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 ...

 

[BobbyA]

Yup its very frustrating, my handicap came down quite a bit last year (from around 22 to 16) Over the winter I've been playing some decent golf and my ball striking has been very good. Was looking forward to the warmer weather and hopefully starting to shoot some even lower scores and getting down to 12 or 13 this year, however nope! Last 3 rounds my swing has gone completely and I am only just breaking 100. Fats, thins, shanks, hooks, slices, everything

However, I think I have figured it out with some range sessions over the last week, I think my reverse pivot has come back which is a move I have been working on eliminating. Have a lesson this Saturday and hoping to get the swing back on track!

So for me, I think I can lose the swing when old tendencies creep back in slowly, probably without me realising. This year I think I will have a lesson every 2 months or so to try and ensure I do not creep into bad habits and to ingrain the new moves permanently (easier said then done)

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

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?

Golf is the hardest game; a game of very, very fine margins between modest success and abysmal failure.

Up to the age of 63 I played with the swing I had developed and grooved from the age of 13. Well...I thought I had grooved my swing and that so it would for ever be. But then out of the blue the occasional shank I'd accommodated for all of these years when getting down to handicap of 6-8 (as I had for many years) became a very regular occurence. Misery. My pro has a first look and explained what I was doing and why my swing would ultimately always cause me to do what I was doing.

I realized that I hadn't grooved my swing at all - what had happened over all of these years was that I had become like a very highly competent tightrope walker - good but always on the very verge of a fall. But like the tightrope walker after a serious fall, getting back on the tightrope and walking can be very difficult and repeated falls can well follow. That was me. After a break of a few years when the kids were little I took it up again but almost immediately fell off the 'rope of golf' and was seriously struggling - unable - to get back on the rope and walk any distance without falling off.

What did I have to do? My pro said I had a choice. Sticking plasters over the faults but plasters that would not prevent the misery returning, or a major change to my swing. I opted for the latter - dumping all I thought I knew about the golf swing and being open to what my pro asked of me. It's taken four years but I'm getting there.

So I suggest that get your swing checked for basic faults. I'm guessing that you might well manipulate the club to hit the ball. When the manipulations are spot on - decent success. When they are not - absolute miserly.

 

[Burnsey]

I swing well, get fitted, spend a fortune on clubs, swing better - once - repeat