You can’t improve what you’re unaware of

Do you watch a sunset and wish it would slow down and last longer, or do you just witness it without mental chatter? Neither is wrong. It’s just an indicator of how much you think vs feel.

Last season I coached a woman who battled a wicked slice off the tee. She said her driver swing was a “complete mystery.”

In an effort to solve it, I asked her during a lesson to swing her driver and tell me what she felt. She looked puzzled.

“What am I supposed to feel?”

I fumbled around for something that might help. “Well, what do you feel in your hands?”

Again, she stared at me. “What am I supposed to feel?”

Then it occurred to me: She thinks she’s supposed to feel something definite—something that has eluded her and that she should feel. Thus, her swing is a mystery.

This is the conundrum that most golfers experience: they want to improve their swing but they don’t know what happens when they swing, especially with the driver, the lightest and longest club in the bag. Given that we swing it quickly, this makes it difficult to feel our swing.

Almost every golfer I know swings with some kind of “swing thought,” such as “turn this” or “shift that.” While they swing, their heads are full of mental chatter. However, as I’ve written in recent newsletters, you cannot think your way through a golf swing. It’s a recipe for bad golf.

It’s like the difference between watching a sunset in silence and being present to the experience moment by moment—or watching and wishing the sunset would last longer and that the experience will somehow burn itself into your memory. (That’s why you record it on your phone.)

It’s the difference between being absorbed in an experience and being in your head.

I remember such a difference in my mid-twenties. I was taking photos of The Jam at a concert. The last few notes of a song were fading away when I realized it was The Eton Rifles, one of my favourite Jam songs. I had been so focused on taking pictures that I didn’t hear a note until the song’s dramatic ending. I was disappointed that I completely missed it.

This is what most people do, in golf and all parts of our lives. We spend our lives in our heads instead of being in the world or even in our bodies. We don’t experience what’s actually happening. We experience our own version of the world, which is almost always a pale imitation of what’s real.

What’s this have to do with golf?

When we’re thinking, we’re cut off from what’s actually happening, usually from our sensations, including tactile (feeling, touch) hearing, sight, taste and smell. When you have a swing thought, you’re thinking about moving, but it’s highly unlikely that you’re feeling what your body is actually doing.

Hence, the “mystery” that my student experienced.

This makes no sense. Hitting a golf ball is a physical experience that is best performed when you allow your body to move based on your intention for sending the ball to a target. The best golfers focus on feeling their swing.

If you’re trying to improve your swing or correct a recurring flaw, if you don’t feel—and thus know what you’re doing—you can’t change it. It’s impossible to change what you’re unaware of.

As promised in my last newsletter, here’s an exercise that is a game changer for many players. It allows you to experience the difference between thinking about your swing and feeling it.

Choose a high lofted wedge for some chipping practice. They are your shortest clubs and they have heaviest clubheads, which makes it easier to feel what happens when you strike a ball.

When you chip, put your awareness into the clubbed and keep it there for the entire motion. When I say “awareness,” I mean you’re connected to the feeling or the sensation of the weight and movement of the clubhead—from address through impact to the finish.

That’s your only objective: keep your awareness on the clubhead for the duration of the motion. You’re not trying to hit “good” chips.

It sounds easy, but it’s surprisingly difficult. Most people lose connection with the clubhead just before or at impact. Their curious minds immediately jump to judging whether it was a “good” or “bad” chip.

When you do this exercise, you’re not trying to do anything, such as accelerate the clubhead, keep your head down, or anything—the invitation is just stay focused on the feeling of the clubhead. (This is like what’s known as single-point meditation.)

After every shot, grade yourself on your level of concentration on a range of zero to 10: zero being no connection; if you gave yourself at 10, you were on it for the entire swing.

Students who grade themselves on having high awareness are often surprised at how well they chip. They’re amazed that even though they’re not thinking about anything, they hit “good” chips. The more connected to the clubhead, the better the strike.

And if you’re not hitting solid chips doing this exercise, you’ll likely start to notice what’s happening. It’s like you have an unobscured and more direct pipeline to what’s happening. Your awareness will lead you to make the corrections. Interestingly, you’ll find that the corrections will be more about allowing the club to move unimpeded rather than trying to do something technical.

You can do this exercise through the bag. I suggest you start with chipping and gradually work your way up to your driver.

Doing this exercise is like the difference between feeling the sun on your face and looking at a picture of the sun.

It’s no mystery to me which experience most people would choose.

This post previews my Getting Unstuck and Developing Your Feeling of Greatness Workshops that I will be presenting at golf clubs around Ontario this spring.

The workshops are based on my book, Getting Unstuck: 7 Transformational Practices for Golf Nerds and my experience with the late Moe Norman, whose biography I wrote. If you’re interested in attending one of my workshops, send an email to tim@oconnorgolf.ca … and ask your golf club about having me deliver one where you play.