Just Try to Hit the Ball

Most golfers could get a lot better fast if they could just accept one thing.  It is all about hitting the ball and not about how you swing the club in order to hit it.

I do a lot of research on the golf swing and discuss it with some very bright professionals and in all honesty there has been nothing new discovered about what it takes to strike a golf ball solidly toward the target in forty years or more.

All you have today is a lot of people trying to create a new way to do it so they can sell you their book or video with their “secret, just discovered” method in it.  It is all bad for you because it causes you to think that a certain swing or position is responsible for a good golf shot.

It is very rare to find someone that focuses on helping the student develop his own unique swing that is natural and his individual way of doing it.

Someone asked me how I teach a beginner and I told them that I just explain the importance of the grip and what it actually does and then I tell them just to hit the ball.  Once they can hit the ball we have the foundation to work with.

To help make my point I have an excerpt from an article on a chapter in Bobby Jones book Golf is my Game where he explains what I am talking about.

“When commenting on how ‘uncomfortable, strained, unsure, sometimes even unhappy’ the average golfer looks, Bobby thought ‘a great measure of his discomfiture is derived from his conscious efforts to follow prescribed routine, to look and move like someone else, or as he has been told.’ Bobby thought the average golfer, or indeed the golfer just learning the game would ‘present a more natural appearance if he should put his mind upon striking the ball, rather than upon swinging the club.’ When one considers the extent to which other teachers stress to their pupils the importance of the mechanics of the golf swing, rather than how to strike the ball, this is very different, even ground-breaking advice. Or, it would be ground-breaking if it hadn’t already been written in 1959.”

Golf is a study in cause and effect.  It is literally, if this, then this.  The next time you have the opportunity to practice just simply think about where you want the ball to go.  Then, without any thought of how you are supposed to swing or getting the club in any particular position, just hit the ball and examine the results.  Experiment to your hearts content.  If the effect is the ball slices, the cause is the face is open.  There are only two ways to fix this – either change your grip or use your hands differently.

Quit thinking about all the things you have been told or read about what you are supposed to or what some extraordinarily talented tour player that took up golf shortly after learning to walk, does.

Just hit the ball!

If you want a really great drill that will help your ball striking tremendously check out this article.

Cover Image via Flickr