What is Lost to Players?

Are you familiar with Deep Play?  It is the play of the game that is lost to players who embrace long periodsof mechanical practice as the most essential part of training.  (Click on the pic for more!)

But what does that mean -- what are they losing?

It's funny - the teaching industry has gone hog wild trying to optimize performance and consistency by advocating -- and perhaps mandating -- a 'square' position at impact with proper angles of attack and path.  Or even allowing for a 'one-way miss' of a fade or draw.

But this 'one optimal impact' will fail as soon as the player encounters a slope.  A clubface 'square' to the target will fail to deliver a solid and straight shot on a slope.

Somehow the Play of the Game is lost to the 'one optimal impact' crowd. Slopes have a bearing on performance.  Slopes are found on the golf course.  Above your feet should pull or hook, and below your feet should push or fade.

So direction 'loss' may not be due to an inability to make a consistent swing.

What is the answer?  The answer is not to correct for the direction loss -- it is to allow for and predict direction loss.  Players who search for, accomplish, and adhere to a mechanically sound swing only are setting themselves up for failure when they least expect it.  They are not playing the game.

Playing the game is adapting to things on the course, using them to the player's advantage rather than assuming a mechanically sound swing will always produce the same ball flight.

Deep Play is accessible by players if they know what to look for...Watch the launch at golfecoach.com.

Bob Duncan, PGA