The Time to Fix Your Golf Swing

January 15, 2016January 14, 2016 / The Grateful Golfer / 6 Comments

Focus on remedies, not faults! – Jack Nicklaus

Ask any player and they can tell you exactly what is wrong with their swing. They use all the current terms and can describe exactly what is causing their challenge. Some use it as a crutch to not improve and others embrace their swing faults as a source of frustration. Words like casting, blocking, closed club face on impact, decelerate through impact, flip shot, and un-cocking their wrists are common terms thrown about at the 19th hole as players describe their poor rounds.

What is wrong with my swing!?!?

As always, the great Jack Nicklaus speaks volumes with just one sentence! The process of being a better golfer is about identifying your faults, but more importantly, focusing on the remedies that will make you a better player. If the same players above are asked how they plan to fix their faults, there is a very good chance that their silence would be deafening and awkward at the same time. If we did not know better, we would assess that they never thought to find solutions to their swing challenges and have accepted their current state of play.

I have never been one of those players to idly let my game atrophy; I have goals and dreams to always play better at my favorite sport. To make a change in my swing, it is important to first change my thoughts and then to have a plan to change my engrained poor habits. Both take time to develop and achieve; also we need the confidence that the end result of lower scores will be worth the frustration experienced while making changes.

The actual time it takes to break old habits and create new ones is unknown. Every person is different and changes come at different speeds. “But there are some steps you can take to increase your chances of success in the endeavour, including:

Take small steps. Don’t try to do everything at once.

Only try to change one habit at a time.

Write down the habit you want to change, and write down specific plans for achieving that goal.

Repeat the behaviour you’re aiming for as often as you can. The more a behaviour is repeated, the more likely it is that it will become “instinctive.””(How Stuff Works)

Time is a major factor when making changes to your golf swing. Depending on the amount of time dedicated to being a better golfer, if used effectively, can produce quick and positive results that lead to lower scores.

Focusing on remedies, not faults is a simplistic and profound process to being a better golfer. For those wanting to improve, time is a critical factor to success. Regardless of the amount of time you have, by following the process above, you will create new habits that will result in lower golf scores in your future!

I am a grateful golfer! See you on the links!

How to Swing a Golf Club

January 11, 2016 / The Grateful Golfer / 4 Comments

Swinging a golf club is deceptively difficult, totally frustrating, produces gratifying results and is poetry in motion all at the same time. Many amateur golfers are in constant pursuit of that perfect swing to fit their game. Routinely making changes, many players never find what they are looking for; however, their journey always continues.

I talked before about the best golf swing and concluded that each player has that perfect swing inside themselves if they just trust that it will come out when it is ready. But, that is not enough sometimes!

Some players follow the lyrics from Billy Crystal’s song You Look Marvelous; “Nando, don’t be a schnook. It’s not how you feel, it’s how. You. Look!” No matter the scoring results they want that poetry in motion look. There really is not wrong answer to how to swing a golf club!

Just to prove what I mean, take a look at some of these great players:

It is interesting that some of the best players of all time had unique swings that were self-taught! Regardless of how they looked, every swing had one thing in common; it was repeatable! And could they repeat their swing. This is an interesting point for players to take away:

How to hit a golf club consistently and effectively, with success, comes in many forms. Only you know the right form for you!

I am a grateful golfer! See you on the links!

Golfing in Cooler Weather

December 30, 2015 / The Grateful Golfer / 4 Comments

Golf in cooler weather is a challenge.

Golf is not a sport for fair-weather players. Well actually, many golfers are fair-weather players, but I am not one. I play in the rain, wind, heat, and cold. Of all these conditions, I find playing in the cold the most difficult.

Playing in the cold is a given in Canada. Unlike this year, the cold weather starts to set in around October and does not leave until April. However, if the brave are willing to embrace the cooler weather, the off-season can be shortened by a couple of months.

I have written about playing in the cold weather before and I touched on 5 main topics to consider when playing fall or spring golf in the northern climates. For more details on the 5 topics below, click here:

A toque is a must.
Gloves are a benefit.
Keeping hydrated is critical.
Choosing the correct golf ball!
Lastly, avoid getting wet.

I recently did a poll on about golfing in cold weather and wondered what the golfing community considered what to keep warm when playing in cooler temperatures. Not surprisingly, here is what the masses had to say:

When playing #golf in the cold, what is most important to your game?

— The Grateful Golfer (@TheGratefulGolf) December 27, 2015

Keeping our hands warm is the most important thing for me aswell. When my hands get cold, I loose my feel, strength, and flexibility. Also, every miss hit feels like I am holding a giant frozen tuning fork that will not stop vibrating! Playing with cold hands is extremely uncomfortable and sometimes painful.

As many of you venture out to play golf in cooler temperatures, remember to keep your hands warm; warm hands will help you shoot lower scores and have fun as you loop the links enjoying the great outdoors!

I am a grateful golfer! See you on the links!

Golf Tips, We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Golf Tips!

November 5, 2015November 4, 2015 / The Grateful Golfer / 6 Comments

If you scour the internet for golf tips, 150,000,000 searches appear in 0.41 seconds. Now, I am an avid golf fan and enjoy increasing my knowledge about my favorite sport; but really, 150 million hits for golf tips! The challenge is to sift through all the white noise to figure out which tip is best for us!

Everyone has their own process to cut white noise. Everyday, we are bombarded with information that is filter, processed, acted upon, or discarded. The difficulty is to figure out what is important and which process works best; then apply it to golf. For me, the process is simple:

Identify the problem;
Collect information on the problem;
Analyse the information;
Determine possible solutions or courses of action; and
Decide on way ahead.

This process empowers me to move forward when faced with many challenges. In 2015, I did have the arsenal required to really improve my golf game and lower my scores. So, I have decided to fix that short fall starting next week.

I have decided my way ahead for the my winter golf project. I am going to write on article a week on golf tips. Not my normal, this is the way The Grateful Golfer does it, but a review analysing tips I find while researching golf. I hope to provide a video with each article, but that will depend on the tip that I find.

I cannot guarantee that each tip will be useful to you, but I suggest that it will broaden your library of golf resources that you can tap into at a moments notice. I think that this project will be fun and beneficial to everyone. If nothing else, I look forward to learning new golf tips that will help me reach my goal as a scratch golfer!

What do you think? Any suggestions on which tip should be researched first?

I am a grateful golfer! See you on the links!

Golf Tip – Hitting the Club Face

September 21, 2015 / The Grateful Golfer / 2 Comments

In a previous post, I discussed where the ball should be placed in my stance and how I adjusted my alignment to make solid contact. But one of the most basic tenants of making solid contact was the shaft angle when the club head strikes the ball. As I watched the simple video below, many of my ideas of solid ball striking came together.

To confirm my new-found knowledge, I watched 30 minutes of professional golfers hit balls in various scenarios. Of the many similar aspects of their golf swing, the ball contact was created the same way: the club grip was in front of the ball during contact. Having the club grip past the ball, creates the proper shaft angle so the club head strikes the ball about 3 or 4 grooves up from the bottom of the club head. It is like trapping the ball with the club head.

Next, I looked for a simple drill to reinforce my what I have learned. This is what I found: