My ebook, The Alexander Technique Applied to the Golf Technique of Tiger Woods, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical, and it will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to play golf with ease, power, pain-free, and with accuracy.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, NM, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
It has been fascinating for me to watch Tiger Woods attempt to return to consistently winning. From everything I hear, it appears that he is treating it as a golf technique problem.
My perception is that it is a loss of faith. His inability to trust his body and his technique is blocking his return to consistent playing. He has to make the leap to trusting that his technique is unquestionably good enough. That if he knows where he wants to place the ball, whether a drive or a 20 foot putt, it will be accurate and stay on the green or go in the hole.
I recently watched some of the Masters recently, and I was ASTOUNDED how many players missed their putts of 15 feet or more. If a classical musician played that inaccurately on his or her instrument, there would be no chance of a concert career or of an orchestra job.
I’m guessing that golfers accept this, it is the norm, so that’s the way it is. As I watched the golfers at the Masters get ready to putt, they would spend forever looking at the ball, the hole from every possible angle, and consult their caddy.
Finally they would putt, and it almost always looked like to me they were trying to do math in their head, as they HOPED the ball would go in.
I’m not sure I saw a single golfer take in the whole picture – lie of the ball and lie of the ground – and TRUST their body to hit the ball into the hole. I used the word hope in the preceding paragraph, because that is what I saw. Most of the players hoped the ball would go in the hole, rather than expecting it to, having faith it would.
Truth is, it became intolerable for me to watch. I was a concert guitarist who began to play with faith, when I discovered it was the only way to perform. I had played for years trying not to make mistakes. So, for me, it was very difficult to watch the best golfers in the world putt with maybe 50 50 odds of getting it in their thoughts, rather than getting out of their own way, trusting all of the endless hours of practice, trust their technique, and just putt.
Just putt with the faith it would go in. If it doesn’t go in, continue to only putt with faith and trust it will go in the next time. Because from what I’m seeing, what these extraordinary players is doing isn’t working. And nobody seems to be questioning the status quo.
Almost DOESN’T COUNT. (Almost only counts in playing horseshoes and throwing hand grenades.) You can’t play an instrument almost playing the right note, and almost getting the golf ball in the hole is still missing the hole. (It’s all like being a little bit pregnant – no such thing.)
Returning to Tiger Woods, what if he just started playing golf for the pure joy of it and trusted all of the work he has done, his technique, and his body to hit the mark (place the ball in the hole.) Then he’d be back. Actually he wouldn’t be back, he’d be BETTER than he’s ever been, and he’d set the bar even higher, and all of the other players would have to learn to putt with trust.
One last point, since golfers usually don’t drive to get the ball in the hole, then they usually drive the ball with trust, so there is less internal pressure. But what if golfers drove the ball with the trust that some part of themselves knows how to hole the ball on a drive? The game would be transformed.
