Why can you lose your swing so easily?

[PanywortBoogle]

I'm 24 and I've played sports my whole life, and golf is easily the hardest for me (playing and taking lessons for 6 years). What confuses me the most is how you can just lose your swing so easily. Like last summer I was playing amazing for a 3-4 week stretch, and then one day I just started shanking everything in the middle of a round. After that I couldn't get rid of my shanks for over a month. I was able to get back in my grove, but it just got me thinking about how on and off a swing can be. You might feel really smooth for the first 6 holes, then suddenly stiffen up and almost forget how to swing out of nowhere.

Nothing Like this has happened in any other sport I've played, at least to this degree. I've never forgotten how to throw a football since I've played. I certainly had off days, but never to the point of forgetting the feeling of my throwing motion. Same thing with tennis and skiing for me.

What is it about a golf swing that you can just completely lose the feeling for days, weeks, or even longer?

 

[Imurg]

The clubhead moves a long way between addressing the ball and hitting it...lots of time for lots of things to go wrong.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

You have too much time to think when making a golf shot. Other sports are often instinctive, you have time to think of 20 swing thoughts when playing golf. Thinking too much in sport is rarely a good thing

 

[Lucifer MorningStar]

No idea i'll let you know when I find my swing....

 

[Slab]

Its when we think we’ve ‘cracked it’ in relation to playing sport, for the fundamentals of lots of sport that’ll be truer, but for golf (being the most difficult sport/game ever invented) when we hit/play well for a period we’re actually still so far removed from cracking it, its off the scale

Those players who make the tours never thought ‘I’ve cracked it’ when breaking 80, shooting level par or winning AM comps. They knew they were barely on rung one of a long ladder, so their drive to improve and subsequent actions keeps going and going ...