Are you on a quest to hit the golf ball better than ever? As far as I’m concerned – there’s nothing wrong with having the passion, desire and drive to make golf more enjoyable. Because not hitting the golf ball well on the golf course is as pleasurable as being seasick on a boat 100 miles out in the ocean with no land in sight.
Although some may try to lighten their frustrating moments on the golf course by saying: “A bad day on the golf course is better than a good day at work” … I often wonder what a guy on the maintenance crew cutting the fairway is thinking after they hear a Golfer say this. Think about it.
The question for the Golfer wanting to become a little more consistent should be: ‘What do you need to work on in your golf swing to be able to get closer to consistency?’ Or in-other-words … what part of your golf swing needs the most work?
Is it your grip? Is it your set-up? Is it your back swing? Your weight shift? Your hip turn? Shoulder turn? Do you need to create lag? How’s Impact? Follow-through?
What is it?
Your answer to becoming a more complete, consistent Golfer should never start with “I have all these things I need to work on. I’m going to need to change everything about my golf swing.”
The only solution you should consider starts with finding the one issue in your golf swing that’s causing you to become inconsistent. Because we have found Golfers who feel or have been told they have multiple swing faults – often just have one Primary Swing Fault that leads them to create Multiple Swing Compensations.
Yet, if diagnosed correctly by a superior Golf Instructor – all those Multiple Swing Compensations you have been told you have – will be eliminated if the Primary Swing Fault is diagnosed and corrected. Meaning – there is one ’cause’ that is creating many different ‘effects’.
For example: coming over the top on your forward swing towards the golf ball is usually not a Primary Swing Fault. It’s a Swing Compensation that will never be corrected until you find the Swing Fault that’s causing this to repeatedly happen.
Here’s an analogy: the shower on the 2nd floor of your home has a small leak so that water dripped under the shower into the floor. The longer that leak is left unfixed – the more the water will accumulate – which would mean that every shower you took … a greater amount of water would leak into the floor.
Eventually, the ceiling of the room directly below the shower would start dripping. And as that ceiling starts to saturate, the water would start to drip into another room. If left untreated a little longer, it would drip into another room. Then perhaps into another, etc., etc., etc.
What’s the first thing you need to fix?
Unfortunately, many Golfers and Instructors, would first fix the ceiling in each room to see if that helps stop the dripping. While the smart thing would be to first find the leak in the shower (the Primary Swing Fault). Because when that Primary problem is fixed … it’s amazing how the other leaks (over the top swing, slices, hooks, hitting behind the golf ball) would magically go away. Yes, you might have to do some minor ceiling work – yet it’s a lot easier to do once the primary leak is fixed.
It’s truly the same with your golf swing.
Find the Primary Swing Fault, fix it, and then the Multiple Swing Compensations will slowly dry-up and disappear. However, from what we see with many Golfers that come to our program – these Golfers have been trying to fix all the leaks in the ceiling instead of the Primary leak. And they’ve been repairing and painting year after year after year – and would still be repairing and painting the ceiling if we hadn’t helped them understand their Primary Swing Fault.
What’s ‘causing’ you to have a bad back swing? Or a bad weight shift? Or a bad hip turn? Or bad shoulder turn? Or bad whatever?
That should be the question rather than just trying to fix the bad weight shift with yet another golf tip you read in a magazine or another half hour golf lesson that’s focused on a quick tip such as – “I see your problem, you have water leaking from the ceiling”. Because regardless of how many times you replace that ceiling – if there’s a hole in the tile – that drip is going to keep coming back. Just like that ‘over the top move’ that you can’t get rid of or that ‘slice’ that’s always there or that ‘chunked wedge next to the green’ that comes back a few times each round.
The Monkey works on fixing the effects that he/she hears others working on.
The Player knows that if they can find their Primary Swing Fault – that all of the other swing compensations will start to go away and consistency will be around the corner.
Go ahead … Be A Player!
Regards,
Marc Solomon – Your Instructor For Life