After you have read all of the theory and understand why a golf ball does what it does, that's great, and you need to know that stuff, but the author of this book brings out that virtually all practice sessions and rounds played are approached from the perspective that something needs to be fixed. This leads golfers to a life of endless tinkering. He points out that what really bothers us when we make a bad shot is the fear that we will do it again. There's a beautiful golf swing within you. It's natural for YOU, and it CAN be brought out rather easily!
This book is mostly about the psychology of why you play the game and what you want to get out of it, but it does give a practical drill that has made all the difference for me - the club throwing drill. Shoemaker, who runs a golf school, gives examples, with pictures, of some of his students who had terrible swings made at balls. He then has them throw a club at the target - no ball, no preconceived notions about how to set up, take the club back, etc. Just throw the club at the target as you naturally would. He then shows these two different swings to his students and recounts how they were blown away (and you will be, too) in the difference between the two swings! We all (99 out of 100 anyway) could throw a club toward a target naturally and quite accurately. Take a practice swing imagining throwing the club at the target in the most efficient way, step to your ball and make the same swing. Just don't let go of the club. You'll be amazed!
The author also suggests that the next time you go to the practice range, hit a whole bucket of balls while JUST OBSERVING - NOT FIXING - what happens. I did this today, and found within about ten swings that I naturally was peppering a flag at 120 yds within five yds. virtually every shot! It seems too simple and anathema to the over-analytical golf mind that you could approach shooting a golf ball at a target as easily as you would throw a ball (or a club) toward it, but it works! You stop coming over the top, you stop leading with your arms, you NATURALLY maintain your hands ahead of the ball coming through the impact zone, which allows a fact of physics, Conservation of Angular Momentum, to happen without you messing it up.
Among the psychological gems of this book are the following:
What you sense as fear when playing doesn't have to be interpreted as fear by you. The sensations are just sensations. You're the one that labels the sum of those sensations as fear. Interpret them as heightened awareness - a good thing!
If you shot a horrible score, your friends might remember it for a week or two, but then they don't care or even remember anymore. If you shot a great score, they might take notice for a week or two, but they would forget that quickly also. So, as the author says, the worst thing that could happen on a golf course isn't that bad, and the best thing isn't that great! Put it in perspective.
The club-throwing drill (one of very few physical tips or drills in the book) is THE most valuable find I've come across in volumes and hours of instruction on how to swing a golf club! When you realize that honing your ability to do something you already know how to do pretty well is relatively easy to do, you start to realize that the real game of golf, the stuff the pros are really good at that amateurs are terrible at, is the head game! This book is amazing. Get it!
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Top reviews from other countries
fertil
Am besten am Anfang jeder Golfsaison erneut lesen
Reviewed in Germany on May 24, 2020James Wiseman
Fantastic & unconventional
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 22, 2012speedy
Dieses Buch hat mein Golfspiel verändert!
Reviewed in Germany on October 5, 2018