swinging instead of thinking

I spent labor day weekend in austin texas with peter playing golf. we played twice at the austin c.c. a pete dye course which has been a challenge for me since I first played there almost twenty years ago. I haven't played regularly these last 4 weeks and I was not able to find much consistency out there and therefore was trying to figure out my swing...you know lots of different swing thoughts which is never fun. after rounds of 76 and 75 on friday and saturday sunday was to be a practice day. of course I mused saturday night and sunday morning about my practice range strategy, or how to find my swing on the range where I could experiment. I had felt and experienced what I believed to be my biggest flaw during my rounds on friday and saturday; not starting the club back first with a rhythmic swinging motion. I often fall into the bad habit of "jumping back" to my right foot moving my right knee ahead of the club swinging off the ball. this makes it difficult to rotate around on my front swing and other issues I will not bring up here other than the liability of moving the bottom of the swing arc back behind the ball. anyway my session was going o.k. with lots of shots played with most of my weight on my left foot so the club starts back first and this set up levels my shoulders in a good way.

as the texas sun rose overhead and the salty sweat was stinging my eyes I thought to myself, " this is such a hard game!" I thought about the approach of constantly thinking about the future and a time when my swing will be solid and settled and then followed that thought with a snickering rebuke of this starry eyed dreaming which has been going on for too many years.

I wasn't having fun and decided to play a few shots where I didn't think at all but simply put my attention in my body and allowed the club to swing. the 8 iron I had in my hands and had been using to hit shots at a target on the left side of the range immediately began flying 5-8 yards farther and the sound was better. I was contacting the ball first and slightly more solid. this encouraged me to think even less and let go into my swinging motion with an awareness in my feet as my weight moved back to my right shoe and then forward to my left. my grip pressure was light and I could feel my arms folding and staying close to my body as I played shot after shot without thinking. I was feeling my swing and observing the sensation which is way different from directing my shoulders etc. how to move in order to swing.

I left the range recalling the three days in wrightsville beach when I had a similar feeling playing in the n.c. 4-ball with bill bolles and the practice session in montreal with fred shoemaker. both of these times had a similar feeling of an effortless swing