Comments on: A wasted round

By: Gregor

Gregor — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:50:35 +0000

Cameron
I have read back through old posts and you mention on many occassions about being relaxed, letting go and above to being carefree. Like Graydens big slow ship hopefully this will start to sink in.

What is your view on this attitude between rounds. Should we have this attitude generally towards golf . Is it possible to over analyze even when you are not playing which means you are anxious before we even start.

By: Grayden Provis

Grayden Provis — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:28:34 +0000

Cameron: thanks very much for your response. There are some real nuggets in there. I’m going to print them out in fact and stick them in my golf bag so that I can read and re-read until they’re burned into my anxiety-ridden golf brain!

“This will give you the freedom to play golf like few get to experience”

Yep. THATS what I’m after and I know now that this is the way to get it.

The trouble with playing golf for 30 years with the wrong mindset is that you create a very big, slow ship that takes quite some time to come around. But come around she will!

A very helpful post. Many thanks.

By: Tony Lucas (Lukey)

Tony Lucas (Lukey) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:46:59 +0000

Hi Cam
just a poser for you and that is I have decided to go with HFR because I find this really suits me.Now my approach to it is to practice it at home or in the hitting net at my golf course but when I go out to play I just play auto.Steady and myself feel that the thing I should look for is my speed of swing (ie not too slow or too quick) would be interested in your thoughts.
Cheers Lukey

By: Cameron

Cameron — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:17:19 +0000

@Grayden: I have to agree. I’m also not one to adhere to conventional wisdom too much The perfect mindset can almost be careless – you have to play golf (swing) like you don’t give a stuff.

The automatic approach will only give you YOUR swing. You are not about to swing in some haphazard way when you play automatically – it will actually be your best swing.

Quitting and giving up is not playing golf – this will lead to a sloppy swing. But a relaxed and carefree attitude is what you should be aiming for – this will give you the freedom to play golf like few get to experience.

Thanks for posting.

Cameron

By: Grayden Provis

Grayden Provis — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:48:43 +0000

Hi Steady

Yes, the conventional wisdom is that too relaxed leads to “sloppy” and “clumsy” but having played automatic for a while now I’m starting to re-think that.

I’m starting to think that its impossible to be too relaxed AND play auto and that if there is “sloppy” or “clumsy” its actually still latent ANXIETY producing them, not “relaxed-ness”.

Seems to me that if you’re TRULY auto your body won’t allow you to swing “sloppy” or “clumsy” so if you’re still getting those it suggests to me you’re still using CONSCIOUS control which means there’s still some anxiety in there.

I’m finding there’s a sort of built in “sloppiness control” in us that prevents “sloppy” if we are TRULY swinging subconsciously.

As I said, all I know at present is that “more relaxed = more fun” and I haven’t yet reached the point where this runs out!

I wonder what the Master thinks?

By: Steady

Steady — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:34:37 +0000

Hi Tribers,
yes Grayden you do need to be relaxed yet not so much to produce what I call a sloppy swing. Therefore it is imperative not to be tensed/stressed yet not so relaxed as to be clumsy. BTW adrenaline can be your worse enemy. You can literally hit the ball too far or be overcome with emotion not to perform at your best. Just My thoughts.
Steady

By: Grayden Provis

Grayden Provis — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:37:09 +0000

I’ve been asking myself lately:

“Can you be TOO relaxed before you play golf?”

In the past I would have always answered “yes” along with everyone else:

“Nerves are good, you just need to control them”
“If you’re too relaxed you won’t have any fire”
“You need some adrenaline to perform at your peak”

Yada, yada, yada…..

You know what, I’m really starting to wonder about that. I’m not sure you CAN be too relaxed. It seems to be the more relaxed I get the more enjoyable the game is. If there is such a point as “too relaxed” I certainly haven’t found it yet. I’m happy to keep trying though

By: Gregor

Gregor — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:55:56 +0000

Cameron,
I posted before about having a bad day with topped shots etc but todays round got worse whixh ruined a few holes. It’s really hard in this situation to keep going and trying not to fix things or think about technique, but I am finding using auto that I can hit a bad shot and the next one is generally fine. Simply because I can block out distractions ie thinking about the consequences. I even found myself literally telling Pesky to go away a couple of times. I hope i didn’t say it out loud.
By starting the count before the walk up and giving myself the chance to get into auto mode works best. Slightly different than the video but probably using the same principle.
However I do think I need to think about fixing these bad shots that are creeping into my game. It’s no good being in great position on the fairway and then topping your next shot 10yds or worse putting it on the beach. So the technique checking definitely has a place but as you say, not in the middel fo a round.

By: Grayden Provis

Grayden Provis — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:33:21 +0000

Lukey: I like the way you summarize it: “Things are getting closer rather than further away”. Excellent. You’ve put into words exactly how I feel too. Thanks for that.

By: Cameron

Cameron — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:32:11 +0000

@Lukey: Bad shots are par for the course. You can’t be scared to make mistakes and trying to avoid them at all costs is a waste of energy. I think I need to post some more stuff on course strategy. This is also important and something I haven’t don a lot on.