Wally Armstrong’s Blog

When Dr. Tom came to me looking for help with his swing, he was as frustrated as any golfer I’d ever seen.  He’d been to teachers all over the U.S., trying desperately to improve the quality of his game, yet he couldn’t seem to get past the wall he’d hit in his scoring.  Tom was a psychiatrist who had done numerous studies on the left and right hemispheres of the brain.  His specialty was in analyzing how people learned, which made it that much more frustrating to him that he couldn’t seem to figure out what he was doing wrong.  

            After our first lesson together, I could see Tom’s dilemma.  He had a hundred swing thoughts going through his mind every time he stood over the ball—keep your head down, left arm straight, eye on the ball, swing inside out, club on plane, pronate, supinate, take it back inside, shift your weight.  It’s a wonder he ever made contact.  He was struggling with dozens of incorrect swing habits, each brought on by a preconceived notion about the proper swing pattern. 

            While visiting with Tom I had found out that he had played baseball as a boy, so the first thing I did was to put away his club and hand him a baseball bat.  I had him hit a golf ball off of a makeshift T-ball stick on the driving range.  I let him get the feel of how natural the swing can be when you don’t think about it.  It was amazing how long and straight he could hit a golf ball with a bat in his hand.  Then I handed him back his club and had him swing it just like a bat.  He continued this motion, slowly moving the club down further, first at waist level, then even with his knees, and eventually at ground level.  We teed one up and had him hit it, and immediately he was able to see and feel the difference.  For the first time he felt truly natural over the ball.  He told me later that his game literally improved overnight.

            The key to learning in golf is that you must first see and feel what you want the club to do, and then trust that motion in order for permanent change to occur.