Instinct Driven Golf Swing
Forget What You Know
11/23/2024
The first thing I had to do to get where I wanted to go, is forget what I know or think I know about the golf swing.
Golf is just about the only exercise I have left.
After cancer, cancer surgery, numerous infections, two hernia surgeries, cyst surgery, knee surgery, stem cell treatments, over a hundred physical therapy sessions, my body and resulting golf swing has undergone major and rapid changes over the las twenty five years.
I have gone a full year without playing golf or swinging a golf club, and have had many layoffs of varying time over the years.
This fall, 2024, after another major hernia surgery and a three month layoff, I started playing golf again.
My knees are advanced bone on bone, so hitting balls on the range is a limited exercise. To get started I spent a few short sessions practicing. My swing felt really good and strong.
I played in a couple end of season tournaments and had good results. I was going on instinct. Instinct is where I started playing golf.
Back in 1976 I had a factory accident which resulted in a paralyzed left arm, with severe neck and neurological injuries. I took up golf as healing therapy. I was out doors, breathing the fresh air, and exercising.
Because my left arm was almost useless, I would put my left hand in a heavy leather work glove, slide the grip into my fingers, and duct tape my hand over the golf grip. Now the club was attached to my left hand and arm. After placing my right hand on the grip, I used my right arm to swing the club and hit balls. The left arm went along for the ride.
I had pretty good results. What was even better, after a time, my left side, shoulder, arm and hand, started to respond to the movement of swinging a golf club. The nerves started to heal, and the muscles started to work again.
Over a three year period, I went from shooting 130 to shooting 67. Back to the beginning of this story, this was a totally instinct centered process. I learned by swinging, and had to identify and respond to all the stimuli as they were presented to me. It was hard work.
Hitting 500 balls a day and playing at least 18 holes a day. The key is that I was regaining the use of my left arm, and healing myself in the process. I was responding to my body, responding and acting on the signals my body was sending me. I learned to play golf by feel, and trial and error.
After thirty years of being a golf professional, I have given thousands of lessons and kept up with the latest and greatest golf swing theories as they relate to the new equipment and new extreme training regimens and new hard bellied core oriented golfers.
The only problem is I am now 73 years old with a different body than I had when I was 25. I had to learn to swing again with what I have left.
I have been using launch monitors and digital video since the mid 1990’s and have spent a small fortune on the technical approach to the golf swing. Like I said, the only problem is that all this technique is virtually useless to me now.
Back to October 2024, my swing started to fail me and my scores started to go up. Instead of low to mid 70’s I was shooting in the upper 80’s to low 90’s. One day not to long ago out on the golf course, I wanted to quit playing. None of my technical knowledge was working for me, and I was playing, to put it simply, totally incompetent golf.
Tears welled in my eyes, as I faced quitting the game that was so good to me, and that I love with a passion.
I golf my SkyTrak working again, struggled to put my golf netting up once more, and starting back to the task of learning to swing the golf club all over again.
I started by lightening up my arms and grip. Suddenly I noticed I was releasing the club head once again. The swing became a little less encumbered. My shots were more solid, but still not consistent. I went out and shot a 77 from our white tees. “Not bad”, I thought to myself, but I still didn’t know what I was doing.
Over the last 20 years or so I have been tryng to hit a consistent fade, or left to right shaped shot. I used to make some money playing golf because I knew where the ball was going. My competitive juices, physicality, and golf mind started to surface again. I started feeling like I could compete again.
As I hit shots in my backyard into the new with the computer screen in front of me, I noticed that my club heads speed and distance was still lousy, and the direction of my shots were all inconsistently left or left to right. The open stance was not working. What was worse, my swing was labored and my body was hirting again.
On a whim, after trying unsuccessfully on many attempts to hit a draw, a right to left shot, I drastically, at leas the way it looked to me, changed my stance and setup. To my vision, I pulled my right foot way back into what resulted in a really closed stance. I took a couple swings, and noticed a right to left curve on my driver shots.
So I stuck with it. I noticed that my ball position looked familiar again. So I kept swinging. My shots were consistently right to left. My launch angle was steeper, and my ball speed and club head speed was increasing.
My golf swing started to feel free again. I started to feel some power and direction. I used my new setup with all my clubs and all the results were the same. A more positive direction, higher ball and club head speed, and more confidence in what I was doing. My short game was getting better and more controllable. It was a good feeling.
The bottom line was that I followed the direction my body was giving me. I was following my instincts again. I let my feel take over.
I softened up my small muscles, and let them get involved in my swing. It was funny how I could feel an entire set of muscles in my large muscles swing, that didn’t work anymore, and an entirely different set of muscles in my small muscle swing. I can actually turn them off and on like a light switch.
Only now they work together. I took a short, cold video my what I was doing. My old instinctive golf swing move was back, and I was hitting increasingly consistently positive golf shots. What is more to the point, my once shattered left arm and wrist was now straight and pointing at the target at impact.
The impact position folding of a shattered left wrist and arm was gone. At it did not hurt. The pain and flinching was gone. My move through impact was fluid, and took me to a full follow through position.
It is and was not a mystery. It was making the commitment and putting in the hard work to keep playing golf.
Sure I want to shoot better scores. At my level that is what it is all about. But what is more important, I want to hit shots and strike the ball according to my vision.
I will keep working on this experience, and hope for a few years respite from injury and illness.
John B Lombardo, PGA A1 Professional. 11/23/2024