You only need to have one thing to play golf proficiently, and that is a proficient golf swing. Period. Nothing else. Forget mindset, course management, and everything else. If you don’t have a proficient swing, you will NEVER play golf at a decent level.
Here is the reason why. There are only two types of golfer in this world – proficient and competent—the difference between them- is a proficient swing. Yes, I know, I keep saying that word proficiently, but for a good reason.
The difference lies in what goes on in the golfer’s mind when they stand over the ball; this is where the swing capability counts the most.
If you are playing off 14 and higher, maybe even ten and higher, your first thought when you stand over the ball is usually (99%) negative. It’ll be trying to remember certain technical aspects of your mechanics that you need to get right to hit straight – or mostly straight.
Or it’ll be things like,” Please don’t let me: hook it out of bounds / slice it over the fence/ hit it in the water/duff it / top it / teeth it / hit it shorter than the ladies tee /miss it completely!”
As a medium to high single handicap player, you should have less of those thoughts and more of where you want to land the shot or how far and what shape..but even at this level, there are some occasional negative swing thoughts.
At the proficiency level (10 HI and below), they are standing over the ball and looking at how they will shape it, how far they want to hit it, and where to land it within 10 yards for the optimum next shot.
And why are these swing thoughts so different?
It’s because, at scratch level or better, THEY KNOW they will hit it to where they want it 90% of the time, but as your handicap increases, that confidence drops alarmingly fast.
If you are ten handicapped and higher and can be golfer’s honest with yourself, think about what you think and feel when you stand over a ball to swing. Be honest now.
Focus on your first thought as you step to address the ball or make the backswing. Is it positive or negative?
Those swing thoughts are negative because players at the 14 HI range and higher, especially over 20 and over 26, INHERENTLY KNOW that their swing is shit, and because they know this, they KNOW there is a high probability that this shot will be crap.
How do they know? Because most of the shots they hit are poor, with only the occasional good one- and after they have hit a good one – they can’t repeat it! They don’t know how they did it in the first place, and they can’t repeat the sequence to achieve that same result again.
When these players hit poor shots, they don’t know why, as there could be any number of things that went wrong from address to ball strike, and they wouldn’t even know where to start!
When proficient players stand over the ball, they are not even thinking about the swing mechanics because they have far greater confidence in their swing than higher handicap players do. And that confidence is born from consistent and precise swing mechanics.
The only thing that makes a golfer proficient is the quality of their swing mechanics. Period. Without that, you don’t have a golf game.
The swing is the core, the basic motion in the game of golf. If you cannot execute this action proficiently and consistently – you will never be good at golf. Period.
At its bare essence, this game is about using a club to hit a ball by swinging the relatively small clubhead at a relatively small ball. Hitting it in a particular direction and at a specific target comes after. There is no other way to play the game.
If you cannot get the golf ball in the air and straight most of the time, you will struggle to play this game, and the same goes for all the strokes in golf. These are only shorter versions of the full golf swing, but they all require proficiency to be effective.
Without a fundamental proficient swing across all the strokes, you will be a bogey golfer or worse for as long as you play.
If you are hitting the ball all over the place, slicing, hooking, or have other ball striking issues – these are ALL swing mechanics issues.
Every. Single. One.
Can’t achieve consistent distance in putting?
Can’t chip close?
Can’t pitch consistently?
Can’t find the green from the fairway with irons?
Can’t find the fairway off the tee?
EVERY SINGLE ONE IS A SWING MECHANICS ISSUE.
These are all ball-striking related, and ball striking is a direct consequence of making a golf swing and therefore swing mechanics.
And the quality of the ball striking is directly proportional to the swing quality. Take the great ball strikers of this game – Hogan, Jones, Norman, Nicklaus, Woods, to name a few – they all had proficient swings, and when they stood over the ball, they KNEW where it was going and how most of the time.
The great Ben Hogan knew this concept to be true, and he coined the saying, “The Ultimate judge of your swing is the shape and flight of the ball.”
Based on the shape and flight of your ball – how would you judge your swing?
