Decoding the Golf Swing for Better Performance

Imagine if your bad golf shots could actually make you a better player? This episode is all about shifting your perspective, transforming every game into a learning opportunity. Drawing inspiration from Michael Jordan's developmental approach, we explain why every missed shot or opportunity isn't a failure, but a stepping stone towards greatness. 

We invite you to join us in a thought-provoking exercise. Share your understanding of the golf swing with a coach or trusted mentor. This isn't just about revealing your current grasp of the game, but about creating a space for collaborative development. We'll explore how organizing your movements and a clear intention of what you want the golf ball to do are the keys to playing better. Tune in and let us help you debunk misconceptions while providing insights on adopting a developmental approach to your golf game.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

One of the concepts that I think is a really useful direction to send your brain with regarding to your golf is the idea of developing your game. See it that there's nothing to fix. It's not that things are wrong or things are broken. You're aiming to develop your game. Another approach sees everything as being a learning experience rather than a negative experience. Bad shots are only labels that we give to unintended outcomes, and yet unintended outcomes are actually. You did everything right to hook the ball. You did everything perfect to slice the ball into the trees. It may have been unintended, but everything was there to produce that shot and in many ways, those shots can be your greatest teacher if you tune into them.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Michael Jordan said that he was the greatest basketball player, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, because he missed more than anybody else. There's a great quote that he talked about how many games he'd missed the game winning shot. He'd missed the free throws, he'd missed the opportunities, but he kept getting up and having another go, and that's why he ended up such a great, great player, because he didn't see outcomes in a negative way. It was a developmental approach, one of the things, one of the exercises that I would suggest that you look at with your coach is the idea of what I call sharing your concept. This is completely counterintuitive, but it's so valuable. Have a word with your golf coach, your trusted mentor, and say to them that you want to share with them your concept of what the golf swing should be like. You'll find this an incredibly useful exercise that you sit down with some of you who knows the game and let's say that you have an intention to develop a draw, develop a fade, whatever it is that you want, but let's stay with draw. You have an intention to develop a draw in your game. Sit down with your coach and say to them I want to share with you what my current concept is of how I should go about doing this and in doing so, when you completely reveal what your current concept is of how to draw, your coach can really really assist you.

Speaker 1: 2:33

Now that concept that you share with him or her may be absolutely perfect. You may have a very, very good concept of what needs to happen, the mechanics, the physics, the movements that are required for you to produce a draw shot. On the other hand, your concepts may be slightly flawed. There may be misinformation in there there may be a wrong direction of attention, but by sharing what your current concept is of how you want to swing the golf club or how you're trying to swing the golf club, the light of awareness gets shone on where you currently at. Because think of it this way the golf swing that you currently possess, the movements that you make, are purely and simply as a result of the concepts that you hold inside of your head of how to move that golf club, the construct of what you're trying to do. So to do this it's completely counterintuitive where, in effect, you're giving your pro, your coach, a lesson, but it will reveal your current model inside of your head and there can be a tremendous collaboration then between the two of you.

Speaker 1: 3:44

We've said before about the idea of developing shots, not so much swings, having a very, very clear picture, a very clear intention of what you want the golf ball to do, but of course, the club and you need to organize movement in a certain way to make that happen. So take a leap of faith with this. See it very much as a developmental approach to your game as opposed to a fixing mentality. And we go into a fixing mentality, we never really get done. We never really get finished. There's always the next thing to fix, there's always the next thing that doesn't look right or feel right.

Speaker 1: 4:19

However, a developmental approach is much more liberating and it's much more focused around shots rather than swings. So share your current concept. See if that concept is robust, see if it stands up to actually what needs to happen, because there's certain laws of physics and geometry that are required to hit a draw shot, to hit any shot, and clearly, if you have that concept in mind, you give yourself the best possible chance. But if you don't, that single misapplied or misconstrued concept can be costing you a deal. It can be costing you the developmental gains that can be made in your game. So share the concept. See if the concept holds up and then gets to work on developing more of your game.