You Only Swing When You’re Winning

When you win at Golf do you understand why? I often don’t but in saying that I don’t win all that often, however I am rarely outside the top half of the results.

A post about why you win at Golf when you just swing and nothing else..

The headline is a take on the famous football chant – you only sing when you’re winning, but the likeness stops there. When you win at golf you basically won the battle of the mind, and everyone that plays golf knows only too well that to conquer the game (if that’s even possible) you need to conquer your mind first.

easy to hit - expensive head cover

When you play in a group where someone is swinging out of their boots, have you noticed that they have an aura about them? They just seem to give off something, I can’t describe it but you’ll know what I mean.

Everything about them exudes calm and confidence and no sign of distractions, this can often have a positive effect on your own game that day too.

When I play with someone that is going through this I often feel the urge to barrack them if there is money on it I normally approach it in one of two ways, I either don’t talk about it at all during the round for fear of jinxing their game, or I chip in with the odd God I hate you comment of praise and let them talk about if they want to, it’s a strange experience being the observer sometimes but it’s nice to see someone just swinging for fun and pulling it off.

on the thought train

If you’re playing a crackerjack round yourself then you will also know where I’m coming from, it’s that feeling you get like walking on air, like you weigh less than your socks (I wish), again it’s almost indescribable but it’s like you can’t do a thing wrong.

If you’ve ever experienced that natural flowing game which you can occasionally pull out from what seems like nowhere then you’re on my thought-train.

When you play natural – you win natural, why? Well I guess it is perhaps because you don’t need to think about it, your mind is clear, the shot was executed perfectly before you even addressed the ball. You see it in others that are winning, they know they’re winning, everything about them shouts – I’m just swinging, and nothing more.

It’s more memorable when you win, probably because you left the 18th Green without having to do any kind of mental analysis about what went wrong, so your head is free to be filled up with only good stuff, not to mention your ego. You don’t need to stay up til bedtime churning it all over getting yourself in a tiz because you’ve suddenly decided to chuck it all in and sell your clubs – come on you know you’ve done it!?

When you think, hesistate, observe the weather to the point of distraction, try to figure out the wind speed to 3 decimal places, try to super psycho-analyse every mortal factor and draw the atomic relationship chart in your head before you hit – you lose!

When you just swing, and nothing else – you win!

That’s my observation at least – what’s yours? If you have a view about this post – place a comment below.