Golf Myths

Practically every weekend golfer looks for golf swing tips to try and discover the holy grail of the perfect golf swing. Unfortunately, like so many of King Arthur’s knights, they never find it. Why not? Is it because they lack the talent, faith or hard work? Is there some missing ingredient which causes the golf swing tips they learn to fail for them?

First of all, many golfers just do not have enough practise. Golf, like martial arts or any other sport, requires practise. Unlike, say martial arts, where you only need to practice your kicks and punches on a flat surface, golf can be much more complicated. Golf is closer to warfare – you need to practice how to use 14 different golf clubs on a variety of different surfaces and terrain. How many of us actually manage to practice all 14 of our golf clubs? At best, most of us only train with two golf clubs – the driver and the putter. What about the 2 fairway woods? And the irons and wedges? How many strokes do you lose in the sand trap or bunker because you were not familiar enough with your wedges? Is your skill with your irons good enough to get you out of the roughs efficiently?

So, it does not matter how many golf swing tips you managed to find. If you failed to get enough training with all 14 of your golf clubs, 1 tip has the same effect as 10 tips — absolutely zero. Consider the example of Vijay Singh. Many golf experts and analysts have various nit-picks about his golf swing mechanics. Some of them do not like his posture. Some dislike his backswing. Others think he has excessive followthrough. But he ignores them all. All he does is swing his club at the ball all day long. Even during tournaments, he is reported to practice his swings 3 to 6 hours everyday. All this training pays off for him – he is a consistent tournament winner, earning six to seven figures every year in prizes.

Secondly, too many people rely on finding a silver bullet. Instead of practicing their swings and other shots, they waste their time looking at the latest new-fangled golf club in the catalog or golf shop. As if getting the latest and greatest driver or hybrid club will improve their golf swing without any practise. They forget that every time they change their club they need to re-learn the golf swing mechanics of that club. This is especially bad for some golfers who buy new golf clubs like their wives buy new shoes.

Thirdly, many golfers do not fully understand their golf swing techniques. They take the golf swing tip for one technique and try to apply it to another golf swing technique, with disastrous results for their golf swing. At the most basic level, there are two different types of swing – the “one plane swing” and the “two plane swing”. When you read a tip, do you know which type of swing that tip is meant for? Many golfers face serious problems when they apply the tip for the “one plane swing” to their “two plane swing” or vice versa. For your information, Vijay Singh uses the “one plane swing” while Greg Norman uses the “two plane swing”.

Despite the proliferation of golf swing tips and free golf lessons online, you only really need one tip to improve your golf swing technique – just hit the ball more often. That is all. Just hit the golf ball 10 times more everyday and you will see your handicap improving (Unless you already hit the ball 1000 times everyday).

By: Godfrey Swain

About the Author:

golf swing