Too many swing thoughts – What is the answer?

How do you think when you play your best golf? My guess is that you don’t have 92 swing thoughts in the 1.5 seconds it takes to complete your golf swing.

So why do we sometimes think so much about our golf swing?

In this article I’m not going to try to get you back to a Zen-like state and tell you the answer is to think about nothing. Some days this sense of ease is achievable, however on other days I feel you just have to find different ways to think in order to get the ball round the course.

I’m going to give you five pieces of advice that I have found useful. They aren’t magic bullets, but they are five different strategies that can really help when you start over-thinking your golf swing – or any part of your golf game.

After that I’ll cover some simple ways to practice and refine your swing without getting too technical.

Take the strategies below, try them out and keeping working on them to make them your own. They can all become useful tools to help you combat bad golf and over-thinking.

Playing golf with no swing thoughts

# 1 You don’t need to ‘think‘ to swing a golf club

Our conscious mind is really stupid. Our sub-conscious is a quantum super-computer. The golf swing requires us to coordinate ~700 muscle across ~200 joints. We cannot control this at a conscious level.

When our conscious mind tries to control our golf swing it is the equivalent of jamming a spanner into a super-computer. From this perspective we don’t really need swing thoughts as long as we keep our conscious mind out the way.

If you don’t really need one swing thought, you certainly don’t need five.

Key point – more swing thoughts are not better.

# 2 What is a swing thought

This leads nicely onto point two. In essence, a swing thought has one of three purposes.

1. It can distract our conscious mind whilst our sub-conscious plays golf.
2. It can raise our awareness of a certain movement we want to produce – more wrist hinge, a more balanced finish…and so on.
3. It can guide where we focus our attention, to help our sub-conscious perform.

Lots of research suggests that when we think about our target, rather than our movements we tend to perform better, learn quicker, and retain more skill. Click the link above to read more on this topic.

Thinking about hitting the golf ball to your target, and nothing else, is probably the most natural way you can play golf. This is how we naturally play most other target sports, such as tennis, throwing, catching and so.

Key point – If you ever get lost in a world of swing thoughts get back to focusing on hitting your golf ball to your target.

# 3 How do I make swing changes without over-thinking?

Great point, swing thoughts are really useful for making changes and become a mental crutch when we go from the golf range to the golf course.

When things get too complex with swing changes I have the following solution – before every shot use one or two practice swings to turn your 2-3 technical thoughts into a swing a simple feeling. When you get over the golf ball just play golf by replicating this feeling rather than thinking too much – I love this approach.

Key point – turn multiple swing thoughts into one simple feeling.

# 4 Trying dialling up and down your swing thought

Before you and add another 7 new swing thoughts in, try sticking with your original swing thought but dialling up and down the intensity. Some days our swing feeling needs to be a 3/10 to create a position. Other days it needs to feel like a 23/10 to create the same golf swing.

Key point – try over or under-exaggerating your swing thought and note the affect.

# 5 create golf shots, don’t make a golf swing

Golf is about hitting the ball to your target. We, as golfers, get far too focused on trying to make perfect golf swings. By trying to hit very different shots to your normal (low ones, big draws, 50% shots) we can release our brain from trying to perfect our golf swing and get it focused on getting the ball to our target.

Golf Insider story – I was playing a match-play game a Fulford GC, near York. I was 6 holes down through 9-holes and playing awfully. I couldn’t hit the ball straight – mainly big blocks right, hooks left, I felt like I’d never played golf before. On the 10th tee I decided I needed to just get the ball round, not fix my golf swing. My aim was to fade every shot (the opposite of my bad shot). I wasn’t going to get annoyed if I missed any shot right (push or over fade), but I wasn’t going to hit a single shot left for the next 9 holes. I ended up standing on the 18th tee 1 up, and 3-under for the past 8 holes. The stupid thing is, I doubt my golf swing looked any different to someone watching, but it felt like an alien motion.

Key point – Try to create golf shots and worry far less about your golf swing.

Our play and how we think is often a result of how we practice. With that in mind I decided to update this article with a few additional steps you can use during practice to minimise your swing thoughts.

Practicing golf with fewer swing thoughts

# 1 Use analogies

Analogies involve using something you may already be familiar with, or a simple idea to change something far more complex and technical.

A simple example is telling a new golfer, who plays tennis, to hit a forehand topspin shot when trying to play a draw shot. This simple notion encourages all the components needed to hit a draw.

Golf insider geek: This analogy encourages the shoulder extension and body motion required to create an in-to-out swing path. Good Tennis players begin a forehand topspin shot with the racket pointing down towards the ground and maintain this throughout the shot – mirroring a closed club face. This is how a draw shot should be executed – with a club face closed to the swing path before impact. Not by wildly flipping your hands over through impact.

Asking a beginner golfer to hold the golf club in their right hand and imagine they were holding a hammer gives them a great analogy for a good right hand grip. Asking them to then hammer the golf ball into the ground gives them an ideas for how to hinge their wrists during the swing.

As you become a better golfer analogies can still be useful. Many single figure golfers make a great set up and backswing, but see their body action and club face control break down through impact.

If this sounds like you – imagine holding a bucket of water with both hands and try throwing the water at your target as you move through. You’ll find this analogy creates a great body motion through impact. It also prevents your wrists and the club face rolling over (you’ll throw your water left of your target if you do).

The use of analogies doesn’t stop with making swing changes. They have also been shown to help you perform better under pressure. So they are highly useful when trying to take your improved golf swing onto the golf course.

Creating your own analogies

Analogies work when:

1. They encourage the right action.
2. They make sense to the individual using them.

You can, and should, create your own analogies as you make swing changes. Spend a little time to think what the swing changes feel like, then boil the complex changes down into one simple analogy – this is your swing thought.

# 2 Use a constraints based approach

Next up we have constraints-based approach to practice. Sorry for the geeky scientific term – I will explain it. However, using the term constraints will help you go read and learn a lot more if you so wish.

Essentially, a constraints-based approach suggests the golf swing you make is a result of three things interacting:

1. Individual constraints (height, strength, previous experience)
2. The task at hand (hitting a 7-iron, Driver, a short chip)
3. The environment (playing surface (matt vs grass), lie of the golf ball, weather)

You will never have exactly the same set of constraints twice – hence why you will never exactly repeat the same golf swing twice. Adapting your practice constraints is a brilliant way to improve your golf swing without over-thinking your technique.

Below are some simple ideas for you.

Improve strike using constraints-based practice

There is plenty of technical information on how to strike your irons shots better for beginners and how to strike shots like a pro. These articles give you the knowledge of what to do, but thinking about the intricacies of your weight-shift during your downswing is a terrible way to play golf.

Instead, read the information then go and put the ball in a bad lie. Or set yourself the task of seeing how low you can hit a mid-iron shot on the golf range.

Both of these simple constraints encourage you to shift your weight onto you front foot, keep your hands ahead of the club head at impact…and so on. Essentially all of this technical work can be changed by repeatedly practicing under certain constraints.

Golf insider geek: This approach is not new or magical thinking. John Jacobs famously used to ask beginners to hit a ball over a rope he hung 5 yards in front of them and 3 feet off the ground. The result – they all topped it along the floor. He then asked his students to hit the ball under the rope. They all hit down on their iron shots and hit brilliant iron shots over the rope – no 57 swing thoughts needed here…

Swing path example

Placing a basket outside the golf ball is an excellent constraint to move from an out-to-in swing path to a more neutral one. Again this isn’t rocket science, but it is far easier than trying to manipulate your body and arm action during your down swing to create a more neutral swing path.

Golf Insider geek: If you’re a coach and want to know more about applying constraints check out this little presentation and more articles here.

# 3 Use ball flight to change your technique

Last up, on how to improve your technique without getting too technical is to focus on your ball flight. In reality this is still changing your task-constraints, but it is so important I felt it deserves its own home.

Improving your golf swing is all about becoming better at golf. This means controlling and adapting your ball flight.

If you struggle with a slice. Find a great pro, get some simple coaching, then use it to go to the range and try to hit draw shots. Start off by just trying to get the ball moving left-to-right through the air. Don’t worry about the start or finish direction. Then add in the next step of trying to start the ball right of your target.

Just like the previous two other ideas in this article, this simple way of practicing will make all of your technical changes you need without over-thinking the whole thing.

This approach works equally well if you struggle with a hook, pull, push… Just aim to create the opposing ball flight. Start big and bold, then slowing refine the feeling to get the ball back to your target.

The list is endless. Heading to the range and working on ball flight will improve your golf swing technique, it just does it without over thinking things.

Over-thinking golf summary

Unfortunately, over-thinking golf is not one of those problems that goes away as you improve. If you are off 36 or a +4 handicaps over-thinking will still occur when you’re playing. Your key aim is to find strategies to cope with it when it occurs and ensure you practice in an effective way.

This article has covered my top ways to deal with over-thinking, but feel free to leave your own strategies or ask questions in the comments box below.

Happy golfing – Will @ Golf Insider