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Rhythm golfers look at the game as if it were a dance....
The rhythm player’s wiring is located in the vestibular system (inner ear) of the body. This system is also a brainstem function that features rhythm and balance. The rhythm player senses the shot as one motion…not a series of events.
- Uses rhythm
- Motion creates motion
- Rhythmic walk/swing
- Metronome, chewing gum, music
- Comfort, loose clothing
- Club selected by weight, loft
- Learns by listening, counting
- Speech: I’m hearing you say
- Movement/rhythm/balance
- Concentration = rhythm/count
- Swing programmed by rhythm & balance
- Mantra: “Count Du Jour 1, 2, 3!”
- Stress: Quick swing/build tension
- Stay in present by count and balance
- No count = quick out of sequence swing
- Eyes move in rhythm
- Key: Rhythmic take away in count/smooth
- Create perfect count
- STOP: Mechanics/visualization
- Start: The music/beat
- Continue: The beat/tempo, balance at finish/moving
- Bad play = quickness on take away, interruption, slow play .
- Lower voice, rhythmic talk
- Social sciences/management/leadership
- Music, Singing, drumming, chant, R&B, Bosanova, lyrics
Images for Rhythm Players
- Hear the song, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”
- Make your swing feel like a waltz rhythm (3/4 time).
- Swing like you are brushing your sidewalk clear of snow.
- Count:“Ready, aim, fire!”
- Hear the swish of the club.
- Hear the click of the ball on the club face.
- Hold your balance of the finish position.
Tips for Rhythm Players
Rhythm players need to be in motion. If you stop moving, you’ll almost always hit a bad shot. Your challenge as a player is to learn how to create shots using the correct tempo and rhythm. Tempo and rhythm are two different things. Tempo is the pace of your swing. Rhythm is the in sync sequence of your swing. Nick Price has a quick tempo and very smooth rhythm.
Not much has been written about rhythm players. Most golf instruction is geared for picture and feel players. Tempo is important for all players, but rhythm is the key for you!
I recommend that rhythm players walk the course (easy to stay in rhythm), chew gum, listen to rhythmic CDs, buy heavy golf clubs so you can sense the rhythm in your swing, never talk to yourself, use counting or sounds to program your shots.
Learn to control your distance on short-game shots and putting by the rhythm of your body. Tempo starts in the legs. Slow down your legs if you begin to get “quick” in your swing. Learn to read putts with your feet, feeling the slope and sensing the distance by walking on the high side of the putt. Learn to putt with your feet (small weight shift with the putter hanging from your hands will do the trick).
Don’t try to visualize the shot or to feel the position of the golf swing. Your style benefits most from sensing the swing as a total rhythmic event.
Develop a simple 1-2-3 approach to your routine. Use the same routine on every shot and keep moving! A forward press is a good idea as the last count before you take the club back.
See if you can find a rhythm player as an instructor. They are easy to spot. They dance with their golf swing! Buy the Bobby Jones tapes, watch old footage of Payne Stewart, Tom Watson, John Daly or Laura Davies. Listen to only “good” music that has lyrics and a beat.
P.S. Buy a metronome, and use it on the practice tee and practice putting green.
The key to all of this is the answer to the question: HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN TO TAKE THE CLUB BACK?
The rhythm golfer will say, “when I hit my count of the day, I go.”
For more details on this system, check out Dr. Bill Campbell's program "Hard Wired for Golf"http://hardwiredforgolf.com/
Tags: Mental Game
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This video is playing golf as a rhythm golfer.
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So rhythm golfers are similar to field golfers in that they experience a very rich environment
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inside of their body.
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However, since field golfers are very much in tune with kind of muscles and tensions and
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activations and that kind of stuff, rhythm golfers are more in tune with sequencing and pressures
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and kind of where your weight is.
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Similar to more of a dancer.
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So rhythm golfer is getting most of their information from what's happening with the
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vestibular system.
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And so what's going on with the vestibular system is very common to those who practice dance.
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So what you'll see with a rhythm golfer is that when they're playing really well,
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they will tend to have this kind of constant rhythm that happens throughout their hand.
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And it'll all start back here.
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So if they're behind the golf ball, you'll see a rhythm golfer where everything is kind of moving
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at a very pronounced count.
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So whether it's kind of almost a one, two, three, four or whether it's a one and two and three
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and a four or like they'll have this count.
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They're works for that.
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But when they play well,
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is when everything kind of moves off of that count.
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You'll see them constantly fidgeting and wiggling and moving over the ball.
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Similar to say a Tom Watson or Jason Duffner, Sergio Garcia where you see them kind of
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moving, moving and go.
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What you want to do is you want to establish your rhythm for the day and you want to have everything
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work off of that rhythm.
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So I've had golfers with kind of slow rhythms where basically they're counting in their head
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and basically every little thing as this kind of look to it.
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Boom.
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Where the field golfer is going to spend a lot of the time over the golf ball kind of getting said.
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The rhythm golfer really wants to go on their count and they'll feel better when they go on their
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count and if they choose a count that tends to have the right amount of time built into it.
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What I mean by that is some golfers who are rhythm golfers will tend to get over the ball and kind of
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stay there for a long period of time.
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I lost Sergio Garcia who hadn't practiced or didn't have a good enough count to know exactly
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when to take the club back.
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So he was kind of waiting until his body had this rhythm and he was waiting until everything
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lined up so he could start it on one.
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Pretty much want to figure out what do you need to do to build one?
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Right? How do I make sure that everything kind of starts on one?
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So whether that's Lichervino getting up there and in two beats getting ready to hit or it's Jason
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Duffner and he's kind of got a certain number of wiggles to breathe and let's go.
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But rhythm golfers will tend to do well when they stay with their count.
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The rhythm golfer is going to store stress when they feel like they've lost their count
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and when they feel like they are either moving faster or slower.
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So if I hear in my head a feed of one, two, three, four, but I'm trying to kind of slow things down.
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That's going to tend to build some tension in my body which is going to make it hard to repeat
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the swing that I've been practicing on the range without tension.
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The other option is they're going to tend to get quicker, especially under pressure.
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And so having this count that they hear in their head or having these rhythms
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is going to provide that kind of inner clarity that they need in order to process things well.
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So when you're doing your drills, you want to focus on the sequencing and the relationships of movements
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more so than the details of exactly where the positions are.
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So instead of focusing on kind of, okay, bending this wrist, getting this elbow in front,
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yes you're going to have to do that to work on technique.
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But then what you need to do as a rhythm player is you're going to say, okay,
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if I do those movements together, where does that change the weighting?
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Where does that change the pressure?
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Where does that change this timing?
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Because as these timing change, you're going to find what is kind of your perfect timing.
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So you can use these drills to focus on some fields, you can use these drills to get pictures of
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where the path is going. But the ones that are going to do the best for transferring practice
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are going to be the ones that help you feel your perfect sequencing and exactly when you need to
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start your swing is going to be based on the count. So when you're playing around with building your
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pre-shot routine, you want to practice taking steps on count, waggle's on count,
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rocking on count, everything moving kind of on this beat. Before that you do that,
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the more success you're going to tend to have transferring it from the range to the course.
