Prolonged slump
 

I would be curious to hear if any of you have either worked through a prolonged slump or helped someone with the same. I am in the midst of just that - a slump in iron play that has spanned multiple seasons. Woods and short game are fine, and actually improving in large part to TGM and this website. Irons are, in a word, terrible.

I posted in "The Mental Approach" because this slump has created constant negative and fearful thoughts over all iron shots, but especially those where penalty strokes are facing me (eg water, OB, etc). Any techniques that you may have used yourselves (or in your teaching) to deal with this would be greatly appreciated.

A related question, a common response from others trying to help is "stop thinking, just play". If only they knew I was into TGM and this web site! What are this site's members opinions on that comment. Can TGM set up paralysis by over-analysis?

Thanks
3Putt

I had the same slump. Driver ok, short game ok, Irons, not ok. I changed from Single Wrist Action to Standard Wrist Action (Sequenced Release) and it was over. How stupid was that. Make sure that the Back of the Iron and Shaft are laying flat against that plane in the downswing and release. A Flat Wrist is not a Flat wrist. But, that's probably not your problem.

My intent was not to get into the mechanics, more the mind's response to the mechanics. But your comment re sequenced release is perfect. What has happened throughout this slump is something like this:
swing 1 - for whatever reason I negelect to "roll" into impact. Massive, weak push.
swing 2 - my mind/body won't let that happen again. Smother hook.
swing 3 - paralysis

3Putt

This isn't mysticism. The only Mind response is either understanding or confusion. The Only thing that you're teaching the Mind, is to handle more frustration. Give you mind more information (knowledge).

If you put an airplane into a Tail Spin, it will do so all on its own all of the way into the ground. The same with Golf Mechanics. Every next motion is the result of the previous dependant motion added with newly introduced motions.

EXAMPLE: Ben Doyles "Catching the tail of the dog" after "Sitdown" is a motion/action to sycronize the #3 Accumulator Roll. It did not cause the Roll, but added something to it.

Homer Kelley said:
And:
The second quote means to slightly arch your Left Wrist anytime during the delivery path (is the WAY) to OVERRIDE the Automatic swivel. Such times are needed in very short motions like chip shots where an automatic swivel would have needed about 4 feet of Clubhead travel. See VJ Trolio and Greg McHatton, both are examples of Non-Automatic versions of the Swivel. They Pre-Swivel(before uncocking). This way, your hands won't swivel because you removed the MECHANISM that allows a Swivel (Centrifugal Force causes the Un-Bending of the Left Wrist and Rotation around the longitudinal Center of Gravity of the Golf Club). But you still need the Left Hand in Swiveled Alignment so it's call a Non-Automatic Swivel.

I've actually been playing pretty well for the past month after my latest lesson with Ted, but for me getting out of the slump is usually a mechanical issue and then getting the feel for when you are in the proper mechanics.

After my latest lesson with Ted I had to take a week off for a medical procedure to be done. Ted and I worked on right forearm takeaway and right forearm tracing with the plan to improve my backswing alignments so I won't come over the plane on the downswing. Probably the thing I struggle with most which usually leads to steering. When I got back to play, I couldn't hit anything worth a squat for about 3 days on the range. Kept coming over the top, kept trying to swing out to the right, and couldn't stop coming over the top.

On the 3rd day on the range I was really itching to go out and play, but I wanted to start hitting some shots. Eventually I said to myself 'if you keep coming over the plane, lets try to get wayyy under the plane.' Then I thought 'let's try to hit a roundhouse hook with a 9-iron.' So I would have a square stance and clubface to the target, but take the club wayyyy inside and then try to make a very prononced in-to-out path. And I started hitting shots crisply and straight, with a small fade to them.

That's where I really started to learn 'feel from mechanics.' Because later on I would try to take my normal takeaway and backswing, but with the roundhouse hook downswing it would not work. Eventually I said to myself 'what are the differences in FEEL between when I take my roundhouse hook backswing and my normal backswing.' I then felt differences in my right elbow and found out that I wasn't performing the right forearm takeaway properly. Furthermore, I realized that I get in trouble when my right elbow gets away from my body too much. My old backswing was actually quite fine, but for me the elbow gets too far away from the body.

Since then I've played quite well and I'm down to a +0.3 index. However, just the other day I 'struggled' and shot 76-74 at a course and was doing it with smoke and mirrors and hitting a lot of big cuts which was driving me insane and I was coming over the top again. Eventually I went onto the range after the rounds of golf and found that once again, my right elbow was getting too far away from my body...this time at address...and it was causing me to get that elbow in poor positions and come over the top. When I figured that out I started hitting shot after shot about as good as I possibly can at this moment.

There's plenty of drills from TGM that can help cure your ills, but once I learned what feel truly is and how to learn feel from mechanics, my game shot off like a rocket because now I can use those feels in order to execute the proper mechanics on a consistent basis. And if I get in trouble, I know now where to look at in regards to what the culprits of my ills are.




3JACK

Photo Finishers
 

This is the promise of 'Alignment Golf' versus 'Position Golf'.

There are many 'methods' that can help the golfer break 100. And 90. And even 80.

But how does one build a Golf Stroke that challenges "Old Man Par" and then goes beyond?

Once the conceptual and structural work is done, only the golfer's own sensibilities to precision alignments can guide. On the PGA TOUR, a "mere" two shots per round in Scoring Average means the difference between silly money and folding sweaters.

Witness the 2009 stats-to-date of Steve Stricker (#1 Scoring at 69.02 and #4 Money with $3,076,236) and Vaughn Taylor (#88 Scoring at 71.00 and #125 Money, aka "keep your card", with $294,164).

For the complete list of horses and their standings in the annual race:

http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/xm.html?108

http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/?109

May the best horse win.

If only by a nose.

I may be thick but I can't figure out what you're driving at with this statement.

If making bad shots equates to teaching the mind to handle more frustration, then are you suggesting I restrict my golf to the range in the pursuit of more knowledge/information?

Playing and practicing is your choice and not part of my recommendation.

I was trying to say that remembering to Roll is a compensation for not having components Aligned to Roll. Hitting Hooks wasn't over correction for poor execution but if you keep telling your mind it is, then in the end you'll become more frustrated. You don't have a "Roll" built into your Alignments. Forcing a Roll when you're not aligned to roll is not the solution. More knowledge. Learn the Alignments of a Sequenced Release.

Maybe you need a 'go-to' swing for when you're unsure of yourself.

And at the risk of bragging, there's no doubt I have a lot more room to go. My putting has been so-so at best as I rarely 3-putt, but don't make much of anything outside of 10 feet. In our last lesson Ted and I worked on putting because my alignments were looking great and now I am rolling the ball noticeably better just less than a day later. I also can greatly improve distance, but coming off of major surgery back in late October, doctor's orders say no really heavy exercise for at least a year and I figure I'm in the beginning stages of creating a repeatable stroke.

I play with a group of guys that are 3-15 handicappers about twice a week. Then I play with my ole man and his friends every Saturday and they are in the 12-20 handicap range. It's amazing how these guys worry about things that are not all that important if completely unimportant for that matter. Things like 'straight left arm' and the length of the backswing. Every time my ole man hits a ground ball he curses at himself for 'looking up.' I then told him that he actually doesn't look up most of the time he hits that ground ball and that his left wrist is so bent at impact it makes it almost impossible to not hit a bunch of ground balls. I then filmed him on the range (secretly, believe it or not) and then showed him and I still don't think he believes me, but he's hard headed.

For me, Alignment Golf gets the golfer focusing about things that they really need to focusing about (3 imperatives, 3 essentials) and then provides a path to get there and each path is customizable for each golfer and then provides customizable FEEL so they can repeat those things they really need to focus about over and over again.




3JACK

I think the key is to be open to allowing your mind to more knowledge/information or whatever in order to get proper mechanics. Because with the proper mechanics, then you can start yourself on the right path to get the feel.

Feels are subjective. TGM is a feel oriented book, IMO. I believe Homer Kelley fully understood that feel was extremely key to a golfer's success because it could make the swing repeatable. I also believe that Homer Kelley saw that the problem was that feels are subjective.

For instance, as far as keeping the FLW at impact I try to feel a very slow start down. I also feel a bit of a 'palm heel strike' right into the ball with my right arm/right hand. That may not work for you, but it works for me. In Yoda's video lesson with Colin Neeman, Collin's best shots were when he felt he was driving the ball right into the ground instead of driving it into the air. Works for him, may not work for you.

We got there by understanding the right mechanics first and then coming up with the feel that works best for us. This feel then allows us to repeat these mechanics over and over. I believe this was one of Homer Kelley's main goals of TGM, provide a system where golfers could come up with their own feels in order to repeat the proper mechanics.

When you say 'My intent was not to get into the mechanics, more the mind's response to the mechanics'...you appear to be missing the big step in creating a repeatable stroke.




3JACK

Good Golfing!
 

When I hit a rough patch (literally and figuratively) I go "back to basics" For me that means delivery path of the clubhead, and the delivery line of my hands. Tracing the straight plane line and directing my thrust at a point on the same plane line seems to right the ship. My band aid is using an angled hinge instead of a horizontal hinge. I mention the band aid only to recommend that you discover your own tendencies. In my case the angled hinge with its hold-off feel makes my clubface "quieter" through impact. I tend to hit a lot of pulls when I am struggling. A slump is a golden opportunity! When you learn to scrape it around hitting it like a gibbering idiot you have become a player. The hallmark of a player is what he/she shoots when they are hitting it poorly. I have met only a handful of players that work on their short game and scoring shots...they are all world class players...coincidence? I tell my players it needs to be at least a 50/50 split between long game and short game IF their intent is to be good GOLFERS!

top post okie.

Its been a while since I started this thread but its never been far from my mind.

I seem to have made some good progress - so much so that I would say I am out of the slump. Its hard to isolate what the turning point was but what seems to have helped me the most is establishing alignments and grip at impact fix.

Today I played a tournament and had a few fearful iron swings (no wilted-feeling blocks, but a few pull hooks). Near the end of the round, I realized I had lost my awareness of impact fix. Once I went back to setting up at impact fix, solid impact again.

To some of you, this may be minor. But to me it was very satisfying to see that some of the learnings I have taken from TGM and this website have made a difference.

Thanks for your posts.

Shared Success
 

Improvement is no minor thing! Especially if you used the same principles we subscribe to!:salut:

I don't like the term "Slump", it implies bad luck or an inability. From my own experience and the research I did in motor skill analysis I did in college, I can say that slumps can definetly be tied to poor alignments. Someone who is "slumping" has not fully acquired or "owned" the motion they desire. It takes repetition of the desired alignments, often thousands, for you take ownership of a motion. I outlined a case of someone going through something similar in my last blog http://errolgolf.wordpress.com/2009/...-make-pitiful/

Strike Two . . .
 

Errol,

Two posts here . . . two links to your own web site.

We welcome your stand-alone posts, but per our up-front rules, self-served linking ain't an option.


:naughty:

That's my bad.
 

I was told I needed "inbound links", and couldn't think of a group of people I'd rather get feedback from. It won't happen again.

signed,
Shameful Plug

Richie, I always enjoy reading your posts.

I remember during the heavy rains in the Atlanta area a couple of months back you declared that it was the first time in a year (I think you said year) that you hadn't hit balls.

I have made it my goal to get to scratch this year. I am no stranger to shooting sub par and am comfortable doing so. When I read your post and putting it alongside a book I read about a guy from right here in N Ireland going from not being able to break 100 to shooting a below par round in one calendar year (Its called Dream On and is an insprirational read), I realised that at best hitting a couple of hundred balls per week (on a week when I was practicing hard!) I was only scraping the surface of what I was capable of.

I wonder whether you would mind outlaying your normal practice session. For the other top players and pros on here, especially YODA if he doesn't mind, what do you and your players do if after ten minutes on the range, everything seems perfect? I have had it happen where after 10 or 20 balls I am 100% happy. Should I throw the balls out on the range - not likely, I bloody well paid for them! What should I do?

That turned into a longer post than I originally planned!

Look forward to hearing the responses.

Short game practice!

Kevin

thanks Kev, s'funny but this is what I have been doing lately!

As soon as everything feels under control I start trying to take the paint of the 50 yard marker!:salut:

Don't be a pig!
 

Should I throw the balls out on the range - not likely, I bloody well paid for them! What should I do?


I know a guy that is the only player to have won on the PGA, Nationwide and Champions. His idea of hard practice is hitting a full bucket. I think it comes down to intent, are you searching or tuning? He has told me that the only time he hits a full bucket is when he has hit a few shots left of target. A pull is a virus as far as he is concerned. Even when he practices his putting all he is trying to do is "get the roll right" He is convinced that zero loft...on the downbeat...above the equator is the way to go. He is a "player." Even though he is pushing 60 he is seldom out of the 60s around town. My point here is go to the range with a clear picture (by clear I mean realistic) of what you want to accomplish. When you come close to it...go play, or go home. Tougher said than done. Range time quickly collides with the law of diminishing returns. I have to admit that at times I prefer the range to the course...not a recipe for tapping into your golfing potential. This acquaintance of mine pretty much only hits driver and wedges on the range. The idea of getting your reps in is overdone. I think the driving range can become a crack house of sorts (Bucket explained this to me!)The real danger is that it bares little resemblence to the game of golf.

AWESOME post OKIE!

Poor alignments require a lot of practice to fine tune compensations.

Great alignments allow you to go play.

Kevin

Thanks Okie, so true.

I hit all winter long at an indoor range. I find that unless I am really focusing on a target or working on some thing , 12-5 normally or playing some sort of little game in my head that it is actually detrimental to my game. Worse than not practicing actually. But Im trying to get better and your friend is fine tuning.

Nationwide and Champions tour? Nice.

Do as I say...dammit!
 

You have a point there OB. He is guy that tells people just to hit the damn ball!He about breaks out the garlic and crucifix when I mention TGM! He also won on the Eurpean tour. His name is Ron Streck. My point really is that prolonged practice sessions are generally ineffective. Few problems are solved by working it to death. In fact hard work is not the panacea that people tend to make it out to be. Having said that I have to quickly admit that "real" thinking is the hardest work of all! Even in our cases (looking to improve) progress is more assured with stratgic practice as opposed to a deluge of effort. But this is coming from a notorious range rat, so what do I know! I think a worthwhile thing to do is include short game and putting in EVERY practice session. This will cut down on needless seed pounding! So do you know how to tell whether you are hitting too many balls? Simple. Did you have time to chip, pitch and putt?

Simple Advice . . . But Worthless For Most
 

That advice works really well for most people, doesn't it?

:roll:


It's somewhat akin to sitting a novice in front of a keyboard and saying, "Just type!" Try that, and see what you get.

:laughing9

The truth is that this guy is an athlete who has spent his life -- even if, as he says, "just one bucket" at a time -- on practice tees and courses around the world, seeking to improve his own professional skills. Now, after hundreds of thousands of hours of his own concentrated effort, he tells us to "Just hit it!"

Gimme a break.

The incontrovertible fact is that golf is a learned skill (at any level, including his own). Those who wish to improve, and further, to compress years into months, weeks or days, will benefit greatly from competent training. Which training, by the way, excludes instruction by those who have spent a lifetime on Tour and now can only advise others to "just hit it".

:smile:


His loss . . . a knee-jerk reaction to his own misperception. Mention 'alignments' instead, and maybe you'll strike a resounding chord. But, based on what you've said, probably not. And that's okay. 'Mechanics to Feel' is not for everyone . . . especially those who already play well and have given up on any further real progress (which, of course, is unattainable without at least a modest attention to Mechanics; or, the mental process which produces perfected Mechanics under pressure; or both).

I like it, Okie!

:salut:

Hogan Slump
 

Hogan was once asked, What do you do to get out of
a slump. Hogan replied, "I don't think that I was
ever out of a slump".

The Dirt-Meister
 

Great quote, Donn.

Hogan never stopped digging.

:salut:

Point taken
 

"Just hit the thing!" did not do his teen son much good either! To his credit he let me help him out without interfering. But as soon as I tried to explain to him what I was asking his kid to do he put his hands in his ears and started to say "na...na...na" My point in mentioning the story was his position that people would be better off hitting fewer balls per practice session. I have heard you use this example before Yoda where if you go to the range and work on just one or two components...say keep the left foot nice and flat. So off you go to the range and hit 25 balls working on "flat left" This has been helpful to me and those I try to help. Asking questions like "What zone are we in today?" or "What component are you working on today?" This as opposed to searching for a magic bullet of some sort. I have used the quip you use(Dave Hill I think it was) something to the effect that all you have to do to know that you are gifted, or a natural, or talented is to hit a million balls first! Of course he said "Yeah, I know Dave!" Gotta love those "naturals!"