Preface to The Disciplined Golfer

Preface

Golf is deceptively simple, or so it seems. The ball is not in motion like a football. You neither have to worry about someone wrestling you to the ground nor does the equipment require Herculean strength to manipulate. Why then do we have so many problems with the golf ball?

This manual was written to address the disparity between the perceived ease and actual difficulty of golf. The truth of the matter is that golf is both easy and difficult.

Today, we have more knowledge of the golf swing today than centuries past, yet a visit to the range will show that the problems that plagued our golfing brothers of yesteryear still infect the enthusiasts that take up the game each year. If knowledge equals power, we should be better. Yet, that isn’t the case. The key is being objective with information and judge it against a quantifiable benchmark.

Each new comer to the sport will be infected with well meaning advice from friends who can barely hit the ball efficiently. Old saws like “keep your left arm straight” and “keep your head down” are the usual suspects.

Should such simplistic advice were to be the “be all and end all” of a golfer’s problems, then golfers should have no problems playing to a decent level (below 80s).

Take another golfer and prescribe scientifically correct information as part of an improvement program, and his fate won’t be very much different from the new comer described above. Why?

The two golfers above though they differed in knowledge, they were united in a lack of understanding of themselves. Proper information plus a proper understanding of self is like sodium and chloride together – they produce something beneficial. Apart from each other, they are deadly.

Most of us cede control and ascribe our golfing weakness to elements outside of ourselves and control. The magic bullet is not some secret technique, being stronger or even practicing more. The barrier that prevents us from becoming as good as we are capable of lies within.

I am not referring to golf psychology where one pictures the shot before pulling the trigger or deep breathing techniques to conquer stress etc.

You can visualize all you care for, but if you have faulty mechanics, the shots are just not going to happen. If you are 70 yrs old, visualize all you want, you won’t be airmailing your tee shots 300 yards. Visualization must be tempered with a realistic assessment of one’s capability.

What I am referring to is an understanding of how you work. I will be outlining:

1) Beliefs and their impact on perception
2) The role of information and knowledge
3) The relationship between mental know how and physical execution.
4) A process to bridge the gap.

Once you accept responsibility for your improvement and not ascribe it to external forces, understand and apply these 4 principles, then the game that you once thought easy will become easy and you can improve as much as you want to.