Graham Averill is turning 50 this year and he’s crazy. Instead of buying a motorcycle or getting a tattoo, he’s decided to try to get really, really good at golf. He is a 13 handicap trying to get to zero in a year. Welcome to his midlife crisis.
I have become a mouse. It’s a byproduct of the work I’ve done since starting this project of trying to get to zero in a year. I spent the first two months rebuilding my swing with the help of my coach, Sam Hahn of LAB Golf, and it’s technical work that requires a methodical approach. So I’ve been spending a lot of time hitting balls into a net in my backyard and working on my swing at the range. Lots of exercise. Lots of practice swings. Lots of slow motion videos of me.
The job isn’t done, but it’s time to move on to the next phase of my journey: playing an alarming amount of golf and trying to score some.
“It’s time to make the transition from internal focus to external focus,” Hahn told me. “Obviously, we have to keep grinding on the swing, but when it’s time to hit the first ball, we have to put that stuff aside and focus on getting the ball in the hole instead of putting the swing in a certain position.”
Getting from the range to the green is a struggle for many golfers. Raise your hand if you’ve ever sent a driver into the woods and said, “I don’t get it! I hit the ball so well into the distance!”
Insert the expressions you like in that sentence. I like to sprinkle them all over.
The problem with taking your swing from the range to the course is that playing a round of golf has nothing to do with your golf swing. OK, that’s an oversimplification. The swing should be sound, but playing good golf is more about your mind, the soft tissue between your ears, where everything seems to go wrong.
I’m talking about swinging thoughts, kid. Swing thoughts.
We show up to a range session with anywhere from one to 71 swing thoughts that we want to work with on any given day. Begin the swing with your core, keep your leading shoulder pointed away from the target, point the Velcro in your left hand down to the ground at the top of the backswing…I have a list of these gems that fill my head while I’m practicing, but Hahn believes that a golfer can’t get a set of swinging thoughts on the course when it’s time to play. Playing a solid round of golf isn’t about making perfect swings. It’s about putting the ball in the hole in as few strokes as possible.
So he made me read a book called Outstanding golf which focuses primarily on the mental and emotional aspect of the game of golf. There’s a lot of wisdom to take away from that book about how golfers approach the game in general, but it has a chapter on concentration that specifically addresses problems with transitioning from the range to the green. The author of Outstanding golfFred Shoemaker suggests that golfers can’t switch to playing golf the way they practice golf because we’re not practicing the way we actually play.
Shoemaker writes that problems arise on the course because while swing thoughts are good when you’re drilling technique, they’re too fleeting to provide consistency when you’re playing a round. Let’s say your swing thought is to sink the weight into your back hip at the top of the backswing. This thought only lasts a split second at the start of your swing and leaves your mind with plenty of blanks to fill for the duration of your swing. So your mind wanders. I fill those gaps with doubts, fears, and random thoughts: Is this Bermuda grass? Did the wind just pick up? Is that an owl? Why would an owl be outside during the day? Is he mad? Are there rabid owls?
I see this played out in my game maybe half a dozen times during a round. I’ll hammer out my swing thought and then, before I can even start the fall, I’ll switch to something really stupid like, “don’t hit it thick.”
And then I hit him soundly.
This seems to happen more often as I get tired of playing 18 holes. My mind wanders more often and I make more frustrating mistakes because I find it harder to focus on the task at hand.
It shouldn’t be difficult. A full swing takes about two seconds from grip to impact. Two seconds. That’s about a quarter of the time a cowboy is expected to ride a raging bull in a rodeo. That’s about the same amount of time it takes my teenagers to roll their eyes at me. And yet, my monkey brain has a hard time staying focused for such a short period of time.
Considering the rising rates of ADHD and the general lack of attention spans that plague modern society, I guess I’m not the only golfer out there with a wandering monkey brain.
In his book, Shoemaker suggests that we should start practicing the art of focusing on range. Instead of filling our heads with a basket full of wobbly thoughts, commit to practicing your focus for a small bucket of balls. Pick a spot on the ball—a letter or a particular hole—and try to train your focus on that spot throughout your swing. Don’t think about your queue, your wrist or the rising cost of gas. Just focus on the point of the ball. Shoemaker offers several exercises to progress from focusing on the ball to a specific body part, but I’m still working on that “T” on the ball.
It’s harder than it sounds. I’ve tried it for a week of practice sessions and most of the time I lose focus before I get to the top of my swing. But I have noticed some progress in my short game during rounds thanks to this emphasis on concentration. I tend to follow up a nice pointy kick with a meat wedge. I get in my head, I tell myself not to tear it apart, and then … well, you know what happens.
But these chip shots are shorter swings with fewer moving parts, so it’s easier to stay focused for that short period, and I’ve made cleaner contact when I’m in scoring position. This situation is not a quick fix. It’s a work in progress, but I can’t wait to see what I can do when I can focus on something for a full two seconds at a time. The sky’s the limit, right?
Want to dig deeper into one golfer’s struggle to improve at golf in middle age? Read last week’s Scratch by 50 playing the short game.
