF SWING is supposed to be. That’s what this exercise is trying to get you out of.
Just swing the stick, no ball, like you’ve thrown in the towel. For fun. Because he feels good. For whatever reason you can think of other than to hit a golf ball. Just swing the stick.
The next step is to hit a golf ball with this swing. This will be quite easy to do, much easier than it has been to make your practice swing your actual swing. That’s because in the old days, when your mind shifted from your practice swing to your actual swing, you’d start thinking about a lot of technical stuff that didn’t and never would fit the way you moved.
Therefore, you did not have a subconscious confidence in what you had learned. And the reason you didn’t trust what you learned was that it was someone else’s idea of what you learned. they needed to do had nothing to do with what your I need to do. Nothing at all.
With this new towel toss swing, since it comes naturally to you, you can be confident in what you’re doing no matter if there’s a ball in there or not. That’s the key to playing golf well: trust what you’re about to do, have confidence in it.
Now this won’t take an afternoon’s work and is ready for life. It takes a lot of repetition to replace an old habit with a new one. But if you make a swing change this year, make it this one. Just work at it and you’ll get the results you’ve been looking for all along.