You will all know by now my repeating the phrase, “only in golf,” or “all other sports,” perhaps ad nauseam, when comparing golf (negatively) to other sports.
It is not a mark of distinction to be held apart from the others – in life, we call someone like that a black sheep or outcast, or any other such uncomplimentary terms.
So, it was amusing today to run across this piece from Golf Digest by Shane Ryan on how golf stands apart from other sports.
The title, “The minute you take a break from golf, golf abandons you” had me smiling before I even clicked on the link, because I knew what was coming, and then there was something that made me think, well, this is just an advert for expensive golf lessons disguised as an opinion piece.
Remember what I’ve said about there being no incentive for the industry to change the way people swing, because the harder it is to make decent contact with the ball, the more money comes in from equipment sales and instruction.
So, let’s have a little look at some of the writer’s thoughts on taking time away from golf.
First:
I am doing something seriously wrong in life, because for the past month in North Carolina, the fall weather has been picture perfect, sunny and cool, and in that time I’ve played exactly 10 holes of golf…
… Beyond the scheduling failure, though, there’s a bigger problem: When you take time off from golf like I’m doing now, golf will punish you. Severely.
I have fond memories from years past of skipping tennis or basketball for a few weeks, needing a day or two to find my form again, and then slotting right back in where I left off.
Golf? Golf laughs at the idea that you can retain even a vague trace of your previous form. Golf insists that if you don’t play for a couple weeks, your return will be torture; it will be like you’ve never picked up a club. Unlike a true beginner, though, you’ll be plagued by memory and expectation.
Well, I can answer why golf is different for this fellow than tennis or basketball – when he learned to play those sports, he undoubtedly learned more or less proper technique, and taking time off doesn’t really take much away other than the sharpness you would have while playing.
Take basketball – I learned how to shoot free-throws with proper form in high school, by drilling diligently in the gym before class, and I got so proficient at it that a free throw was a given point. I actually used to rage watching NBA players miss free throws, because it is ridiculously simple.
Even decades removed from the game, I could take my kids’ basketball to the park with them and shoot free-throws:
Never played tennis myself, but I imagine it’s the same thing.
Baseball – I hadn’t played in many years when, in my 20’s, I went on a date with a girl to her staff baseball game, and was asked if I wanted in. I grabbed a glove, fielded balls and threw runners out as if I’d never missed a day, because when I played baseball as a lad, all one did was work on technique.
You know who else used to take lots of time off and would come back still able to win Tour events and majors?
“Just Workin’ On My Game…”
Back to the Golf Digest:
Last week, I broke my personal drought, hit some balls at the range, and walked seven holes with a friend. It was abysmal. I couldn’t make clean contact, couldn’t keep the ball in play, couldn’t rid myself of a pathetic weak fade, swung too hard, couldn’t chip, couldn’t putt.
I can vouch for the chipping and putting – the short game takes touch, but again, if you chip and putt for a bit before the tee time, you should recover some degree of feel for it, granted you have proper technique.
Granted you have proper technique…
As for the full swing, there is something seriously amiss with your swing model if, even after getting to hit balls at the range, you can’t make good contact after just a few weeks off!
Seriously? A few weeks?
I remember taking eight months off between the 2018 and 2019 seasons because of a bad flu during the winter that led to a diagnosis of asthmatic symptoms and having passed out coughing, which led to a cracked rib when I fell over.
Yet, I believe that when I did get back out, I was striking the ball about as well as I had been before the break after I hit some warm-up wedges and irons.
You should expect that.
Granted you have proper technique…
Now, here’s the part that had me saying, “Ah-ha…”
After a month away from the course, I’m playing like a 17 or 18, at best, and the real kick in the cojones is that I have no clue how to fix it on my own.
It’s going to take professional help…
Not exactly subtle, are they?
If you didn’t catch it, the point is made later in the piece, once again:
I can already tell you what’s going to happen next; I’ll shake myself out of the doldrums, get back to the course, take a few lessons, learn some tips I’ve learned and forgotten probably a half dozen times already, find something in my swing, break 40 for nine holes, get the bug again, and be back in the cycle of trying to reach single digits next year.
What have I said about the Modern Golf Swing for ages now?
If you learn an unnatural swing model that requires multiple compensations and manipulations to make a pivot and then swing down through to the finish, you will need many, many hours spent and balls hit to maintain that swing.
That’s why I bang on about the importance of learning a simple, basic and mechanically-sound motion that doesn’t put you at risk of injury or require hours and hours of drilling to maintain the motion.
And this article smells to me like a thinly veiled industry advert dressed up as a lament about playing golf after a layoff.
WAX Golf 
“And there, ladies and gentlemen, we have the entire purpose of this piece – you are going to be really bad after any type of break, even a few weeks, definitely after a winter off, so it’s off for some expensive lessons or “professional help.” as subtle as staring at a pair of legs on a train with your jaw dropped and teeth showing.
“If you learn an unnatural swing model that requires multiple compensations and manipulations to make a pivot and then swing down through to the finish, you will need many, many hours spent and balls hit to maintain that swing.”
I have watched lessons at the range with the local pro and also played with a club pro at a local and prestigous club in my area. I won’t trash all of their efforts, but I did find their advice disconcertingly shallow – Observations such as “you hit that a bit thin” as the ball screamed through through the grass decimating the local worm population were too common and clearly and merely a recap. Recommended remediation almost always centers on modern swing theory – ugh. Chatting with one pro, I avered that the classic swing model has been the winning motion for the greatest golfers for just about ever. The response, “Every person is different” left me scratching my head..
The teaching business will bumble along but it will not go away anytime soon…
Clearly, the model needs acolytes willing to teach the MCS swing.
It’s a lonely mission, Peter – but I’m still here. The train lost a little momentum because of the worldwide pandemic and my doing other things for a few years, but I intend to keep things going now, and we’ll see where we end up! 🙂
I’ve noticed local pro’s will give you various heuristics to ensure swing alignment consistently – a bunch of obscure reference points that are easy for people to forget because the swing is so unnatural, which as golf digest inadvertently points out, are easy to forget
Switching to MCS, I compared myself frame by frame from p1-10 with your demo video to learn the setup. The ball position, trail axial tilt, stance width made it easy to adjust to the ideal angle of attack required for each club.
This is my 3rd month golfing, and the results have been awesome. I went from not being hit square consistently with the modern golf swing the local pro was shilling as hogan in the flesh, to now hitting FURTHER AND STRAIGHTER. I was elated hitting my driver 270+ at the range with minimal effort / contortion, and a 315 drive on a local par 5.
I can’t help but feel its too good to be true – that the consistency might disappear: I don’t find myself thinking about specific alignments on first parallel, the different stages of the backswing, downswing etc yet consistently hitting square and hard effortlessly without snake oil x factor or anything like that
Anyways, working my way through the rest of this site’s archives to see what the mindset behind the video I’m copying is to give me more security in newfound success 😂
I have a separate question that I haven’t seem to found the answer to in regards to chipping and putting form. I’ve been adapting mickelson’s hinge and hold method with a partial MCS, then leveraging variables like shaft lean, face openness, shoulder line, weight distribution to adapt the angle of attack as the lie requires. Putting wise I’ve been trying to mirror sam burns’ simple arm/wrist locking and pendulum’ing with the hips with a slight shaft lean and 1/3 2/3 push through the ball. Let me know if there’s any content regarding these aspects of mechanically correct short game, thanks!
This is what is the hardest to get through to people because of their previous experiences, Kaushal – the swing becomes ridiculously simple when you put all of the pieces together. You literally marvel at the consistency, distance and ease of effort.
You can imagine how happy I was to find this as a new golfer haha not having to undo decades of bad practices 🙏
Off topic, but check out Matt McCarty. Classic swing in the modern era. Lefty.
Will do MMJ 👍🏼