‘How To Fix The Cause Of Golf Swing Problems?’
All I want for Christmas is a …. Golf swing. Imagine if it was as easy as sending a letter to the North Pole.
“Santa, all I want is a consistent golf game. I’ve been a good ___ (girl or boy, you fill in the blank). I’ve been nice to the ones around me. And yes, I have been practicing hard for the last few years to improve my golf swing. Yet, like most people – I don’t improve as much as I should, regardless of what I do. Please, please, please put a brand new, shiny golf swing under the tree for me this year!
Regards, Ades Perate Golfer”
Will an improved golf swing just appear out of nowhere? Probably not. A consistent golf swing needs to be earned. Yet I’m sure there are many Golfers that feel they deserve a better golf swing just because they have spent hours upon hours on golf lessons and hitting golf balls at the driving range.
Unfortunately for these Golfers – an improved golf swing isn’t only about the number of hours you have put into golf instruction or hitting golf balls. An improved golf swing comes more from the knowledge of understanding how “Cause and Effect” affects your golf swing.
Most Golfers are improperly taught to work on the “Effect” in their golf swing. Meaning: If you’re told that your golf swing comes over the top (or that you have an outside to in golf swing), most Golfers are taught that they need to swing more from the inside, or that they need to swing more inside to out. Often times they are improperly told that the way to do that is to try to drop the golf club down into the slot on their downswing.
However, that doesn’t produce positive results for many Golfers right away. Most Golfers struggle with this because the above instructions don’t fix the Cause of the over the top movement. The only thing that those instructions do is work on the Effect.
And in fact, many Golfers don’t produce positive golf shots even after hours upon hours of practice. Why? Because you can’t improve your golf swing if you’re working on trying to fix the Effect. You first need to find and fix the Cause.
So what is the Cause of the over the top swing mentioned above?
Well, it can be many things. For example: Is it something at set-up (weight distribution, ball placement, posture)? Is it something at the start of your backswing (too much hands, too much body, right-side of body doing too much, left-side of body doing too much, right-side not doing enough, left-side not doing enough, bad synchronization of body and arms)?
Now a lot of people might say – “Well maybe that Golfer is taking the club too far outside on the backswing. They probably need to take the golf club more inside on the way back.”
Yet, that would still be trying to fix an Effect. The question needs to be – ‘Why is that person taking the club too far outside?
What’s Causing them to take the club back in that direction?’
It’s very easy for most Golf Instructors to see a Golfer taking the club back to the outside or the golf club coming over the top or not enough hip movement or not shifting weight correctly. However, truly exceptional Instructors (like my Instructors at GMS) are able to rise above that 3rd Grade level of teaching to know and understand the difference between Cause and Effect. A truly exceptional Golf Instructor should know why that Golfer is making those bad movements – and they should know how to correct them.
As opposed to a lower level Golf Instructor that would teach their Golfers by saying – “I see your problem. You’re taking the club too far outside. You need to take it more inside on the way back.”
An exceptional Golf Instructor will find the Cause by doing different tests with the Golfer. We want to find what’s Causing the golf club to go outside. That way we’ll be able to help you eliminate the problem. As opposed to most golf instruction that just teaches you take the golf club more inside. Yet that’s not fixing the Cause – so regardless of how much you practice what you’re told – you’re going to continually get the same negative Effect.
So for example: say that we find that the Cause of the over the top (outside to in swing) was being Caused by your left-side not doing enough in your golf swing (on the way back and/or the way forward). Our next step is to find – why isn’t your left-side doing enough.
Is your left-side as coordinated as your right-side, is your left-side weaker than your right-side, does your right-side do too much that it doesn’t allow your left-side to do what it’s supposed to do, is your left-side too slow, etc.
Once we can answer that – then we work with you to improve the movements of the left-side of your body in your golf swing. That’s
fixing the Cause! Once that person starts to learn how their left-side should work – it’s amazing how fast that over the top move disappears! And because of that – our Golfers will see consistent improvement from their very first swing. That doesn’t mean their first golf swing will now go 300 yards. It means that each golf swing they take – they’ll see a little more improvement in their ballstriking.
However, the many Golfers that are taught to devote the next months to dropping their club into the slot or taking their club more inside on the way back so that they can swing more from the inside … will continue to struggle. Because regardless of how much they try to fix this … they’re more likely to find a brand new, shiny golf swing under a tree than they are to fix their over the top golf swing using the “Fix the Effect” method that 99% of all golf instruction is based on.
GMS works with you to find the Cause of your swing problems, correct those problems and to understand why those problems happened in the first place. That’s why our Golfers are improving. And most others are not.
The Monkey is constantly tinkering with their golf swing by jumping from Effect to Effect
The Player is smarter than that and searches out to find the Cause
Go Ahead, Be A Player!
Regards,
Marc Solomon -Your Instructor For Life
