12. Shot to shot to shot

Although you haven’t mentioned that you used the “trick” of adding in to the routine a memory of your last “perfect” shot, it was designed to make you activate your subconscious at that point in time when you could easily be most distracted. I mentioned to you on the phone that after he had played a particularly delightful chip out of the rough, I asked Richard to bring to each subsequent shot the memory of the rhythm of that chip. Whether he did or not I obvioulsy don’t know for certain but he did hole a difficult putt then hit a glorious drive, an immaculate approach and eagled the par-5 18th.

Afterwards, I was thinking of your medal round last Saturday when after that disastrous start you were blowing hot and cold, and I thought that if you found yourself in a similar situation then it would be worth bringing to mind a strong memory of a really nice swing and then allow the memory to make you smile, and let yourself wallow in the beautifulness of “timing”. If at any point thereafter you hit a particularly well “timed” shot then you could use that memory on your next shot and so on with the aim of consciously trying to generate momentum in the round and prevent the round blowing hot and cold.

Putting – (Please accept the following as “lecture notes”) – The task facing a golfer standing over a putt isn’t quite what it is usually made out to be. This is how I see it.

Of all golf shots, the target of a putt – the hole – is the most specific. And because it is so specific, so the golfer is easily deceived into believing that the easily visible outcome of a putt (did the putt drop? how close did it finish? did it miss to the left or the right? etc) gives him useful information. But the outcome of the putt may not give him useful information; worse still, a lot of the information he believes he can deduce from the very visible outcome may be downright unhelpful, and may lead to all sorts of unnecessary and damaging adjustments to technique and equipment. Only on greens do you see technique and equipment that can best be described as eccentric.

To balance this tendency to read too much into what the outcome of putts tells us, it is worth considering exactly what is happening when a putt is faced and then struck.

As with all other golf shots the golfer has to first choose and then apply a specific force (speed and direction). This choice of force is wholly at the discretion and judgement of the golfer. Having chosen the force required he then needs to apply that force which, as we know, can only be done successfully with a “timed” golf shot.

Unfortunately for the putting analyst, lots of well-timed putts don’t go into the hole and many mis-timed putts do! This is because on all putts there is more than one combination of direction and speed that will see the ball drop into the hole. A mis-timed putt could easily end up on the right line at the right speed for it to drop. Likewise, a “well-timed” putt could easily miss simply because the golfer chose the wrong force to apply in the first place.

Choosing a force is fraught with difficulties: the speed of the greens, the slopes and hollows, indentations and obstructions, wind, moisture. The further the ball is away from the hole, so finding the force that will see the ball drop becomes more difficult as the number of possibly successful combinations reduces. Moreover, the line is chosen by the golfer by looking along the line of the putt, and then the golfer has to move at right angles to the line in order to strike the ball (cf. snooker). All in all, when considered in the cold light of day, it is a minor miracle that any putts drop at all.

My view is that a golfer “sees” the line of most putts in the first few seconds of lining-up. This view comes from my own experience of playing golf and bowls and is in line with what is known to scientists about the strength of visual first impressions that humans use to make many, many judgements in life.

Therefore, spending too much time lining-up will confuse matters for the golfer rather than help clarify them and is to be avoided. Also, time spent lining-up has the propensity to take time away from the much more difficult task of deciding on length, which is more difficult than lining-up because of the sheer number of “invisible” variables involved.

The task, then, facing a golfer standing over a putt is to quickly choose his line, identify the desired pace and then “time” his putt using the preferred method (NB: A huge advantage of visualising putts over visualising other shots is the powerful image of the ball rolling all the way towards and then into the highly specific target, commomnly known as “the hole”). A well-timed putt will travel along the chosen line at the chosen speed.

Given this context, then, a well-timed putt (and the golfer will know whether it has been “timed” or not) that ends up close to the hole is a successful putt and should be viewed as such because the golfer has chosen a sufficiently correct line and length and has “timed” the putt. A well-timed putt that ends up dropping into the hole should be viewed as a “lucky” version of the successful putt described above because it is a matter of luck that precisely the correct combination of line and length has been chosen and found. A well-timed putt that ends up on the lip is a successful putt that lacked a little bit of luck.

This view of putting should enable the golfer to accept the vicissitudes of the putting green with equanimity, and he should then be able to avoid having the momentum of his round overly affected by near-misses. This view of putting should also enable the golfer to approach his task on the putting green with absolute clarity: ie, choose a line, choose a length, “time” the putt, accept the outcome.

Wind – (Please accept the following as “lecture notes”) – My view of the effect of wind is based purely on experience because my knowledge of aerodynamics is limited.

Crosswinds – From experience, I think that the effect of crosswinds on well struck golf shots is overplayed. Possibly, a golf ball towards the end of its flight can be caught by a gust and the visual impression is so strong that the belief that golf shots are prone to interference from crosswinds can take hold. Also, it is perfectly imaginable that on occasion a gust is so strong that it is capable of affecting the flight of just about anything. However, given the caveats mentioned above, as a rule of thumb, if the wind is light enough to allow play then it is generally not going to be strong enough as a crosswind to affect the flight of a well struck shot.

Following winds – From experience, playing in following winds is a nightmare and must be even worse for good golfers. All a golfer can do is to allow the strength of the wind to influence his choice of club and shot and then commit fully to finding the rhythm that will produce “timing” and then hope for the best.

Swirling, gusting winds – Repair to the bar.