Exclusive by Kiran Kanwar, Albany, Bahamas.

The Golf swing – physical or mental.

The debate on whether the golf swing is more physical or more mental has been going on for decades, even, perhaps, centuries. While naturally, there are different

‘strokes’ for different folks, it is interesting to know what goes on in the minds of the best golfers of the world. What do they think of when they practice? How does that change when they play? When do they make swing changes? When do they make mental changes? Overall, what knowledge base do they draw from to improve their games to a notch above the rest of the field?

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Billy Horschel … “Even as a kid I was a good ball striker”. (photo credit : kenneth e. dennis/kendennisphoto.com)

Billy Horschel, finished the day 3 under, tied 16 in a field of 18 : “Even as a young kid I was a really good ball striker but my wedge play was always bad.” His short game and wedge play are not as good as he feels they need to be. He has played a lot with Jordan and some other good players over the past year and found that they put the ball10-15 feet from the hole, while his might be 20-30 feet away. His good game, he felt, should be able to last longer than just a 4-5 week stretch. He talks to himself too, now. On a day he does not play too well, he feels it’s because of tempo, so if he were to tweak anything after a round it would be to be less quick, slow things down and not swing as if he’s trying to “Kill the ball as far as I can.” As regards the mental aspect of golf, “I know what the mental side is.” And visualization? “Visualize the shot in mind – as if you were having out of body experience what would swing look like?”

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Justin Rose, even par, finishes the day 17th in a field of 18: When asked by someone to describe his performance of the day he said, “Zero putts – every good putt lipped out.” Always wondered when and why players think their putting has been bad. After all, it is the final opportunity on every hole! Did the ‘foundation’ (previous shots) back up and support the ‘roof’ (putting)? He made 13 of 18 greens for regulation and had only one three putt over the 32 holes. However, his putts per green in regulation should be the most telling part of his putting woes which prevented better scoring – 1.9. Surely that means that practically no approach shots to the green were close enough to hole out? Are players’ expectations of making putts perhaps not quite realistic?

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Matt Kuchar tied 7th after the second round, with a 4 shot improvement over yesterday. Asked whether golf science matters to him: “I just have a coach. I do not do any of this science stuff.” When asked if he had a team such as a mental coach, a chiropractor or a fitness coach, he responded,  “Only a swing coach.”

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Anirban Lahiri …. ‘Of Course’.  His response if he uses science to improve his golf.

Anirban Lahiri: “Do you use science to improve your golf? Such as biomechanics, sports psychology, visualization?” Anirban’s response was “Of course.” Anything you might work on based on your round today? “I just need to do some putting drills, in my opinion I just to need to putt with a little more confidence on the back nine. I putted well for the first 27 holes so I don’t see any reason why I should not putt well the next two days.” He hit 10 of 13 fairways and 12 of 18 greens in regulation, and also had 1.8 putts per green in regulation. Might the statistics indicate that other areas could use some work too?

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Dustin Johnson tied 10th after two rounds: He felt he had a really solid year, and is happy with all parts of his game right now. When asked if he works on any specific physical or mental aspects of his game he said he has a trainer. A golf coach? Yes he has one of those too. He does a lot of work with the trainer, training with weights, including olympic weight lifting. Does he use any popular concepts such as ground reaction force or wrist torque in his swing? Laughing, “No I don’t know any of those.” He does a lot of work with his golf coach too on swing technique, nothing specific.

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Patrick Reed with a clean round of 7 birdies and no bogeys, moving up 6 places after posting the lowest score of the day: Does he use any golf sciences to improve his game? “For me it’s how it feels, I’m a ‘feel guy’, I need to feel where the golf club is.” He does use Trackman, cameras and slo-mo – cameras quite a bit and Trackman for testing. He can makes tweaks on the fly, for instance if the ball were starting too left or right, it can usually be fixed just by eyesight. He works with Josh Gregory, his college coach.

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Brooks Koepka dropping six positions to be tied tenth: Golf science? No he keeps it pretty simple, and is quite mentally tough and gathered together so he does not need any mental coaching either. He picks the brains of other gifted athletes when needed.  He does have a swing coach, a short game coach and a putting coach.

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Bill Haas reveals his way to stay in focus.

Bill Haas, joint leader after two rounds: Any special focus today to help him play as well as he did? Just what he did yesterday! Pretty much every day that he plays he has a swing tip or thought he goes with. What does he do to stay in focus under difficult conditions such as uncomfortable weather? He just tries to hit each shot the best he can. “When you hit a good shot people say you’re focused and when it’s a bad one they say you’re not. I disagree.” He tries to hit each shot the best he can!

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There is simply not enough science being disseminated to the golf world, considering that this is the age of high-technology and easy access to information. Midswing feel? Messages travel from the brain to muscle at 4 to 6 meters per second, but the golf downswing of skilled players takes approximately a quarter of a second!

Bad putting? What about all the shots that went before? A driver that is not in the fairway never seems to bother golfers, while a lipped-out 15 footer is a bad shot. What are the odds of a top player making those 15-20 footers that they expect to? Under pressure when muscles contract more forcefully and faster? And sadly, despite having so many great potential uses, doppler radar technology is being mis-used in that manner too. Players are being asked to make downswing changes to match with desirable launch monitor numbers!

It is quite obvious many players simply leave their games in the hands of their coaches, who do not have a scientific background to begin with. Inconsistency of ball striking and injury could be a thing of the past if more golf coaches were to acquire a solid sports science based education.