Tiger’s pain, did it help or hurt at the US Open?

Tiger won the US Open with a torn ACL, a fractured tibia and more pain than humans undergo during torture. The man is absolutely amazing. Did he do it for himself? If you listened to his interview or the comments Steve Williams made about the tournament, he did it for the fans.

Prior to stepping on the first tee, according to Steve Williams, Tiger was having difficulty walking 9 holes due to severe pain every time he swung the club. So how was he going to walk 18 for four days straight, let alone play golf?

His pain helped him focus as much as it hurt his golf swing. Yeah, that sounds absurd, but I’ve seen and experienced similar situations where somebody felt there was no choice (maybe Tiger did) so they kept going despite the pain.

Think about what had to go through Tiger’s mind every time he made a golf swing. Once he decided on the shot, he had to make a swing that would give him the best shot he could make without doing any more damage to his injury. In other words, once he was committed to a shot, his mind was completely on the movement AND blocking out the pain so it didn’t affect the movement.

All of you golfers with back injuries probably know what I’m talking about. It isn’t easy.

But in Tiger’s case, the major distraction of the pain and the injury forced him to focus on the same thing every time. No distractions, just movement. The shots weren’t always perfect. Who could expect that? But Tiger is so mentally tough, he was not only able to keep playing, but focus to make his best swing on every shot.

What Tiger had to do at the US Open is to use his huge distraction of his injury and his pain to focus on the task at hand. And that’s the key; staying on the task at hand without distraction.

I’ve seen this before. My brother was playing in Little League regional chanpionship baseball game as the pitcher. It was his turn in the rotation, but he developed an earache so bad, no amount of pain medication short of morphine would stop the pain. He felt that if he didn’t play, he would let his team down. Not only was his fast ball hotter than I’ve ever seen it, he also hit 2 home runs in that game … a long way out of the park. Lots of focus plus a little anger at having to deal with the pain.

My wife played softball on her college team. In one game she hit a base wrong and fractured her ankle. The problem was that they were a few players short already and leaving the game would force a forefit. She opted to stay in, so they moved her to right field, but the opposing team knew it and kept hitting the ball there. She hung in there and they won the game. Focus.

In my case, I was enlisting in the ARMY as an Interrogator. To get the position, you have to take a language, which meant taking a special test and passing it, which very few could do. This test was essentially 4 hours of learning and becoming relatively profficient at a new language. But the language was completely made up, so there was no way to stack the deck. The night before the test, I was served some bad food at the hotel the ARMY placed me in and had a major case of food poisoning. I threw up all night, had no sleep and was in absolute pain from the top of my head to the bottoms of my feet. Imagine a full-body migraine on top of no sleep for 36 hours. When they saw me that morning, they didn’t want to give me the test. I could have stayed another night and recovered, but taking another chance like that in that flea-bag hotel wasn’t going to happen. I had to sign a waivor in order to go ahead with the test. I not only passed the test, but got a higher than average score. Focus.

Back to golf… Focus on the task at hand.

So what is the task at hand in golf? Is it the shot or is it the swing?

This argument goes to the whole Past, Present, Future thing. The shot is in the future, and you’ll never get there, but the swing is in the present, which makes the swing the task at hand.

Since every swing must be a little different to account for the constantly changing variables that affect each shot, the shot variables have to figure in to the swing in such a way that you can make the proper swing and stay focused on it to get the proper outcome. That’s what Tiger does better than any other golfer in the world.

You see, focus isn’t just in the mind. If you have a picture of the perfect swing, but there is no connection of mind and body, the body won’t be able to make that swing consistently.

So is muscle memory the connection? I’m sorry but it isn’t. It’s not the connection simply by the way athletes try to train muscle memory. They use repetition and rely on the muscles to somehow know just what to do. But where does that “muscle memory or knowledge” come from? That’s right, the mind! Your mind has to tell the muscles what to do, so the memory is in the mind, not the muscles. Since the muscles change state as they warm up or cool down, the signals your mind has to send must constantly change to adjust for conditions. So there are an infinite number of changes the mind has to make every time it tells the muscles to move, if every movement is to be consistent.

So if Muscle Memory won’t do it, what is there? That’s why Golf Swing Control was created. Because there is a system in the body that is always constant, because the forces it has to work against don’t change. The force I’m talking about is Gravity and the system in your body is Balance Feedback.

Balance feedback is like the measuring system that the body uses to constantly adjust the signals it sends to the muscles as they change state. The Balance Feedback system works 24/7 while you are in movement, but few people even realize that it is there. Why, because it works quietly behind the scenes and only gets noticed whenever you trip or lose balance. If you have ever done that, you probably remember instantly moving your arms or legs or leaning one way or another without any thought. That’s the system at work.

Balance feedback sends reliable signals we can use to make our golf game efficient and consistent. You simply have to ask to see the feedback and learn how to use it.

This is why I often say that Golf Swing Control is for golfers who want to go beyond ordinary instruction. It’s also why golfers of all handicaps, using different style swings can all see great results.

If this makes sense, take some time to read other blog posts and look further into Golf Swing Control. If you like what you see and decide to use Golf Swing Control with your golf program, I’ll be here to answer your questions.

Yes, it’s all about focus. Focus is the factor that separates Tiger from every other golfer in the world. Don’t you think it might help you too?

Oh, by the way, don’t go out and hurt yourself to get better focus. There are somebuilding blocks that must be in place before that will help. What am I saying? Getting hurt is NOT a good idea!

Hit’m well,

Tracy