The Rhythm of Golf
As golf teachers and coaches, we often talk about the mechanics of the game and the mental side of competing, but sometimes we forget one aspect that may be among the most critical – the rhythm of the game.
When most golfers think of rhythm, they think of it purely in terms of their swings, i.e., the ratio of the speed of the backswing compared to the speed of the forward swing. While we will discuss this in this article, we also want to focus on the rhythm of the game itself. Just what is the “rhythm of the game”? We have identified several aspects.
Rhythm Before The Round
Some of the old-timers in the professional game said that before a round of golf, they did everything more slowly than usual. They ate slowly, they drove to the course slowly, and they even walked slowly. Why did they do this? Because, in the excitement of the moment, we tend to speed everything up. Our minds are racing with the anticipation of what’s to come, and if we’re not careful, we could even speed up our physical actions as a result.
Doing things slowly before a round is one way to make sure that we don’t get out of a proper rhythm when it comes time to play the game.
Rhythm During The Round
Assuming that we’re in a good rhythm to start the round, it’s important to try to maintain a constant rhythm during the round. If we’re walking, we want to walk at the same pace, go through our pre-shot routine at the same pace, and even make sure our post-shot routine rhythm is consistent. If we’re riding in a cart, rhythm can be difficult to
maintain, due to the different aspects of doing so. We might have to drop off our riding partner at his ball, or we might instead wait in the cart for him to hit. If we’re the one hitting first, our partner might drop us off and then go to his ball, or he might wait on us.
One thing that seems to throw off many players is when the pace of play changes. Let’s say you start out and it’s smooth sailing, only to come to the seventh tee and there’s a group waiting to hit.
The pace of play has gone from brisk to slow, and this can definitely throw off a golfer’s rhythm. In this situation, it might help to try to play the entire h ole as continuously as possible. In other words, don’t hit off the tee as soon as the group in front is out of range; you’ll just be waiting again to hit your approach shot. Instead, wait maybe a minute or two longer, so that when it’s time to hit your approach shot, you’re not waiting as long as you would have been…or, you might not have to wait at all.
Conversely, the pace of play might start out relatively slow, and then a group or two allows us to play through. The pace of play now speeds up considerably, and even though that’s what we wanted, we had gotten used to playing slower and adjusted our rhythm accordingly. Instead of speeding our pace up right away, it’s probably better to keep somewhere near the pace we had when we had other golfers blocking our way, and then gradually increase our pace.
Whether the pace of the round goes from fast to slow or slow to fast, it’s important that we maintain the same pace in our pre-shot routine. Oftentimes, when players are letting others play through, those playing through speed up their routines in an attempt to “get out of the way.” The problem with this is that we are actually not speeding up all that much time-wise, but mentally it feels much faster. If we go through our normal routine, the group letting us through won’t care, and we’ll probably actually get through quicker because we’re hitting better shots than we would if we tried to hurry our routines.
Rhythm During The Swing
One enduring myth is that amateur golfers swing too fast. Despite a number of credible sources that have debunked this myth, many, if not most, instructors and coaches still are under this false notion. Why is this?
Jack Nicklaus, in his book Golf My Way, wrote, “I believe you cannot start the golf club back too slowly.” This undoubtedly influenced a generation of golf instructors, who in turn influenced another generation of golf instructors, etc. However, instructors who believe the club should be swung back slowly, based on Nicklaus’s advice, apparently did not read something else Nicklaus wrote in the same book: “There can be no doubt that a golfer’s tempo – how fast he swings overall – is related to his personality…. There have been as many fast swingers as slow swingers among the great players.” When Nicklaus was referring to swinging back slowly, he was really talking about taking the club back smoothly in the context of a golfer’s personal tempo.
Research has proven that the vast majority of amateurs actually take the club back more slowly than do tour pros. For example, a study done by Yale University shows that average golfers have a backswing that takes approximately 20 percent more time to complete compared to the average tour pro’s, and virtually no amateur in the study swung back as fast as the average tour pro. Slow backswings are a problem because they are not as close to a true swinging motion as is a faster backswing. It’s easier to get out of position with a slow backswing. Not only that, but to maintain an ideal backswing-to-downswing time ratio of 3:1, a slow backswing necessarily means a slow forward swing. And, if a golfer with a slow backswing wants to have a fast forward swing, his backswingto- downswing time ratio might be 4:1 or even 5:1, which is far from ideal.
The solution, of course, is to swing back faster. The YouTube video at the end of this article features the tour average swing rhythm, both visually and audibly.
Summary
Rhythm is a big part of the game of golf, and one that is sometimes neglected. Finding a proper rhythm for the many aspects of the game, and knowing how to adjust when that proper rhythm gets disrupted, is crucial for being able to play one’s best.
