Golf teases us into becoming thinkers. I don?t know about the other guy, but I?m usually thinking of three things while swinging the club: making sure the left shoulder turns all the way under my chin at the top of the backswing; ensuring that my hands are inactive and being dragged by the shoulders; and finally that hips initiate the downswing.
That?s way better than the seven things I used to think about a couple of years back after a disastrous coaching regimen took me on the verge of quitting this game, but isn?t a patch on the time I used to bang away at the ball in my teens without a thought in my head. Not surprisingly, I?ve never managed to regain the kind of game I had in my teens.
The moral of the story is this?and I claim no spokesmanship for anyone else?it?s harder to stop thinking about how to swing the golf club than it is to learn how to. All golfers know the feeling: in fact, magazines like Golf Digest and Golf Magazine have built publishing empires founded on the average golfer?s penchant for knowledge?that one magic trick which will make everything come together. And let?s not forget that golf courses are full of people who think they have all the answers. Amazing how they can never seem to apply it to their own game!
This hypothesis got a huge shot in the arm after a recent interaction I had with Michael Hebron, possibly one of the greatest teachers in the history of the game,
Hebron speaks slowly and then pauses to make sure you?ve registered before continuing to hold forth on his teaching methodologies. ?The leading teaching pros don?t like it when I say it, but they?re getting far too much credit for coaching tour players. Working with the top pros is like teaching the best students in a school, a piece of cake. Working with club players is much more difficult, far more challenging??
It?s a bold statement, certainly not one many coaches in the world would have the temerity to make, but then Hebron is no newbie. The PGA of America ?master professional?, Hebron is the original article, nicknamed the ?teacher?s teacher? by his peers after orchestrating the very first PGA teaching and coaching seminar a few decades back, where he brought together instructors and coaches to share ideas on teaching methods.
At a corporate clinic on Long Island, some of the participants who expected a teacher of Hebron?s stature to give them a microscopic technical examination of the golf swing were taken aback with his simplistic approach to teaching. And even more surprised when the tips worked. ?That?s how it usually happens,? Hebron says with a laugh. ?In my first session, I get a lot of cynicism. In the second session, people are a bit more open-minded and willing to try my methods. And by the third session, they?re like, ?Wow, this works!??
The genesis for Hebron?s teaching methodology?what he calls, ?Neuro learning for golf??happened not long after his peers voted him the ?PGA Teacher of the Year? in 1991. ?I noticed that some of the amateurs I was working with just didn?t seem to get it. I mean, I would say the same thing to a tour pro and Mr Smith, but Mr Smith wouldn?t improve. And I thought, ?Here I am. I?m famous, I?m supposed to be one of the best coaches out there. I have a deep knowledge of the golf swing?. Then why can?t I improve their game? And that?s when I realised that I knew absolutely nothing about how the brain learns,? he reminisces.
So how do people learn? In seeking the answer to that question, Hebron radically changed the way he taught and ?Neuro learning for golf? was born.
Simply put, Hebron?s methodology promotes an approach, which aims to create a positive environment for learning in which there is no emphasis on fixing ?poor outcomes? to get something right. Every step is expected to serve as helpful feedback for future use.
Hebron also eschews the use of drills, teaching aids, video replay and detailed descriptions of the golf swing. ?Learning is intuitive and the learning process has to be fun. I think video replay has done more harm than good because it promotes an unnatural quest to achieve perfection. Also, golfers try and model their swings on pro golfers or other players, not realising that their swing is unique to them. Why would you want to ape someone?s swing anymore than you?d want to ape the way he or she looks?? he asks, before requesting a bystander to chuck a crumpled napkin into a teacup 10 ft away. The man gets it right on the second try. ?Did you see that?? Hebron exclaims, ?He was just trying to get the napkin into the cup, he wasn?t thinking about the angle of his elbow, or about the way he held the napkin. The mind doesn?t need to run through a long list of details and technical information? all it needs is a target and an overall concept of what you?re trying to do, and it instructs your body to do that,? he says, satisfied with the little demonstration.
But isn?t a golf swing different from chucking a napkin?a complex system comprising of various components working together? Hebron mulls over that for a moment and then in an instant of measured articulation lets me know what he thinks in a single word of disdain, ?Pshaw?.
The biggest obstacle to following Hebron?s (or for that matter Snead?s) advice is the counterintuitive nature of the game: you smash the ball and it goes nowhere, but you caress it with a smooth free-flowing action and it goes miles; you hit it down and it goes up. At the end of the day, it helps to remember that the game is out there. And the best way to play it is look at the target, get some sort of vision of the ball going there and just trust it. Grip it and rip it. Kind of explains why some of the dullest people out there are such good players and some of the smartest will always remain rank amateurs.
A golfer, Meraj Shah also writes about the game
