I know what you’re thinking, why are you comparing me to Rory?! Well let’s take a minute and look at today’s news story about Rory McIlroy and a few swing changes he apparently began working on a few weeks ago. The word is he’s working on posture and swing plane- now why would a player like that need to work on posture and swing plane? I’m sure through mutual collaboration he and his swing coach decided that those two areas would make him a stronger player, plain and simple yes?
Ok Coach, but what’s this whole story got to do with me? Well Rory states, “I still feel it’s going to take a couple more weeks to fully click in, but it’s definitely on the right track.” The goal is for his swing changes to peak during Masters week which is at least 5 weeks away. Now, we can finally discuss what this has to do with you…
First of all, when was the last time you had a lesson, can you vaguely remember?! Second, what expectations did you take into the lesson for yourself and your teacher? What level of commitment did you carry over after the lesson to make the changes? This goes along with my desire to help change the golf industry away from “lessons” and into coaching. Did you ever take a one hour basketball lesson in high school? No, you had a coach, you practiced 3-5 times a week doing drills and scrimmages to help transfer those skills into playing performance.
Now to my final point: if one of THE best players in the world is completely ok with allowing himself 5-6 weeks to make swing changes, and if you’re not a professional golfer, how does that change your thinking? Some people (probably not my readers) come to a “lesson” and expect minor miracles but yet don’t consider that practice IS required to change motor skill patterns. If the best in the world have to do it, well….you probably will have to also!
Want to get better? Sure who doesn’t, right? Get good information, apply that information in practice and good things will happen. Something to think about…