Vol. 17 - The Process of Making a Swing Change

If you are wanting to improve your game you have probably though about the need to make changes to your swing. This is a natural thought and one many golfers I don’t think fully understand. Swing changes can sometimes be quick and simple but they often times can be difficult and frustrating. Well I am here to shed some light on the process for the more significant swing changes and the process it takes to complete a change.

Step 1 - Knowing What To Change

The very first step in making a change is knowing exactly what needs to be changed. This involves an analysis of your current swing compared with your ball flight patterns. This will help narrow down the area of the swing that needs to be addressed. This could be anything from take away, hinging of the club, rotation, backswing positions, down sequence, shallowing or steepening of the club, impact, release pattern, follow-through and many others. Once the change that is needed is determined it is on to step 2.

Step 2 - Knowing Why It Needs To Be Changed

The Second step isn’t the what but rather the why. We know that we need to make a change to become more efficient and predictable with our ball flight. In order to fully commit to making a change we need to understand the why. Why is this change going to help and what is it going to exactly do for my swing. This is an important step because if we don’t know the why then we won’t be as committed to making the change and sticking with it for the long-term. Once we understand the what and why it moves to the how.

Step 3 - Practice The Change Until You Can See It

Step 3 is a big one. In this phase we are working on making the change in our swing. We are doing this with feedback, meaning something is telling us we are doing it right. Video is very helpful in the phase as most times what someone feels and what is actually happening are no where close to each other. I have seen and heard this many times with students. It is also a good idea to practice either without a ball or just a foam golf ball and this is because we aren’t concerned at the moment about what the ball is doing. Too many times I see players focused on the outcome of the shot rather than if they did the change correctly. When making a change everything is going to feel weird and foreign meaning your body will not have built the coordination yet to deliver the club into the ball more efficiently. This is because most times the club is coming into the ball from a completely different position. During this phase it is really important to start slow and I mean a snails pace. Remember stay committed to the process and remained focused on the task at hand.

Step 4 - Practice With The Change

Once you have been able to see the change consistently take place with video feedback and practice with no golf ball or foam balls you can start to hit real golf balls. Now just like in step 3 you are going to want to start slow. This means don’t concern yourself with the outcome but rather can you start to build feel and awareness of the swing with a ball. I wouldn’t want these shots to go very far in fact they might not go more than 40-50 yards depending on what club you are hitting. While doing step 4 you will want to keep checking to make sure you are still making the change correctly. A question I get asked is do I prefer quality of reps or quantity or reps. Personally I prefer quality of reps but we still need to get quite a few reps in to help solidify the change.

Step 5 - Play Golf With The New Swing

Now that we have been able to hit balls and have worked our way up to full speed on the range it is now time to take it to the golf course and play a round. In this phase you may suffer some set backs as when the pressure gets added in our body and mind will like to revert back to what is comfortable. What is comfortable is the swing we were making before the change for years. This is where I tell students to not be worried about score but rather be focused on it we can still make the change even on the golf course. After we have played a handful of rounds with this as our focus then we can really start putting the pressure on by focusing on scoring and our round stats. This is where it is really helpful to know what your round stats were before the change and what they are now so we can compare and see what kind of an affect the change has made.

Step 6 - Compete

After we have played rounds with the new swing and we see if performing and seeing the results we want it is time to put it to the real test of competition. This means either singing up for an event or playing with your buddies for something that adds a extra incentive. This amount of incentive and event type would be dependent on your skill level. Don’t be surprised if the first couple times we stumble when putting the change to the real test. This is expected. Just remember to trust what you have put in to this change and that it is now the new you.

Congratulations you have just made a swing change!

From here the biggest question I get is how long does this take. This question can only really be answered by you the student as it is all dependent on the amount of work you do and the level of the swing change. Meaning is it a major swing change or a small change. I have seen students make changes in as little as a few months but also have seen some take quite a bit longer. For example, Tiger made a change to his swing after the 1997 Master’s. Everyone thought he was crazy but he didn’t like the way his club came across the line at the top of his swing. For him this caused some issues he didn’t like. So he set out with arguable the greatest golf instructor, Butch Harmon, to correct this. Butch gave Tiger a pause drill where he would pause at the top of his swing and Tiger publicly said that he hated this drill. However he committed to it. The process Tiger undertook is much like the process described in this newsletter. The whole process Tiger said took him around 18 months. Let’s remember that Tiger practiced more than basically anyone on the planet and it took him 18 months.

Now I don’t say this to scare you but to help put things in perspective. If you are making a significant change you need to commit for the long haul in which it may very well take you a couple of years to complete all 6 steps.

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Dillon Baker

DBG Academy