The Natural Golf Swing (8 page)

M
ORE THAN
any other quality that they have in common, athletic champions are “in balance.” It’s a wonderful quality to observe, this ability to remain stabilized while in motion. It’s nothing less than
the
identifying characteristic of elite athletes, whether the performer is baseball batter Don Mattingly, sprinter Ben Johnson, hockey genius Wayne Gretzky, or golfer Seve Ballesteros. Their grace of form and ease of movement make us take notice. To me, these athletes are displaying something beautiful. The majesty of his golfing form drew me to Ben Hogan, and the same thing today draws me to Ballesteros. There is a harmony in their movements, a quietness or stillness. They are centered. From that centre they generate swing motions that in my opinion rival in simplicity and connection of sequences the most inspiring of dances. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to consider the swing motion a dance. Mikhail Baryshnikov moves elegantly and powerfully in space; he thrills us because he is so exquisitely balanced and can thus probe the edges of the space in which he is dancing. So can the well-balanced golfer. He can push himself to the limit because he is aware of the edge that he cannot go beyond without losing balance.

The golfer who can sense his swing as a dance will be able to change his focus. Instead of seeing the ball and a hit, he will focus on his body and a swing; here is where he can most productively place his attention. Imagine yourself as this golfer, moving back and forth with a golf club in your hands. Feel yourself exploring the range of movement permissible for you – given your physique and flexibility – without losing balance.

By balance I don’t mean only the kind of stability we associate with movement. The kind of balance you need to develop the natural golf swing is a balance of mind, body, and emotion. A swing theory that is based on balance must incorporate this more comprehensive idea, and show that it is impossible to make a coherent swing motion while out of balance in any area.

The kind of balance I advocate begins with a logical conception of the swing. The golfer who knows what he is trying to do will have mental balance. He will stand up to every shot confident that his method makes sense. He will approach each shot with the certainty that if he carries out his procedures properly he cannot help but produce a good swing. But he must know what he is trying to do. Given that, he can accept error. He is, after all, a human being. This is why I say that it isn’t so much what we do as what we attempt to do that counts. We will make mistakes. We will revert to old habits. But we can progress as long as we understand what we are trying to do.

Such knowledge promotes emotional balance. The golfer who has a clear conception of the swing motion will be able to ward off the insults the game brings. The golfer who has procedures to follow won’t be buffeted by emotion. A routine will give him something to do; he will take care of time, one of golf’s major challenges. There is too much time for us to think in golf; and if we don’t know what to think about, we’ll probably worry. The game will beat us if we are prone to such anxiety. The golfer who follows his procedures with each shot, however, will be in a concentrated
state. He has something to do on each shot, and that gives him the best chance for making a correct motion.

The knowledgeable golfer will also be impervious to the confusion and anxiety that poor shots can cause. Anxiety is due to a lack of awareness. Most golfers don’t know why they hit a good or bad shot. They wonder why such and such happened. They play without a foundation from one swing to the next and judge their play solely by the result they get. It doesn’t matter to them if the ball has flown in the opposite direction to the one intended; they’re content as long as the ball finishes in play or on the green. If they get a good result, they think they made a decent swing. Well, maybe they did. But what chance have they of repeating the swing if they don’t know what causes what? Where’s their security?

The golfer who understands the concept of the natural golf swing won’t feel anxious. He will be able to evaluate every swing to see where he went wrong, and go on to the next one. He will be trying to do the same thing with each swing motion. This is because he understands the factors behind the basic swing. Evaluation and assessment enable him to consider the causes of his misplays, and then forget them. This will encourage emotional balance. He will gradually learn to play one shot at a time and by doing so will be able to enjoy the game more. This happens when we take the pressure off any one shot. Knowledge breeds confidence and calmness. The relaxed golfer can play the game and accept its ups-and-downs while the agitated golfer may find himself terrified of the next challenge.

The concentrated state that I am describing isn’t easily come by. We need to be vigilant so that we might modify our behaviour and ensure we do not play a shot while feeling disorganized. The slightest feeling of
discomfort over the ball must be enough to warn us away from the impending stroke.

Who can forget, to cite one example, the four-iron that Seve Ballesteros struck into the water in front of the fifteenth green during the 1986 Masters? The shot was a weak, pulled effort and effectively cost him the Masters, notwithstanding Jack Nicklaus’s brilliant rush of seven-under-par golf over the last ten holes to take the tournament. Ballesteros was in position to hit the green and perhaps eagle the hole. Instead, he lost concentration and misplayed the shot.

Later, Ballesteros said that he was indecisive over the ball, that he ought to have played a hard five-iron since he was feeling so charged up. But he didn’t monitor his emotional state at the moment. He let anxiety get the better of him instead of stepping away from the ball to better assess how he was feeling.

I had a similar experience during the last round of the 1966 Masters in Augusta, Georgia while in contention and on the twelfth tee. Eager to learn my exact position and possibilities, I had a look at the scoreboard behind the eleventh green. That in itself wasn’t a good idea, as it took my mind off my plan of playing one shot at a time. Anyway, I looked, and figured if I could birdie the par-five thirteenth and fifteenth holes along with one other, I might get into a playoff. Filled with anticipation and nearly detonating with adrenalin, I could hardly get my feet on the ground as I teed it up on the twelfth, that gorgeous and tricky par-three where Rae’s Creek sits in front of the green.

What was I going to do? I was so excited that I couldn’t settle down. But I had to play the shot. I thought, well, I’ll just hit the ball between the bounces of my feet. So I took the six-iron and hit the ball just on the front edge of the green – from where it spun back into the creek. Now I had to drop and take a shot penalty, but I did get up-and-down from the tee side of the creek for bogey. The adrenalin burst lasted just that one
swing on the tee, but it was enough. It cost me any chance of getting into a playoff.

Later, I assessed what had happened. I’d gotten ahead of myself, out of balance. Anticipation got the better of me. I’d given in to it. Then I saw Arnold Palmer. He’d won the tournament in 1958, 1960, 1962, and 1964. I related the story of what had happened to me on the twelfth tee.

Palmer said, “So what’s new about that? I was like that the entire last round in 1958.” The difference was that Palmer was able to play through it. I didn’t know what to do with the feelings. I should have calmed myself down after looking at the scoreboard. But I didn’t realize how important it was to be emotionally balanced. I wasn’t aware of how closely I had to monitor myself.

Not long ago, I had another illuminating experience while I was out hitting balls. I’d made a few nice passes with a five-iron, after which I started swinging a three-iron. Ten or twelve swings into my practice session, I noticed that I wasn’t feeling as free-wheeling through the ball as I normally do. Stepping back, I stopped for a moment and chuckled. As much as I know how important it is to evaluate each swing according to whether or not I was in balance – and a few other fundamentals I will teach you – I hadn’t been doing so. I’d fallen into driving range boredom: hitting one shot after another without setting up properly, without thinking about what I was trying to do. No wonder I’d lost the sense of freedom. Here was a useful object lesson. It suggested I had better keep my mind on what I was doing. Bad habits are a mere lapse of concentration away.

Now even when you understand that mental balance or knowledge leads to emotional balance, you must still keep an eye on your responses. It’s self-knowledge.
You have to learn what emotions work for you. Do you need quiet or excitement? Do you like to chit-chat while you’re playing or would you rather play golf as if it were chess, silently? Are you a fast walker or do you prefer a modest pace?

Palmer likes the excitement. Fellows such as Julius Boros, Gene Littler, or Larry Nelson prefer something milder. Ballesteros seems to want to conquer, and needs the right venue to get in the conquistador spirit. He was exhilarating when he won the 1984 British Open over the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland, and equally thrilling when he led the British-European team to its first Ryder Cup victory on American soil in the fall of 1987. Perhaps this is why he seems to court controversy in the golf world. He needs to feel fired up. It’s the dynamo in him.

Whatever your disposition, you will learn to lessen your anxiety as you come to understand the natural golf swing. Lowering your anxiety will allow you to learn about yourself on the course. Anxiety impedes self-knowledge; it’s all we can think about when we’re beset by the feeling. Yet it’s the emotional state in which most of us are locked.

You will, however, progress as you practise the natural golf swing and learn to evaluate both your poor swings and your successful ones. Mental and emotional balance will open you up to the physical pleasures that come with a coordinated swing motion. You will appreciate that the graceful swing is also the pleasurable swing. As you experience more enjoyment from the motion itself, you will more easily drop your old habits and ways of thinking.

I’ve always thought that preparation is one of the most important aspects of golf. We want to set up an environment in which we have the best chance of performing to the maximum of our ability. I like to stack the deck, but it’s still too easy to go to the course with the wrong cards. It’s happened to me plenty of times.

Consider the ways in which we can get out of balance even before we pick up a club. For one thing, we may set up imbalances in the way we approach the game. Imagine the following situation, one that I’m sure we’re all familiar with.

You’ve got a game arranged for eleven o’clock. You’ve known about it for two weeks. Somehow, though, you’ve neglected to organize your morning schedule so that you can arrive at the course in plenty of time for your game. Come 10:30, you scream out of your office and tear along the highway to the course. You’re pulling off your tie as you drive into the parking lot, and putting on your shoes with five minutes to go before your tee-time. Of course, you haven’t given a moment’s thought to your strategy for the first tee. You jog out there nearly out of breath, say hello to your friends as you grab the driver from your bag, stick a tee in the ground, and whack your first shot out of bounds.

Foolish start, wouldn’t you agree? But we’re all guilty of it. And yet when we hit our opening shot poorly, we still tend to blame our swings. Sure, the swing was the culprit, but it’s only a reflection of the imbalances we allowed ourselves to feel beforehand. The swing reflects what was going on in our nervous system. Errors in the swing often begin with errors in the mind.

Balance means
setting up an environment in which you can do your best work
. This comes from knowledge, application, and preparation. The golfer who doesn’t have a clear idea of what he is trying to do will be one scared golfer. He’ll be jerky and out-of-sorts.

In the mid-sixties, I was playing an exhibition not far from Vancouver. We were flying into Seattle in a little amphibious plane when we ran into trouble. It looked like the thing would go under, but somehow we got
to the dock. I got my stuff together, raced to the car, and made it to the course just in time. The starter was giving me last call to the tee. And what did I do? Exactly what you might think. I knocked the ball out of bounds.

That’s not the way to balance. Preparation
is
. I normally get up three hours in advance of my tee time and do everything in a nice leisurely way. When I played the U.S. tour, I’d even drive to the course at fifty miles an hour in a sixty-miles-per-hour zone. Never would I exceed the speed limit. Along the way I’d think about how the course might play that day, the shots I’d need. Then I’d go to the range and play every shot I could anticipate. It didn’t matter what club I had in my hands because I was working with the swing motion. It wasn’t that I hit a driver on the range and then a four-iron, as if I were playing the first hole. My mind was on the swing itself, and so I could work with a wedge or a driver. The point was that I was working creatively, not just banging balls. I had a purpose.

By the time I got to the first tee, then, I’d reviewed the course on my way to the club, and then played it in my mind while on the range. I was giving myself a chance by preparing properly. I didn’t want to self-destruct because of poor preparation. It was all in the interest of balance.

I can hear you say to yourself: “This is all very well for Knudson, this business of getting up three hours before his tee-off time to prepare for his round. He plays the game for a living. But I don’t. I’ve got things to do at home and the office. I can’t take that much time. I’m lucky to get to the course in time to have a coffee, never mind a leisurely warm-up session.”

Fair enough. I appreciate that you may not have the time I do. But I make the point anyway. I don’t want you to do anything at the expense of balance. Maybe you shouldn’t plan a golf game if you know you don’t have the time to prepare properly. Better to take care of business, then practise a while and play nine holes. Why exasperate yourself? Do it right and you’ll be further ahead in the long run.