10 Stupid Things Golfers do to Mess Up Their Game

NO. 1 “The pros make it look so easy.”

Golf instructors hear this one all the time. When average players get a chance to see a tour-caliber player in person, they always marvel at how little energy the player seems to expend to hit the ball great distances. “Their swings look so effortless. It’s like they’re not even doing anything.” The poor players take this illusion, and, not understanding what they are looking at, try to emulate the appearance of ease by making lazy, sloppy movements that begin with bad posture and a loose grip and wave through the ball with no coiling in their pivot and no snap at impact. When a golf ball goes far it is not by magic. There is a tremendous amount of speed being produced by the player, and it is not a result of “swinging easy.”

For all of you who think the pros have some sort of secret method to hit the ball hard without doing anything, just come on out to the range and let me put you into the positions a good player passes through on the way to a 280-yard drive. You will see the “secret” is the ability to stretch, resist, bend, twist and rotate at high speed in a manner so fluid that it appears graceful and free of strain.

For the average person, just getting into these positions is problematic, much less coordinating them in the proper sequence and at full speed. The requirements of good ball striking are so demanding that there are simply not that many people who can hit the ball well at all. Many of those who can are simply lucky, freaks of nature who never had to think about what they were doing. For everyone else, hitting the ball is a chore, and there is a lot of work involved in teaching the body to move the right way at the right time. It is anything but easy. However, the more you work on combining good positioning with free-flowing motion, the better you will swing.

NO. 2 “If I could only hit the ball with my practice swing, I would be great.”

Oh yeah? I can’t tell you how many times I hear this one. First of all, stop annoying yourself with this ridiculous statement. You will never hit a ball with your practice swing, because if you did, it wouldn’t be a practice swing. The simple reason that it is so easy to take what feels like a great swing that accomplishes everything you ever wanted to do in a swing when there is no ball there is that there is no ball there.

There is nothing to tell you whether it was really any good at all. And after filming tons of practice swings, I can tell you that almost none of them would hit even a remotely good shot because the clubface is nowhere near square when it passes by where the imaginary ball would be. But, then, wouldn’t swinging a golf club be easy if the requirements of clubface angle at impact were suddenly waived and any swinging motion would propel the ball toward the target?

Of course, since it is only a practice swing, there will never be a ball in front of the face to tell you that you just hit a screaming shank, or that the nice, easy swing you just made hit your 7-iron 85 yards. Practice swings allow you to think about what you want to do during the swing and serve as a combination of rehearsal and relaxing agent for the real swing. Don’t get hung up on your practice swing. Concentrate on how you feel when there is a ball in front of the club: That’s the swing that counts.

NO. 3 “I just want to be more consistent.”

Where in the world did the idea come from that you can be consistent if you’re not any good? If you’re a 25 handicap, do you really want to be consistent? And do what, shoot 100 every single time you play? If 100 is the best you can do, and you tend to shoot 110 more often than not, then the lower score is inconsistent in a positive direction.

Everyone has good days and bad days. If you are not a good player, the idea is to try to get better, not more consistent. If you are working hard on improving, you can expect to shoot bad scores along with your good ones. It’s all part of the learning process.

A better player tends to not have large divergence in his scores, but golf is a game where how good you are is measured over time by the average of the scores you shoot. As you improve, your bad rounds won’t be quite as bad, and your good rounds will be a bit better. Soon, you will be consistently better, although the difference between your high and low rounds probably won’t change. It’s just the nature of the game: No one plays the same all the time.

NO. 4 “Why can’t I do that every time?”

This one goes right along with “I just want to be more consistent.” Most players can hit good shots – the problem is, they don’t hit them very often. But when they hit one or two great shots, they feel that this should be the level at which they play all the time, and that their inability to do so relates somehow to mental problems or some mysterious malady that keeps them from being more “consistent.”

What all golfers need to understand is that good technique, or educated technique (that which is repeatable and returns the club to good impact alignments), hits good shots, and it hits them with greater frequency than technique that is not as good. The catch is that poor technique is perfectly capable of hitting great shots, just not that many or not in a row. Realize, though, that these wonderful shots are more luck than anything else, and the preponderance of lesser quality shots is a signal that you need to improve your swing. You would really rather not groove the swing you have. By definition it is incapable of hitting more good shots than you do already. Even in cases where you feel that additional pressure is causing your game to unravel, just remember that better technique holds up better when it counts. Having faith in a swing that works is the best medicine for nerves.

NO. 5 “I don’t want to practice the wrong thing.”

Too many golfers use this excuse to exempt themselves from working at their games. If you did everything right, you wouldn’t need to practice at all. When you are on the range or on the pitching or putting green, you are not mindlessly repeating perfect strokes. Nobody has a perfect stroke in the first place, so there really is no such thing as “perfect practice.”

You are out there to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. The act of repeating a mistake over and over is necessary and good if on each attempt you are consciously trying to do it better. Sooner or later you will remember something you already knew or what you have recently been taught, and you will make a breakthrough.

There is no knowledge as dear as that which you have found for yourself. Ben Hogan often told those who sought his knowledge to “dig it out of the ground like I did.” Most of us need guidance. But going to your next lesson without practice because you didn’t want to do it wrong and ingrain bad habits is foolish and self-defeating.

Get out there and suffer a bit. Just use your head and the knowledge that you have up to that given moment and put in the work. It’s the only way to learn and improve.

NO. 6 “I didn’t get under it.”

I cringe when I hear this. It seems that every topped shot and every bladed pitch shot is followed by the cry of, “I didn’t get under it.” No, no, no! You’re not supposed to get “under” the ball at all.

In fact, the mere thought of getting under the ball is what’s causing you to miss it in the first place. Even fat shots, or shots that are scooped and fluffed up and fall short, are caused by incorrectly aiming the bottom edge of the clubhead under the front edge of the ball and trying to lift the ball up into the air.

If you try to hit the ball this way, you are actually trying to hit a fat shot. If you land behind or under the ball, chances are good that the shot will end up in the same grass out of which you are trying to escape. If you try to correct for the fat or scooped shot by coming up a bit as you hit the ball, it is quite easy to skull or even top it.

The question everyone is asking is, “How do I make the ball get up into the air?” The answer is simple. Hit down on it. Hit down on every ball that lies on the ground. Never try to get under or lift any shot. In the sand, the club does pass under the ball, but you accomplish that by hitting down on the sand behind the ball with an open clubface. It is understandably difficult to visualize a club that looks like it is built to scoop, especially a high-lofted club such as a sand wedge, striking a downward blow on the ball and making the ball fly upward. To get a better picture of this, turn the club over so that the back of the clubhead faces the ball. What you will see is negative loft, exactly the reverse of how the club is normally used.

If you then picture hitting one with the club turned in this manner, you will immediately see that you would bury the ball right into the ground. This is exactly the idea when hitting the ball off the ground, especially around the green. Aim to land the bottom edge of the club in front of the ball, not behind it. Hit with a descending blow, don’t try to get under it and lift it.

The club is designed with loft: Hitting down gives you the best chance to hit the face of the club, which will automatically pop it up in the air. All divots should begin on the side of the ball closest to the target, even when the ball lies in high grass.

NO. 7 “I’m not turning enough.”

If you believed all of the people who take golf lessons, no one has ever “turned” quite enough. When we think of making a turn in the golf swing, we should really be thinking in terms of quality instead of quantity.

There are loads of ways to make more of a turn, which in most misguided minds leads to greater “extension,” a bigger “arc,” and thus the guarantee of more power. Unfortunately, the search for a bigger backswing is probably the single major cause for power leakage in the average player.

In trying to make a bigger shoulder turn the mistake the golfer makes is to allow or even encourage the lower trunk to swivel right along with the upper. A 90-degree shoulder turn does not mean much when coupled with a 70-degree hip turn. The lower body gets so twisted around that it has trouble leading the downswing correctly and never gets far enough around or to the left to help square the clubface. Most people feel this as the elusive and mysterious “timing,” which actually refers to the sensation (or lack of) of moving the swing along in a coordinated, rhythmical motion that ends up in a decent shot.

Initiating the downswing with the lower body is one of the key essentials to building a repeating swing. Overturning causes major breakdowns in overall pivot movement, which in turn makes it difficult to properly use the other main areas of focus in the golf swing, the arms and the hands. If the legs stay braced during the backswing, with the right knee remaining flexed, the weight that is transferring to the right side staying firmly on the inside of the right foot, and the left knee moving only a few inches away from its starting point, then the shoulders will immediately feel limited in the amount that they can turn.

This creates a more efficient coiling of the upper body against the lower, and tends to shorten and compact most golfer’s swings, eventually resulting in a better overall swing.

NO. 8 “Why did that one fade?”

Almost all golfers are too critical of the shots they hit. I once gave a woman a lesson who, for 45 minutes, topped and shanked every shot. Finally she got one off the ground, a quite decent shot, actually, and she looked up at me and said, “Why did it go to the right?” I proceeded to have a long discussion with her regarding her attitude toward the game, in which I explained that if you can’t get it off the ground, and then you hit it up in the air but a bit to the right, you should be happy anyway.

She didn’t seem to understand this at all, and when she said, “Well, now I need to do that every time,” I knew that this was not the type of person I wanted to teach. When I play, I couldn’t care less if a ball draws or fades, or if it comes in low or high, as long as it ends up close to where I was aiming it.

It’s always nice to hit solid shots. Distance control is key to good golf, and hitting it solidly is the key to distance control. But it doesn’t matter a bit if the ball moves one way or another. The game is hard enough without judging your shots on the aesthetic value of their flight through the air. I choose to aim where I want the ball to finish. If it curves a bit that’s fine.

Obviously, duck hooks or banana slices don’t qualify as solid shots and don’t usually end up close to the intended target, so becoming annoyed with this type of shot is understandable. We should all, however, remember just how good we really are (or are not) and remember how hard it is to hit even decent golf shots. Give yourself a break and be happy with good results.

NO. 9 “I should work the ball around the course.”

This is a malady that affects the better golfer, especially the ones who read the popular golf magazines that regularly offer instructional articles exhorting the reader to play “strategic golf.”

“Working the ball” refers to the act of curving the golf ball toward its target. By hitting a fade to a pin set far to the right, or hooking it into a far left pin, the accomplished player has the advantage of starting the ball over the fat part of the green and curving it back to the pin, thus allowing a straight shot to land safely in the center.

What most of those who try this forget, however, is that the great tendency when trying to curve a ball is overcurving it, which inevitably leaves the ball off the green, on the short side of the pin, with a very difficult up and down at best. Adding to the problem is the player’s mental attitude when he looks at the next shot facing him and realizes that if he hadn’t been so greedy, he could have hit a simple straight shot to the middle of the green and had a nice try for birdie.

But no, you had to be Ben Hogan and “work it in there,” and now you’ve basically screwed yourself. I almost never work a ball unless it is required to get it on the green or in the fairway. Golf is hard enough. I figure if I aim where I want the ball to go and swing to hit it basically straight, if it draws or fades a bit, I won’t care: It’s good enough if it ends up relatively close to where I’m aiming.

I don’t have to hit every shot with the same curve. I want results, and I want to keep the game as simple as possible. Hitting the fairway is an accomplishment in itself. I may aim for one side or the other, but I’m never going to berate myself for driving the ball in the fairway. I know how good I am, and I’m not that good.

NO. 10 “Don’t show me what the pros do because I’ll never be a pro. I just want to be decent and not embarrass myself.”

This is a very understandable attitude for any golfer who plays to a double-digit handicap. That is not to say that it is a good attitude to have. On the contrary, it is self-defeating, and keeps many golfers from ever approaching their potential. Professionals on the highest levels have no secrets. Their swings are based on the same physics and geometry for which all golfers should strive. Most of us have limitations (lack of time, physical ability, or talent) that will forever keep us from being great golfers. But the search for improvement is much better directed when it is based on what actual golfers are doing as opposed to what theories are being promoted as to how best to swing the club and get the ball into the hole.

When we look at all the successful golf swings of the past and present, one thing stands out as the most obvious: They are all very different. One of the great things about the game is that there is no one method of playing or swinging that outperforms all others. There have been excellent players of every body type and with all sorts of variations of swing technique.

As I study my own swing, as well as the swings of the great tour pros past and present, I find new ways to help every golfer and, at the same time, build and refine the model that comprises the fundamental swing positions that will help anyone improve should he succeed in approaching them. The key word here is “approach.” You don’t have to swing exactly like a pro, but you should try to incorporate into your own style the things that the best players do.

As you understand and feel the positions and motion that comprise the swings of the best players, and as you incorporate these mechanics into your own game, you will improve. Don’t sell yourself short. Trust me when I tell you that you are capable of more than you think. A little desire and a lot of perseverance, along with some educated guidance, go a long way in this most difficult of all games.