Last month´s article about ´why many golfers leave the Easiest Swing only to return later´ resonated so strongly with me that I decided to share my own experience with you and write my very own journey to the Easiest Swing in Golf. Even during the first two years as an Easiest Swing coach did I often preach one thing and do another. In fact, if you look at some of my earlier videos on YouTube you will see a swing that was anything but easy.
I am about to share with you my own personal experience as a golf player and not as a coach. Having met and watched how Brian integrated the Easiest Swing philosophy into his coaching, there was no doubt in my mind that this was the way forward as far as coaching was concerned. However, I found it very challenging to fully commit to the philosophy when it came down to my own game.
It is well known the reason children learn faster than adults is because they completely trust the information they are given, they do not question it. Shouldn’t adults, with all their life experience, be able to learn faster than kids? The reason we don’t learn things as quickly is because we filter the information we are given to suit our underlying, unconscious belief systems. Belief programs run our lives and if left unchallenged, they don’t change. As the saying goes, ´once you are in the system, you cannot see the system´. In my case, with the Easiest Swing philosophy, I was guilty of this and therefore questioned its simplicity.
In the beginning
I started out playing golf at 8 years old and, left to my own devices, improved relatively quickly reaching a handicap of 8 by the time I was 14, winning a few tournaments along the way. However, the older I got the more I was sucked in to the positional fix-it approach we are all so familiar with, full of swing tips and technical information. The main problem with this belief system is that we believe that, in order to improve the skill of striking a golf ball, we must have an internal focus. In other words, we must look at how our body moves for the solution.
This is a very strange belief system that has been left unchallenged for many, many years. You can see just how ridiculous this is when you compare it with how we learn other skills (like learning to hit a nail with a hammer, eating with a knife and fork or driving a car) where our focus is external. Our attention is on what we are doing with the tool, not on what we are doing with different parts of our bodies.
My game never really improved from those early years and any dreams I had of becoming a professional golfer disappeared by the time I was 19. As I became more and more technically minded any chance of finding my natural swing all but disappeared. For the next 15 years I played golf only on a social level until I was in my mid 30´s when I decided to follow my true passion and learn to become a golf coach.
Starting out as a coach
When starting out as a coach, I firmly believed it was our job to ´teach´ the swing and fix swing faults by analysing and then trying to change body positions. Wanting to be the best golf coach I could be, I set out to try to really understand the golf swing so I studied The Golfing Machine (TGM). TGM is based on a book, also titled ´The Golfing Machine´, which was written by an ex-Nasa scientist called Homer Kelley. Mr. Kelley took a full 18 years to complete his book and it is widely considered as the ´Bible´ among teaching pros. The book was so complex that I spent thousands of pounds attending courses to certify as a TGM instructor.
The program of the positional, fix-it approach was now deeply entrenched in every cell of my body and I believed golf was an extremely difficult game demanding nothing less than perfectionism and a hell of a lot of practise in order to master it. Needles to say, the golf lessons I was giving to my clients were extremely technical and my own game got worse. Yet, now deep in the system, I couldn’t see the wood for the trees and believed I needed to know even more about technique.
During the first few years, I spent a lot of time on my own game when I wasn’t giving golf lessons. I fell into the ´range rat´ syndrome and any small steps of progress I ever made never transferred consistently onto the golf course. However, occasionally I would have a 5-minute spell where I would hit my go-to 7-iron over 160 metres. To put it in perspective, this was a full 30 metres further (and straighter) than the hundreds of others I would also hit with a 7-iron. Even though these shots were so very rare (about 7/1000 balls) I had a benchmark and here began an obsession with perfectionism within my own game.
As my schedule got busier I was coaching a lot more so there was not a lot of time for practise and I made little or no progress. However, moving to Mallorca 5 years ago I found some more time to practise in between lessons and I began searching for those penultimate ball strikes again. With a 150m marker on the range, my go-to club was now an 8-iron. Progress was slow to begin with, as all my focus was internal and I continued to look to technique for the answers. However, thanks to a few key moments that began to challenge my belief system, I started to get some momentum going.
Key moments
In fact, since being introduced to the Easiest Swing, there have been 3 stand-out moments I would like to share with you that have been game changers for me. The first was just before I signed up to become an Easiest Swing coach. I was in Pakistan, invited to help launch the first official golf academy there. My first stop was Karachi where I gave a public talk and played an invitational round with the club captain. My golf game was no where near up to the standard I had hoped and I shot a humiliating 18 over par. Needless to say, I was desperate!
Having just read Brian´s book, I had packed it in my suitcase as supporting material for my talks. Re-visiting the book, I decided I had no other option but to explore the 3 Deadly Don´ts. During my next round, playing with the Club Captain of Islamabad G.C, I let my left heel come off the ground. I swung with much less tension and was able to turn properly and I played the first holes in Par, Birdie, Birdie, Birdie, Par. Never in my life had I shot 3 straight birdies!
However, back on the range in the months that were to follow, I quickly got sucked into the old program with technique, tension and effort creeping back into my swing. I began telling myself that the Easiest Swing was just too simple and I would never hit the ball as far as I wanted with such an easy swing.
The second big moment came a year later, when I was now an Easiest Swing coach. Brian was in Mallorca for a golfing holiday with Pete the Butcher (who some of you will remember from the book). Whilst playing with them it was obvious they were a little concerned about my power swing. It was full of tension and effort looking anything like the ´Easiest Swing´ in golf. Nearing the end of the round Pete dropped 3 balls on the fairway and asked me to show him ´my Easiest Swing´. On each shot he repeated, ¨ show me your easiest swing ¨. On the the 3rd and easiest swing possible my jaw literally hit the floor when the ball sailed 30 metres past the other two. It was that ´PGA tour-like strike´ again.
However, as I began to get lots more success with my ball striking on the range, I was not able to post a decent score on my local course. Frustrated, I decided to take a bag of balls onto the 3rd hole where there is a fairway bunker (3m x 3m surface area) and 5 tees evenly spread 20m apart – from the Ladies Social Tee through to the Pro Tee. I invented a little game to test my shot making ability and monitor real progress. With full swings and only using a Driver, the task was to leave 5 consecutive balls in the bunker and I was not to move to the next tee until this was achieved.
This task-led exercise encouraged me to shift my attention from an internal focus to an external focus. I began to relax my hands more which helped me tune in to the position of my club head, club shaft and club face during the swing. Not only that, but the full swings forced me to slow down and explore different tempos and rhythm.
The shift
The results were immediate and, as I became more relaxed I also discovered how my feet played such an important role in how the rest of my body moved. I had heard many times before how the golf swing starts from the ground up but this time I was beginning to really understand it. I studied La Danse with more vigour than ever before as well as the Swinging Legs Exercise encouraging better foot work and swinging with super soft hands.
Looking back, having gone through this journey of to-ing and fro-ing from the Easiest Swing, I feel it was necessary as a golf coach to do this because now I can talk from experience. By challenging the program and my pre-conceived ideas about the swing I have achieved what I set out to do which was to become a great ball striker who is able to score consistently on the golf course.
Relaxation really is the key
As Brian has always said, (which I now fully trust without my filters) the key to good movement is relaxation. Fortunately for me, I have been aware of the benefits of meditation, yoga and breathing for many years and how these practises help support relaxation in a massive way. Some of you may have noticed how Tiger Woods, on the last 9 holes at Augusta a couple of months ago, was using his breath to keep his mind and body relaxed, and his emotions in check. Aware from a young age (his mother is a Buddhist) of the benefits of breathing for relaxation, Tiger was breathing from his belly while Molinari wasn’t. In my opinion, this is how Woods was able to hold his nerve and keep it all together while Molinari collapsed.
Thanks to my daily practice of using the breath to help release tension, I have a high sensitivity and awareness of my body and can spot tension easily. I find that when I am relaxed, I am much more sensitive to how my body, mind and club work together. The less tension in my body the more my feet feel connected with the ground and the more connected my feet are to the ground the better my footwork.
As Wild Bill Melhorn, known as the best ball striker of all time (who couldn’t putt to save his life) said, ¨when your feet move your arms know where to go.¨ In fact, I would go even further to say, when your feet move your whole body knows where to go. If the feet don’t move, then different parts of the body (your hands and your arms) have to fight to find their place.
Not only that, but when I am relaxed I can focus on the objective of the game – to get the little white ball in the hole. Just as I put my attention on any task (like hitting a nail with a hammer) I intuitively know what I need to do with the tool in my hand and my body knows how to behave accordingly. However, with the orthodox, positional approach to golf I become less task-oriented. With science proving that men can only do one or two things at any one time and a woman maybe three, it is simply not possible to have more than one swing thought and play effective and consistent golf. If I have my attention on a body part it will only be on my feet and how they move. And the more relaxed I am the better and more natural they move.
As well as that, my hands (one of our greatest assets and ultimately, the one and only connection we have with the golf club) can communicate instinctively with the club. With tension, I render my feet and hands useless.
Thanks to the Easiest Swing I am able to move more fluidly and my mind is free of swing thoughts. My 8-irons fly the 150m I have always been looking for and on a 200m Par 3 I hit a 3-iron to the heart of the green with an effortless swing. I rarely hit the range at all now except to make a YouTube video and, any time I do, the Driver stays in the bag because the range boundary stops at 275 metres.
Final words of wisdom
To the readers, if you haven’t already, I would encourage you to read Brian´s book. And not just once! Learn how to dance with your feet, using La Danse du Golf as your template. It is the foundation of the Easiest Swing. Master the Swinging Legs Exercise as it will challenge the 3 Deadly Don´ts and also help consolidate the 6 swing basics. Do not underestimate its power. You will learn to have a more relaxed swing with greater balance, coordination, rhythm, turn and weight shift.
Experiment and explore, with child-like curiosity, shifting your attention away from body positions. Rather, let the ball flight show you what you are doing with the club head, face and shaft. With relaxed hands your brain will begin to make the connections necessary in order to understand how each part of the club has an affect on the flight of the ball.
Finally, to support your journey you can subscribe to my channel and to the other Easiest Swing Coaches on YouTube. Attend one of our workshops if you can and, failing that, send us a swing review or sign up for 2 months of online coaching. Recently, we have also made it possible to have ongoing work with us online where we can monitor your progress monthly and encourage you to stay on track to avoid going back to the old program.
Don’t make the same mistakes some of us did. Stick with finding your easiest swing and stay well away from the old belief system. Happy golfing.
For more information about hte Easiest Swing please click here: https://easiestswing.com/
For more information about my upcoming courses please click here: https://easiestswing.com/courses/2-day-course/
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