THE QATSPY® GOLFER’S Inside-the-Leather Sports Page
A Great Golf Technique to Improve Your Golf Game Between Your Ears
If there is one area where golfers from high handicappers to professionals could improve their golf game the most, it is figuring out how to play golf, not so much on the golf course, but between the ears and in their Strike Zone. When we think about sports, we tend to focus on the physical aspects and components of sports that only represent 10 percent of the athlete’s total potential. The other 90 percent is in the IT Element (Instinctive Technique).
Both Bobby Jones, Sr. and Yogi Berra in each of their perspective sports stated that golf, like baseball, is more mental than physical. Even in the movie Caddyshack, Ty Webb, played by Chevy Chase, had one of the most memorable quotes in the movie and in golf-
I’m going to give you a little advice. There’s a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with IT, stop thinking, let things happen, and be the ball.
Getting in Touch with IT, The IT Factor, The Instinctive Force
If you are like me, my baseball swing is easier to perform than my golf swing. One reason is in golf, I have a tendency to want to think during my golf swing. The other reason is that you have your hands directly on the bat like in baseball. Once I step into the batter’s box, my focus is on two things, the ball and my Strike Zone, in the feature image and in Figure No. 2, above.
What my grandfather did to capitalize on the baseball batter’s mentality was to get me to use the baseball batter’s Strike Zone and virtually move my golf ball up into the Strike Zone. This is essentially a similar technique that Eddie Merrins, The Little Pro, is doing in his golf instructional videos of Swing the Handle, Not the Club.
The only thing I’m mentally doing in my golf swing is using my imagination, that is key in linking into your subconscious mind in athletics. Imagination is a great Sports Psychology technique the golfer can use to tap into that FORCE that Ty Webb was talking about in his famous Caddyshack quote. Imagination is a key to using Sports Psychology in your golf game. Below in Figure No. 3, I have illustrated how I mentally create my Strike Zone.
Imagining a Strike Zone isn’t any more difficult than a batter envisioning their own Strike Zone in baseball. The target line is the golfer’s toe line, and the bottom of the strike zone is at the golfer’s right wristband. Wade Boggs, who ranks 33rd in all time Career Batting Averages, has a Career Batting Average at 0.3279; knew his Strike Zone very well, better than Umpires call the game did. Ty Cobb has the honor of having the top-ranking Batting Average at 0.3664.
The Strike Zone Coaching
To help you develop your own mental Strike Zone Technique- the center of the Strike Zone is your toe line that I discuss in my YouTube Video that are below. The bottom of the Strike Zone is where your virtual golf ball is placed, and is designated by an unique nodule on your wristbands called Ulna Styloid Process, in Figure No. 4. This is a key point to preset the wrist action in the golf swing and to initiate the drop element, The Ulna Styloid Process is shown below in the illustration in Figure No. 4.
The Sports Psychology of Creating a Golfer’s Strike Zone
The only thing that I have to imagine to create a baseball-type Strike Zone that is the size of a milk crate. I just mentally move my virtual golf ball in front of my right palm at address, since I’m right-handed in the featured image above.
During your first few golf lessons, your coach might have drawn a clubface onto the palm of your dominant hand, as shown in Figure No. 5. What the coach was getting you to do was to get you to see how the clubface and your dominant palm were directly linked and maneuver together during the golf swing sequence.
Figure No. 5
NOTE: You can mentally eliminate the golf club’s shaft by allowing your left forearm to represent the shaft of the club and the clubface is represented by the right palm; thus the Palmer Technique.
Why not use that same golf lesson technique of the Palm Clubface and improve your golf game, on and off the golf course?
With the virtual golf ball positioned in front of my right palm, I can form my Strike Zone, as shown above in Figure No. 3. Then the only other mental image that I need to feel is three points, which are my left elbow and two points on my right wristband, specifically these two points are called Styloid Processes (Ulna and Radial Styloid Process). These are illustrated in Figures No. 2 and No. 4.
If you develop a mental image of a Strike Zone with a virtual golf ball and how to preset the wrist action in your takeaway swing, your total golf game will improve. Then the only other mental image you need to create is how to use your elbow and the wristband for the drop element, in Figure No. 2.
A key fundamental about the golf swing that will help you with the variety of golf shots that a golfer has to master from tee-to-green for the right-handed golfer is that power comes from the golfer’s left side; and clubhead speed comes from their right side. With the Strike Zone and how power and clubhead speed are generated, you will see significant improvement in your golf game.
Even if you are a single digit handicap golfer, you will see improvement in your consistency of golf game even under competition. This allows you to focus instead of think. You don’t want to think during your golf swing, you want to focus.
Also to help you, the golfer, apply these principles of the Strike Zone, look at the QATR-408 Palmer Technique (the Wrist Action in the Golf Swing). You can use the link below to purchase this highly-effective technique.
Also pay close attention to the bottom and the front left corner of the Strike Zone and how your left elbow and the right wristband move within the Strike Zone, in Figures No. 2 and No. 3. If the golfer just creates a Baseball-type Strike Zone and a virtual golf ball, they can do what Ty Webb stated, get in touch with IT, with IT being the golfer’s Instinctive Technique.
What is great about these YouTube Videos, even though they are the Chip/Pitch-type golf shots, they have the essentially the same mechanics and techniques to hit golf shots from tee-to-green ring in your garage where you putt. This is convenient for the winter months or when you get off work to work on your golf game.
My FREE YouTube Videos:
Bunt-Rap-Rip Golf Swing Video
Verifying THE QATSPY Golf Swing Medicus Club
TICK-N-TOCK Putting Technique
CASPER Fitness Program