Let Your Body Be Your Guide

November 15, 2024

Every time I play I am reminded of how far and straight I used to hit the golf ball. I can’t count the number of times I’ve said out loud “I remember when I could hit the ball over that tree with a persimmon driver and a balata ball, New I can’t get within twenty yards short.”

Well back then I was thirty years old and now I am 73.

I was hitting some wedges last week and discovered that my grip had become extremely weakened. I was losing distance and hitting many bad golf shots. The bottom line is that my scores went up from the mid 70’s to the upper 80’s. Not a pleasant feeling; and it was getting worse every time I played.

I started using a stronger, firmer grip and started to hit the ball solid again, what a great feeling. Shot after shot was as good as I could get. So I decided to take this stronger, firmer grip to the golf course.

I started out with a mediocre tee shot, pulled a hybrid nearly out of bounds, but did manage to hit a decent wedge into the opening par 5. Two putted for a par. Well, as the golf gods were watching me, things just got worse from there. By the 17th hole I was determined to quit the game.

I figured I was getting too old to be competitive, and too weak to swing a club efficiently. Best to just to enjoy a day on the golf course and give uo the sinking ship.

Well that approach wasn’t worth anything to me. I decided that if I couldn’t play real golf anymore that I would just sit in the garage with the dog. I was finished as a real golfer. Lost in space as it were. Many years earlier I made the same decision. I was down to one golf ball and proceeded to hit it out of bounds into a tree on a really windy day. I picked up my tee and said to myself “if that ball is gone I am done with golf forever.” As I was walking to my golf bag, I looked up at that tree, and it seemed like an eternity, but the ball came flinging out thirty feet into the left rough by the green. I did a really quick double take, and decided it was for real.

Many feelings rushed into my body. The least desirable of which was that I had to keep playing. So I walked to my ball, chipped it up and made a par. This happened over forty years ago but I remember the event as if it was just a few minutes ago.

I finished the round with that one ball. My golf career continued, and I eventually became a PGA Professional.

Let me get to the point.

I have been through many injuries, illnesses, and golfing ups and downs. Many highs and lows. I have changed my swing many times. I actually regained strength and became really proficient at the large muscle core centric golf swing. I watch dot guys on Tours worldwide, studied the swing, and become consciously for the first time really proficient and swinging a golf club. I started shooting in the 60’s and low 70’s. I became good at it.

After a battle with cancer, surgeries, weakness, and really bad knees, I found myself in a not so good golfing position.

So the other day I went out with my wedge, and out of the blue started to swing my old efficiently familiar golf swing. I was using an entirely different set of muscles, was releasing the golf club through impact, and was actually hitting golf shots again. This is a 180 degree turnaround.

Using the large muscles in the modern golf swing is probably the most efficient way to win got golf club. But, and this is a big however, as the years go by we get older. The older you get the more your body changes. The more your body changes, naturally, the more your golf swing changes.

I wonder how many of these young strong, large muscle, core, lat oriented, big swinging people on the Tours will still be as efficient in their swinging of the golf club ten or fifteen years from now?

So I turned my entire golf swing around by inadvertently focusing on an entirely different set of muscles, giving me, in return an entirely different move through impact.

It’s nothing drastic. I am just using my smaller more controllable muscles in conjunction with the large muscles that are still functional and that I am still able to us.

I am getting the fever again. I am excited about the golf swing. The drudgery is gone. I practice some everyday, and cannot wait to get back onto the golf course.