Desirable Results, Undesirable Results

Every golfer who has ever played our wonderful game has hit their share of both good and bad shots. It is the nature of the game. We hit one long and straight and the next one short and crooked. And it feels like we did both with the exact same swing! The problem is the golf ball behaves entirely differently! Again, just part of the maddening nature of our game.

When we hit a good shot, we watch it from end to end with great delight. And rightfully so, that is what we are trying to achieve; those few seconds are to be thoroughly enjoyed! But when we hit a poor shot, one that did not come off as planned, we often look away in disgust and mumble a few self-hating words. Big mistake! I repeat, BIG MISTAKE! When we do so we are missing the most teachable seconds in the game. Poor outcomes are the ones from which we learn - they teach (or can teach) us the nature of the swing that caused them. Just as in life, we learn from our failures, not from our successes. You heard that touching a hot stove is not advisable. Golf is so much like life in very many ways!

Instead of spending the few seconds after a poor shot in self-loathing, we should watch it, observe the nature of it and perhaps think, “What did I just do?” What might have caused that shot? Poor shots, while they may seem infinite, boil down to only a few. To wit:

1. Topping (hitting thin)

2. Chunking (hitting fat)

3. Slicing

4. Hooking

5. Pulling

6. Pushing

7. Toe hits or heel hits (shanking)

That’s it! Every poor shot that’s ever been hit comes down to one of the above! However, the personal nature of the game dictates that we all hit those shots for a different reason; one golfer’s slice might be hit for a totally different reason than another golfer, but (and here is the maddening part) ALL slices are hit for the same reason - the clubface is open relative to the path. Let’s say Golfer A slices because the face is open relative to an outside-in swing path. Golfer B slices because he/she swings from too far inside-out with a clubface open to THAT path! 

So, what can we learn from our misses? Well first, we need knowledge of our own swing. If any of you observed a day on the lesson-tee with me, if I worked with five golfers, it’s not unlikely I would give five different lessons! How can an inside-out flip hooker get the same instruction as an outside-in slicer? And besides, if I had to teach everyone the same thing all day long, I would not have lasted a month at my work (let alone 40 years)! No, the reward of my job is solving a new puzzle every hour.

The point is our worst shots are our best teachers! Pay close attention to every one of them, analyze them, think about what you have learned from your teacher and work from there. For, from there, is the first step in making a more repeatable, consistent swing.