I got a call yesterday evening from one of my long time local students, JM, who was snowed in with no power and wanted to talk golf. Cell phones are great, even with no electricity, until the battery runs out. Anyway, we got to talk long enough to give me the topic for today’s article.

JM began talking about a young lady he met at the course who has been asking him advice about the swing and the game in general. She has been playing a year or so and is really into golf big time. JM said her trunk looks like mine…full of golf clubs, multiple pairs of shoes and other golf related things. Mine also always has my video camera and tripod tucked in the back corner.

This young golf devoted lady has been quite receptive to JM’s swing tips on the limited turn, ¾ vertical PPGS. She has been doing quite well but concerned about hanging some shots right a little. But like most golfers, though she was swinging well, she wanted more and better. So, she went back and took a lesson from her old instructor.

She told JM that in the warm-up she was swinging the PPGS. The first words out of the instructor’s mouth were, “Why are you turning so little and swinging so vertical in your backswing and finishing at your target?” She was immediately told that she needed to start making a full hip and shoulder turn and get on plane and to especially turn and pull through impact finishing left of her target. She obeyed for the rest of lesson.

She called JM to ask some advice as she was in a quandary as to what to do. After the lesson her ball striking was decidedly less solid and her shots much more inconsistent in direction and distance. JM recommended that she go to PPGS.com and start checking things out. He told her that she had to make up her mind as to which swing she was going to use, commit to it and stick with it. Naturally he was lobbying for her to choose the PPGS. He told her that if she didn’t, he could no longer help her because her instructor was teaching her the same swing he learned that ruined his swing and his back and that he was not going to deal with that anymore.

JM went on to say that she was really hitting it pretty good except for the occasional blocks to the right. She was pretty well pleased with the vertical swing but was still not scoring as well as she would have liked to. That was why she returned to her instructor for the lesson. JM asked me how I handled a situation like that. How does one gauge improvement and are they getting better? Great Question!

The answer is important and simple. Scoring is PLAYING GOLF…GETTING THE BALL INTO THE HOLE. Taking lessons and working on your swing is SWING IMPROVEMENT, not PLAYING and scoring lower. These are two completely separate parts of the game. Worrying about the score your shooting while working on swing changes and you have a recipe for disappointment and disaster.

The real score to keep when working on swing changes and you take your swing to the course is not the number of shots you take per hole. Heck, I have taken students on the course after a lesson and seen them hit the ball so good they were amazed. They were also so excited that they paid little to no attention to chipping and putting and were careless around and on the greens. They were cranking up the strokes, and yet still counting them and writing them down on the scorecard. Their focus and attention was getting to the next hole to make a good swing and hit another good shot. They were playing in a swing practice frame of mind. They counted score but were not playing in a scoring frame of mind. The result: piling on strokes around the green and shooting their old lousy score or even higher. When they saw that “Sorry Score,” they were frustrated and depressed and lost all reality of how well they were really swinging and hitting the ball. That is not good and is a big cause of slowing down swing improvement.

The answer is the score you want to keep is determined with asking yourself two questions. 1. Am I swinging better doing what I am working on and am I HITTING MORE GOOD TO BETTER SHOTS? 2. Am I hitting LESS BAD SHOTS and ARE THEY LESS BAD?

When working on swing changes improvement is not about the total shots taken score, but rather the number of good and better shots and the less bad shots score. It is about learning and mastering the swing adjustments you are working on. The score card should reflect the number of good swings and good shots over bad. That reflects positive Swing Improvement. And do not forget that less bad shots and their being “less bad” is improvement. Counting total strokes comes after the swing is grooved and you can concentrate more on scoring.

After all, remember that one of my playing ‘Surgisms” is, “Golf is a game of misses. He or she who misses best…wins.”

The Surge!

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