This is something that I think we often take for granted with our golf swings.
Think about how on one hand, the golf swing seems so simple. Just pick up a club and hit a ball with it. Easy. It truly is that simple.
On the other hand, if you want to optimize the power and control of that swing so that you can maximize your distance and fly the ball at the desired height, at the desired spin rate, and with as much or as little curve as desired, now we’re talking about an extremely complex machine.
So, how do problems and symptoms relate to that? I thought you’d never ask. Actually, I thought you would, but that’s just a figure of speech. Technically, it was me asking, though. Having fun yet?
Not only is the golf swing a complex machine, but it happens in a well-defined sequence. What that means is, we could also call the machine, a “chain of events”, where a mistake early on can easily carry all the way through the entire swing.
How many times have you heard the importance of a proper finish in the golf swing? Certainly, the point of that is not so that you can look good, though, I wonder with some people. What that means is, it’s important to get to a proper finish because it probably means we’ve done things right along the way.
At the same time, if we’ve mangled up the whole swing, but have a great finish (which we probably wouldn’t, but let’s pretend), then what have we achieved?
That’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about as a symptom and not the problem. Concentrating on fixing that symptom might not address the real problem.
Don’t get me wrong – that’s just an example and working on a better finish may very well help you fix the actual problem. But the finish happens well after the ball is in the air, relatively speaking. So, the odds are that something went wrong earlier that led to a poor finish.
If you have an infection, you could take some aspirin to help your aches fell better and maybe your fever will go down some. You might take some decongestant to help with the sniffles. But you still haven’t addressed the infection itself.
That’s at the heart of what I’m talking about. You need to make sure your swing is getting antibiotics, or your problems will just linger.
Back to the idea of the swing as a machine, or as a chain of events. If you’ve read Life in the Rough regularly, you know that the takeaway is something I’ve had to work a lot on over the last couple of years. In fact, I find that even when I have it fixed, I need to keep an eye on it periodically because for reasons I can’t explain, over time, I will tend to start to take the club back slightly to the outside of the target line instead of in a nice arc slightly to the inside.
From there, several things can happen, but for example, it might set this possible chain of events into motion: I re-route the club too far inside, it gets too vertical over the plane, it’s too steep coming down, I come over the top, and I pull the ball left.
That chain of events is set into motion by the simple fact that I start the club back to the outside the line. Put another way, all those things are really symptoms, not the actual problem.
That’s hard to grasp because we’re kind of wrestling over semantics. Sure, coming down too steep is a problem. But it’s not the problem.
Until I realized this, I caused myself a lot of anguish and wasted time.
I like to look at my swing on video occasionally. Last year some time, I recorded some swings and I looked at the video. Lo and behold, what was I doing but getting too steep in my down swing. It was easy for even me to see. A few instructional books and some episodes of The Golf Fix and even I’m qualified to diagnose that problem, er, I mean,symptom.
Or, am I?
I set out to fix that steepness by resolving to make my back swing flatter. I’ll spare you the gory details. The point is, I couldn’t do it. After a few weeks, I was a wreck.
The reason I couldn’t do it was because I didn’t know enough to set out to fix the problem. I didn’t really understand why the club was getting steep. It’s not like I was purposely hoisting it straight up in the air.
One lesson and my pro pointed out that my takeaway was a problem. I worked hard on that and wouldn’t you know, I was cured of that affliction.
Even after that, the idea of fixing problems and not symptoms didn’t really stick. It was very recently that it actually sunk in. My most notable problems of late have been not getting a full shoulder turn and getting away from my natural tempo to start the down swing. I have a tendency to try and hit the ball hard, but if I’m not careful, I get ahead of myself and get out of sequence, which causes several other issues, most notably with me coming over the top and pulling the ball left (most of us that do that will slice the ball, but I happen to pull it left and hook it, usually).
As I fell apart again and went in for a lesson and we worked on the same issue of tempo yet again (it’s been a common theme for the last 3 years), it finally started to hit me.
When I fix the actual problems, then the rest just works itself out. I started to hit the ball like you wouldn’t believe.
I’m not trying to say my work is done, but it’s a start. I have to work on making that good tempo more ingrained, along with that solid takeaway and along with that full shoulder turn. It’s not there yet when I’m on the course under pressure, but it’s there on the range. Some sessions are better than others, but I’m getting there.
My point is not to try and boil down everyone’s golf swing into those three things. Certainly, they’re important for everyone. But that doesn’t mean that any of those things is your problem.
At the same time, I know a lot of you are like me and like to tinker and look at swings on video and read instructional books and learn how the golf swing works. That’s all great and believe me, I’m here to walk that path with you all.
Unfortunately, many of us, me especially, have been given just enough rope to hang ourselves. Ultimately, the best thing I’ve done is work with a teacher that is adept at recognizing the problems and not just the symptoms. And even though he was telling me as much, it didn’t really sink in completely until I had a lot of time to think about it and agonize over my swing issues and to try and fail at various things.
Incidentally, a few weeks ago, I was in one of my lowest low points when all this hit me. I scheduled a lesson and was waiting for the day to arrive when I kind of woke up to all this. I went to the range on my own and resolved to fix the problems and not the symptoms and I did it.
I fixed it on my own. By the time I showed up at my lesson, I was hitting the ball as well as ever. On the practice range, anyway.
Please don’t take this as a warning not to learn and tinker and try to dissect the swing on your own. While I do recommend working with a professional, it’s not that any of us cannot improve on our own. What I will say is, make sure you’re fixing problems and not just symptoms or you might find yourself spending a lot of time on a fruitless endeavor, or even worse, you might even compound the problem, just like I did.
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I like how you addressed your symptom so effectively. I cannot figure out some of my own problems. Video taping your swing is an excellent idea, I might try that. I seem to have problems raising my head and taking my eye off the ball when I am on my downswing. Anyways I sympathize with you…I struggle and get frustrated at times.
I had an almost similar experiece last weekend. I had been reading loads of books and watching swings, thinking I had theoretically figured out how to swing the club. I ended up having 100 swing thoughts and it just didn’t work. So I booked a lesson and was told to stop trying to control the club and “Let go”. What happend then? Beautiful shots with length I have never shot before.. So I am left with one swing thought -> Let it rip. My only concern now is.. if I am letting go of control.. how do I know if my swing is ok and how do I improve anything, If it all happens so fast? Any tips?
The thing is, Michael, you’re not really letting go of control, you’re letting go of *conscious* control. After a while, with enough practice and play, you won’t have to consciously think about things you would like to do with your swing.
Obviously though, that doesn’t help you while you’re trying to develop changes in your swing. What I have kind of been trying to do there is to limit myself to working on one thing at a time when I practice. Sometimes that’s difficult, but I’ve found that having a bunch of thoughts during a single swing when I practice pretty much ensures that I accomplish nothing.
Lately, I’ve been working on two things, so when I’m at the driving range, I’ll hit one shot working on a full shoulder turn and one shot working on tempo. For those two, I don’t care about anything other than the success of whichever thing I was doing on that swing. Then, I’ll hit a third shot without thinking about those things (as if I was hitting a shot on the course with my mind free of technical thoughts).
The key is to find something you want to work on and then to concentrate on that thing. Whether it’s a specific drill or video analysis or whatever. Just work on that one thing until you feel like you have it. Then move on to something else.
To kind of tie that in with the subject of this post, you also will want to make sure you’re fixing the problems and not the symptoms. Your pro clearly has a keen eye for that idea because I’m certain he could have picked a handful of technical things that looked wrong about your swing, but he went right to the cause: mental clutter and over-analysis.
The best thing you can do is to continue working with your pro occasionally. As you play, identify the weaknesses in your game and then resolve to work on those specific things. Once you let go, you started to hit beautiful, long shots. If you looked at those swings on video, maybe you could find something out of place, but if you’re hitting beautiful shots, then does it matter so much?
One of the things my pro wants me to do is to stop spending so much time on the range fine-tuning my swing. He wants me to spend more time on the course learning how to score. What I do out there will tell me what I need to work out on the range, but trying to make my swing look like something out of a text book is probably not going to help me much.
Good post. A few weeks ago my father in law (ex club pro!) got me to change from a 2 knuckle to a 3 knuckle grip. Excellent – it worked and suddenly the ball no longer slices. I just needed to also control the rhythm of the swing and my shots have gone from all over the place to highly grouped.
You have a very informative site. So many times – golf instruction is given in terms that many people cannot understand – terms that low handicappers know (and sometimes understand) but, the majority of instruction uses terms that the lay person finds confusing. I always enjoyed Wally Armstrong because he used “picture” images – very visual and something most people could understand.
Good advice from the pro… I think problems are when you just can’t avoid hitting the ball a certain way… although I keep hitting that darn straight ball when I expect it to fade.