If you can throw a ball, you can hit a golf shot

by Tim O'Connor February 13, 2025February 13, 2025

When you throw a ball overhand, your elbow bends and leads your hand toward the target. But you’d never tell a baseball player to consciously do it. Yet, most golfers do. That is, they focus on moving body parts.

In coaching golf nerds in the mental game or on their golf swings, I find that almost all of them struggle because they hyper focus on technique.

As I argue in my book Getting Unstuck: 7 Transformational Practices for Golf Nerds, this spurs golfers to constantly search for new information that they hope will relieve their suffering, creating an ongoing cycle of hope and despair. And golf is supposed to be fun!

This newsletter discusses how this technical focus creates self-interference, and offers you suggestions on how to access your instinctual talent.

One of the many things that I admire about golf coach Fred Shoemaker is that he’s not afraid to piss off his golf professional peers.

At a workshop in Orlando, Fred related a story about the time he told a large room of PGA professionals in Texas that “no one knows how to swing a golf club.”

He said to us: “What do you think happened? You’re right. A shit show.”

During the workshop, Fred added: “Are we really so arrogant that we think we know what neuron jumps from the synapse that causes a muscle to contract and another to lengthen?”

As Fred discussed, trying to will our body parts to move in prescribed ways interferes with our natural abilities. A growing number of golf professionals, coaches and academics agree with Fred but the message is drowned out by a tsunami of tip-focused content on the internet.

So, I thought: Let’s engage with internet-based tech to hear what it says:

I asked Chat GPT: “Explain what happens in a person’s body when they swing a golf club that successfully strikes a golf ball to a target.”

I received a long answer that explained that a well-hit shot results from “a series of bio-mechanical and neurological processes that work together seamlessly.”

It added that the brain processes spatial information, the motor cortex sends signals through the spinal cord to activate muscles, the cerebellum “fine-tunes” movement, and more.

The rest of the AI text described a “proper” backswing and downswing, and “key factors” such as weight shift and hip and upper body rotation—the standard stuff that golf nerds focus on.

(Let’s pause for a second: Yes, you must have an awareness of your body, including posture, balance, alignment, ball position and the relationship of your clubface to the target, to name a few. A great coach will help you nail these fundamentals and support you in accessing your natural talent.)

But here’s the problem: as most golfers swing, they are thinking about things like “start swing with your shoulder,” “take the club straight back,” “transfer your weight,” “turn your hips,” and “follow-through,” and so on.

Swing thoughts are intellectual concepts. But golf is a physical game. A golfer will have a physical experience in striking a ball that he believes “works.” In an effort to repeat what works, he attempts to explain the experience in words.

As Shoemaker has said, we think that if we do X, we will get Y result. Not true. How many times have you gone to the first tee focused on a specific swing thought that “worked” yesterday only to find its magic has gone poof.

When you think, for example, about “turning your hip,” you’re trying to force what should be allowed.

However, if you swing a club with the intention of sending the ball to the target, your hips will naturally turn on their own.

In 1937, Ernest Jones wrote, “Body positions at successive stages of the stroke are the results of the action of swinging the clubhead and are not striven for consciously by the player.”

We cannot explain how this feeling of swinging the clubhead causes the body to successfully transfer energy from the club into the ball, but it happens.

When we hit a golf shot, the same brain wiring that worked for early humans is working in us. We wouldn’t be here if millions of years ago, we couldn’t throw a rock or a spear at something that we could eat. We’re very good at throwing things.

Next time you’re on a range or in a golf simulator, why not try this: start your session by throwing balls overhand to a target. Some people might think you’re weird, but you’re a golf nerd.

As you throw, notice how you instinctively load on your trail side (your back foot), your centre of gravity moves forward, and how your elbow instinctually moves toward the target before your hand ultimately releases the ball.

Then, you might experiment by making baseball style swings with your club while focusing on feeling the weight of the clubhead. Notice what you feel in your hands as you swing and how your body moves.

(When I ask golf students to do this, they are delighted to find that they finish their swings looking like tour pros—without trying to consciously move their bodies.)

After you’ve done this for a few minutes, see if you can replicate that feeling while hitting golf balls.

You might be surprised at how much more natural you feel, and how much easier it is to swing a golf club without thinking about it.

If you live in or close to Guelph, Ontario, I coach in winter at The Golf House. Send an email to tim@oconnorgolf.ca to inquire about lessons or mental game coaching.

Engaging with a coach is also an effective way to increase your awareness.

That’s why I’m inviting you the opportunity for a FREE 30-minute coaching call.

During this free session, we’ll discuss: