23 May 2023|Golfing with gratitude
What on earth has Keith been smoking? How can Dracula have saved his golf swing?
The answer lies in tempo training and the movie "Hotel Transylvania", but more on that later!
Rhythm is a golfer (dancer)
Jon Sherman talks about tempo in the "Four Foundations of Golf" and the online masterclass. The masterclass also includes some bonus content from John Novosel Jnr explaining how to use the Tour Tempo app with different clubs and shots, including putting which I found very interesting and helpful. I've downloaded the app and have been experimenting with the different tones. I need more time using it to decide if it really helps or not. It is a very basic app for the money but the short videos are helpful. I also need to download the free companion app that allows you to video your swing and calculate your current tempo.
The optimal tempo appears to be a 3:1 ratio for long shots and a 2:1 ratio for short shots and putting. Video analysis of many top professionals has gone into that determination. Some may swing faster and others slower, but most fit the ratio. I'm not quite in that ratio at the moment but I'm using the tones from the app to try and get me there. When playing (and can't use the tones) is where Drac comes back in! When I've dabbled with tempo before, I've tried to use either a song or a piece of music to keep me in check, but I can either never stick with it or another song will pop into my head and mess me up. Somewhat embarrassingly my go-to song was Trio "Da Da Da, ich liebe dich ich, du liebst mich nicht". But the way Drac says "Blah, blah, blah" in Hotel Transylvania seems to be sticking - I can slow it down for driving and speed it up for the short game.
What a song
Personally, I've found that concentrating on tempo is helping me clear my mind of swing thoughts. It doesn't work all the time but, with a focus on tempo, it reduces the space in my mind to sabotage myself with thoughts about swing mechanics (which has been really bad since my lessons over winter). As Tim Gallwey talks about in "The Inner Game of Golf" if I can get my "self 1" (ego) to stop talking to me about swing mechanics then my "self 2" (natural ability) can just get on and make the swing. Finding a way to disengage the ego is difficult, but it's where I've found that tempo training can help.
This doesn't mean that somehow my club face will be square to path every time, that I'll perfectly strike all my iron shots, hit every green or execute massive, towering drives that go beyond any I've hit before. But it does appear to give me a better chance of executing well and I've seen a definite improvement in my general ball striking. The tension caused by thinking too much about the result is lower, as I'm not standing over the ball questioning my grip, stance, aim etc. If I'm lucky, the "boring" golfer is on the way back. An added bonus is that my swing speed seems to be faster too. My Blast Motion sensor suggests that my average driver swing speed is hovering just above 100mph and the ball speed data from the local TopTracer range would suggest that it looks correct, which is good progress for me. I've not actively been doing dedicated speed training but this is encouraging me to try it again. There are a couple of videos on Jon's Masterclass and the Tempo Training app about using tempo to help increase your swing speed. I plan to explore this more in my practice sessions.
It's a work in progress!
I've seen real benefits from thinking about tempo over the last 5 rounds. Swing thoughts and doubts etc still creep in but they are more apparent when walking between shots now and I'm getting them less when I'm standing over the ball. I doubt I will ever completely eliminate them though.
I've really struggled with my game since my winter lesson package; standing over every shot with 101 swing thoughts in my head and executing badly. A tempo focus is helping me trust that my fundamentals are correct and just swing away. Hopefully, from listening to Jon and reading Adam Young, I now know enough about ball flight to work backwards, untangle what happened at impact and either make adjustments on the course or just play with the swing that's turned up today and work on it later.
I'll keep working on this with the app in my practice sessions, as well as when playing for real, and write an update post in a few weeks with any further thoughts.
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