by John Furgurson
If you’ve played this crazy game for any length of time you’ve surely experienced a humpty-dumpty moment. It’s when you’re out on the course and all the pieces of your swing just seem to fall apart.
Your shoulders are doing one thing, your arms another. The southern hemisphere — hips, legs, feet — are racing ahead, counteracting the positive gravitational forces of the Northern hemisphere. And to top it all off, your hands are more active than a hyped-up kindergartener.
The results can be quite painful.
So what do you do when all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put it back together again?
The natural tendency is to start analyzing the problem. You tap into that vast databank of tips in your head and try to recall a swing thought that’ll help sync everything up. Forget About It! Sometimes that works for a hole or two, but it’s seldom sustainable. And often it just introduces yet another variable — another detail in an already cluttered mind.
Instead, try this: Take a practice swing and hold your finish. Zero in on a very specific, memorable target and just stand there, staring at it until it’s burned into your head like a bad tat. Shift ALL your focus away from the mechanics of the swing, and onto that target. Then do whatever it takes to get the ball out there. After all, a good swing is not the object of the game.
If you can maintain that razor-sharp focus on the target for more than just a few holes, you’ll be amazed at how well you can score even when your swing feels completely disjointed. When you start slipping back into that analysis mode, which you will, hold your finish again and refocus on the target.
If you need a swing thought in your head, keep it squarely focused on the target as well. Dumb it down to something like “go there ball.” It’s a powerful departure from how most of us think on the golf course, and a good way to get yourself back in the game.
So even when your swing is off, the story can have a happy ending. Relatively speaking.
