Many wonder what differentiates elite players from mid-level golfer. Aside from the fact that they won the genetics lotto, after fifteen years of teaching golf, I see a major difference between these two categories of golfers: how well the golfer is aware that what he is feeling may be different from what its movement is in reality.
To shed light on this observation, I share this anecdote with you. A student contacts me and explains the following problem: he says he hesitates between three swings and calls on me to help him choose the most functional. Curious, skeptical and amused, I ask him to perform. He does and goes alternately his Nicklaus, Palmer and Trevino swings. We take a moment to analyze the video of his demonstration and to his surprise, he is unable to distinguish the three swings: they are literally all visually identical. I discuss it here with Jake Hutt (52:25).
The average golfer usually has a much harder time understanding the fact that what he is feeling is often far from reality. This makes the initial phase of a swing change seem like torture to him. "Alex, this is unnatural!" Well, that's a good sign! If your swing feels natural, it most likely hasn't changed. The elite players are constantly playing with their feelings in order to modulate their swing. You just have to watch Tiger Woods, Jordan Speith or Alex Noren on the driving range to get a taste of it. Here's what Tiger Woods has to say on the subject 👇🏾
Using SportsBoxAI technology, I did the exercise of comparing in 3D the practice swings to actual Tiger swings. Here is what it looks like 👇🏾
Do you want to improve? Don't be afraid to exaggerate in order to achieve the desired result.