Short Circuit

I recently had a lesson with Rhys ap Iolo at the Downshire Golf Centre. I've been using him for a couple of years now and he's transformed the swing into something a lot more reliable and trustworthy. However as the astute amongst the regular readers will know, this season has been a story of much more consistent play blighted as by a couple of poor holes, usually real nightmares that seem to hit me out of left field.

In recent weeks, I've not had much opportunity to play and practice and so form when I have been out has been patchy. I had a decent first round in the Longhurst Cup at Royal Ascot over the bank holiday only to come to grief in the second round. I had managed a range session which wasn't inspiring and the warm up prior to the lesson had also left me thinking there was a bit of work to do to rectify what appeared to be a glitch in the swing. I had it in my mind to use the hour's lesson to tidy things up, crack on for the rest of the season and see where we went in terms of Homer's Odyssey towards single figures.

Something curious happened on the walk from the range to the teaching bay. It's a common occurrence it appears and as soon as Rhys watched me hit the first ball it sailed magnificently away with effortless ease http://forums.golf-monthly.co.uk/showthread.php?70512-Why-is-it-your-first-ball-when-a-pro-watches-you-for-the-first-time

It soon became apparent that technically things were pretty much intact. This was going to be a long hour. Well, actually it wasn't. Rather than hitting balls we went over where I was losing shots and looked for a common theme. As I could lose balls out of bounds off the tee, throw in a huge miss from the fairway, or chuck in a short game horror I couldn't see a pattern.

I went back to hitting balls and Rhys wanted to look at my pre-shot routine. He asked me to forget where the ball went, any technical thoughts and literally hit each ball as I would do on the course. He just wanted to watch each shot and the routine on each one. After five or six shots, several of which weren't as good as the others we stopped. What he noticed got me thinking. On the two shots that weren't as well struck or accurate as the others, I was much quicker from putting the club behind the ball and pulling the trigger and starting the swing. On the good shots, there was more control and a definite pause between settling the club down and the swing starting.

He took this a stage further and the theory held water. We've had a couple of playing lessons together and he describes the state as "excitable puppy". When I play a good shot, I seem to quicken and then want to get on with the next. It would seem that my thought process, but more importantly the pre-shot routine gets too quick. He used a simple circuit board as an analogy. When Homer hits a good shot, everything is connected and the current (the shot) flows properly and executes. When he goes into "excitable puppy" the circuit shorts out and the execution is too quick and poorly made.

Looking back at where recent nightmare holes have occurred, I've usually come off a really good hole, run of holes, or recovered well from a set back. Going into "excitable puppy" means I just get too quick.

Excitable Puppy - a playful young thing that can lead to golfing horrors. It needs to be kept on a tight lead

What happened with the good shots was that I executed much differently. Not only was there a definite pause, but in that moment my mind was clear. No technical thoughts. Of course many will say that is how you should play every shot. That may well be true but it's not a mental state that comes easily to me on the course. I agree though and my best scores, such as the win early in the season at the Golf Monthly King of Kings qualifier at Camberley Heath have come when I've had that serene peace of mind. It's a topic that New Golf Thinking goes into as well and there are some ideas and techniques I need to revisit.

Rhys and I talked about this. He hit a few shots and talked through his own routine. He has a similar pause between settling behind the ball and starting and described it as a blank sheet of paper wrapping up any thoughts to leave his head empty and free to just execute. It's an analogy I struggle with and I am still trying to find my own personal trigger so I can find the calmness on a regular basis.

As I mentioned, practice has been very limited with a sore back making it impossible to hit balls and I've now succumbed to a viral infection which has left me pretty weak and struggling to find enough energy after a working day to hit the practice ground.

I did play last weekend. To be honest I really shouldn't have as I really wasn't well but I wanted to get out and just work on my routine and see if I could get my circuitry wired correctly. There were some definite signs that it's an area worth pursuing and there definitely seems to be some correlation between where and when these rogue bad holes occur and "excitable puppy".

I'm hoping to get out to the range this week and hit a few balls to try and get some consistency back into my game after what has been a stop, start six weeks or so but also to work diligently on treating every range ball as I would on the course and go through a definite pre-shot routine. Hopefully something will morph into place and this pause will become consistent and the circuit will be wired properly.

It's pleasing that the swing is still functioning even without too much practice and it was definitely an interesting hour spent looking at the why, as in why did that bad score happen, as opposed to the how and the type of poor shot I delivered. There are links between what I do well and poorly. It may all sound mumbo jumbo and not for the first time there will be those saying I'm over complicating it and just stand there and smack it. However I'd argue that if I can get this pause and start the shot with a much clearer head and smoother swing then this exercise will have been worthwhile.

I need to get back to working on my game. The short game has been neglected and is causing too many lost shots again. I'm not happy with my swing despite how I played last week and know it could be better and tighter. A bit like gardening, there's always something that needs doing. I'll keep working away. It's been a good season. Not a classic and perhaps not as fulfilling to date as I'd hoped, certainly in terms of my pursuit to single figures, but enough in there to tell me I am on the right track. For now I need to shake this virus off and get back to full health and then kick on again and make sure that my golfing wiring is fully connected and we stop the short circuits.