5 Pillars of Performance for Better Golf

If you want to perform your best, you must understand what all goes into performing at a high level.

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I am going to highlight what I feel like are the 5 Pillars of Performance in this blog. These Pillars are areas that every player needs to understand to take their game to the next level. The deeper the understanding, the better the player.

Understanding your Mechanics< In order for you to reach your full potential you must understand, at least at a basic level, how your body moves the club throughout your swing. Every player is different, has different limitations, different athletic ability, different strength, different flexibility, I could go on and on but I think you get the point. This is why you need to understand how YOU move and what YOUR club is doing throughout YOUR swing. The videos you are watching on YOUTUBE and TIKTOK and not based on YOU. You need a quality lesson with real time video analysis and data to start to understand this. It takes time to start to understand the cause and effect, but I believe every golfer can do it.

Know the Ball Flight Laws< How the ball flies is based on physics, and in physics there are laws. In golf, we call them the Ball Flight Laws. The only way you will change how your ball is flying through the air, is to first know why it flies the way it flies to begin with. Once again getting a lesson with a radar is a great start. There are a ton of videos on the internet that explain them in great detail. It may seem overwhelming when you first start to learn, but with time you will understand them at a high level. When you do, you will never have to ask “Why’d that ball just do that”? again!

Know Your WHY< Why do you play this game? Why do you want to be better? Why do you want to practice? We all play the game for different reasons, it’s one of the things that I love about the game. I think it is extremely important for every player to identify why they are playing the game and what they are trying to get from the game. If a player is simply playing the game to get outside and enjoy a nice evening with their friends, they need to have very different expectations than a player who is trying to get a college scholarship. There is nothing wrong with wanting either of those examples, but you must know your Why if you want to perform your best in either scenario.

Emotional IQ< This is most important Pillar in my opinion, and it’s the one that is studied and worked on by players. Every single movement, decision and action that we take as human beings is controlled by our emotions. In the golf swing there are a few moving parts and pieces lol and they are absolutely controlled by your emotional state during that swing. This is why the hardest shot in golf is always the shot right after a terrible one! Your emotions are going crazy, you’re calling yourself every name in the book, telling yourself not to hit it here, or don’t shank it!!!!! It is extremely difficult in that state to execute a golf swing that will produce a good shot. You must advance your EQ (emotional intelligence) to find ways to get your emotions under control after those bad shots. This is how you will save your round!

Know how to Prepare< Once you have an understanding of those pillars, you then need to know how to prepare or practice. One of the reasons golfers never get better, is because they don’t know how to practice and prepare for the game. Golf is a weird sport, every golf course is different and every hole on every golf course is different! We also don’t practice it on the field we play it on. We don’t play golf on a driving range! You must get on the golf course and play if you want to get better! Depending on your WHY, your level of MECHANICS, your understanding of the BALL FLIGHT LAWS, and your EQ will determine how you need to prepare. Make no mistake, if you want to shoot your lowest score ever, there is more that goes into that than just going out and hitting a bucket of balls and rolling a few 10 footers on the practice green before the round.

Tyson's Tips: The Low Down on Low Point

Have you ever even heard of Low Point?

As I have given thousands of lessons over the last few years, my thoughts and philosophy’s on the swing have definitely evolved. I have had the chance to learn from many of the world’s smartest and best instructors, and I have been exposed to many different ideas on how the swing should flow. One of the things that most, if not all, of the worlds best agree on, is that the player’s ability to control their Low Point is directly related to their level of play. The better the player can control their Low Point, the lower the scores that player has an opportunity to shoot. So, if everyone agrees on this, then why have many, if not most, players even heard of it? I obviously can not give you an exact answer, but in my opinion, it is because in traditional golf lessons there is so much wasted time talking about things simply because that’s how it’s always been done. Grip, stance, alignment, posture, ball position……. I’m not saying that those things aren’t important, but I don’t care if you have all of those things done perfectly, if you can’t control your low point, among other things that I will talk about in future posts, you’re going to suck at golf!

Ok, so what is Low Point?

Low Point – Distance from the club head’s geometric center to the lowest point on the swing arc at the time of maximum compression.

Huh?? Basically it is the point at which your club head is the lowest, relative to the ground, during your swing. Low point provides a different way of describing attack angle.

Low point is defined as being before or after impact.

First, find impact which is represented by the geometric center of the club head at the time of maximum compression. Then determine if the lowest point in the swing arc is before or after the geometric center of the club head.

Low point can create a strong visualization for the golfer
To hit up on the ball, the golfer must visualize the bottom of the swing arc occurring prior to the golf ball, this is what we would want to do with our driver. To hit down on the ball, the golfer must visualize the bottom of the swing arc occurring after the golf ball, this is what we would want to do wit a ball that is sitting on the ground.

So when I am working with people they are learning about Low Point for the first time. I often have people try to just hit my mat on purpose a few times, most of them never hit the mat. I then tell them “You can’t even hit the ground on purpose, what makes you think you can make that golf ball do what you want it to”! Obviously I say that in a joking manner, but I am actually dead serious! Low Point control has to move to the front of the line for players if they are serious about getting better!

Most of the time players tell me they are actually trying to avoid hitting the ground, they thought that was a bad thing. This concept will hold the player back and cause them to try and “help” the ball in the air. This often ends in fat shots, thin shots, topped shots, many times followed by a cuss word!!

I usually start with giving the player some golf club education, specifically talking to them about the Bounce of the club. Or, the bottom of the club.

As a golfer, we must get skilled at landing the bounce on the ground, in the correct spot. Initially I don’t care how a player accomplishes it, I do, but I don’t, let’s just start attempting to thump the ground with the bounce. The better the player gets with the new concept, and their skill starts to improve, we can start to talk about other things in their swing that make it difficult to accomplish, and start attacking those faults.

One of the easiest ways to practice your Low Point Control is to get into a bunker, draw a line with your club in the sand, and work on thumping the sand, or landing the bounce in the sand. Your goal is to land the bounce slightly in front of your line, or closer to the target. Many people don’t have access to a practice bunker, or would just rather avoid those nasty things at all costs! Inside the studio, I will put a towel down on the mat about a club head’s width behind a ball. I ask the player to hit the ball and avoid the towel.

Most of the time in the beginning I spend a lot of time chasing the towel as the player takes a swing and the towel goes flying along with the ball! It’s not easy to avoid that damn thing! After I allow the player to attempt this a few times and I chase the towel a few times, I will start to give them some feedback on what they are specifically doing that is causing them to still hit behind the ball. There are many reasons, and with the TrackMan and the video, I can get to the exact reason quickly for the player.

With a 7 iron we want the Low Point to be about 3-4 inches ahead of the golf ball. Using the couple of drills I posted above, and now that you know little about what Low Point actually is, go out and work on Thumping the Bounce on the ground and try to make it slightly in front of your ball. If you do this there is no doubt in my mind you will start hitting the ball much better!

Thank you for reading,

Tyson Deskins