‘THE DANGER OF GLIMPSING YOUR TRUE POTENTIAL’
At the start of the year I made the decision to start addressing my level of golf fitness. You may remember me discussing my rather pitiful performance during a PGA fitness assessment. Well, after three months of twice weekly cross fit sessions I’m starting to see some really promising results.
I still only really get endorphins from Guinness and sitting down, but my body has begun to change, and with it my golf swing.
The work I’m doing is about 60 percent stretching and rotation exercises, 40 percent strength, I don’t feel like a gym junkie at all, just someone who can now reverse park without getting a crick in their neck. But this increased rotation has enabled me to extend my backswing a lot further, the extra upper body strength (the first I’ve ever had by the way), means I’m starting to get the smallest hint of some explosive power.
To put that in some context, on a range, using range balls, I used to carry a 7-iron 140-145 yards when I was really warmed up and striking it well. This week I maxed out at 159 yards. My driver used to carry a range ball 180-185 yards with a fair wind – I’m up to around 200 yards now. On a recent online test of the new Stealth driver, a golf pro concluded that on average it carried a yard further for him than the previous model, 283 yards compared to 282 yards or something insane like that. That’s a level of improvement that is completely irrelevant to you or I. But a 10 percent increase on all my clubs after a few weeks of huffing and puffing and looking like a sweaty prat? Count me in.
So far, the training has probably cost the same as a second-hand set of irons. Initially I wondered if I could really afford to add a personal trainer to my list of outgoings. But if you’d told me there was a set of clubs that could add 15 yards to my 7-iron, I’d have bitten your hand off.
There are, of course, other benefits that I wouldn’t have got with a simple change in equipment. My body is a slightly less unappealing shape, my beer belly is more of a shandy belly, and I don’t get lower back pain or weird twitching in my legs when I lie down to go to sleep. I’d love to say I was a completely new person, reborn and fresh faced, but there are only so many of life’s woes two hours of exercise a week can fix.
But it has given me a golfing conundrum to wrestle with. It’s called ‘The Glimpse’. I was first alerted to The Glimpse by Youtuber Golf Sidekick. His videos on the mental side of golf and course management are essential viewing for golfers of any ability. But The Glimpse is what happens when we get a brief insight into our true ability. And it can be dangerous.
We’ve all had it, regardless of our level. It might be a run of three pars, it might be playing the back nine at one over, or it might simply be one perfect shot from the perfect position. It shows us how good we can be. These moments keep us coming back to golf, but they can also add to our frustrations. How many times have you heard someone say, “Why don’t I do that all the time?!” or “I was hitting this club so well last week!”. We’ve all absolutely pured a provisional ball only to stomp off because we didn’t do that the first time. Ninety-nine times out of a 100 we use our best form as a stick to beat ourselves with, as opposed to a positive image to hold on to when times are tough. Only a golfer would chastise themselves for playing too well!
For the first time in a few years of semi-regular golf, I’m now able to hit a golf ball in a way I’d be happy to hit it for the rest of my life. Only one in 10 shots maybe, but still, I’m getting the glimpse of where my game could be and I’m happy with that. The only problem is my distances are all over the place. I can’t trust that I’m going to carry my 7-iron 160 yards every shot because I haven’t grooved this swing yet and it might easily take another year to find any level of consistency. Last week I hit a 6iron 209 yards (20 yards downhill with a hefty 20mph wind behind). It landed 30 yards past the green.
There was a time where I’d have been livid for choosing the wrong club and miscalculating the wind and slope, but now I’m trying to just laugh and think that one day I’ll hit that shot to a target 209 yards away. What I’m saying is, when you get The Glimpse, don’t beat yourself up that you don’t play like that all the time. Hold on to the memory and put the image in your bag as a reminder that your best golf is only one shot away.