mind coach

“Mind Boggling” – Holy Crap / Brighten Your Day Email Part 2

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By Tim Graves, PGA

From: D A JENSON <jenson*****>
Date: Mon, Dec 8, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Subject: Follow-up
To: Tim Graves <timg@gravesgolf.com>

Hey Tim, 

This is Dean Jenson again.  I just got the email with your video about my email.  I was chuckling when you described what I was likely doing in my swing.   You nailed everything, of course. 

Just to fill in some blanks, I had the body damage mentioned from my sports activities earlier in my life.  Boys will be boys.

I spent one winter looking at different golf swings and settled on the single plane because of the reduced strain on the back and lead knee.    

My ACL damage was significant.  If I slipped a little shoveling snow, I would be down on the ground instantly.  I had to be very conscious of foot placement. I got the ACL replacement when pro athletes started returning to their sport after having the procedure done.  The problem for golf was 15 years of conscious and subconscious knee protection.  Correct lead knee movement and trail hip motion took years to override the self-protection mechanisms. 

I am not going to get into my shoulder and arm issues.  However, after talking with other students at your schools that I have been to, I feel relatively unscathed.  I suspect overcoming self-protection mechanisms might be slowing down other students’ learning processes as well.  I first had to slowly hit each position and hold it and tell myself that it was a safe position for me to be in. I had to repeat those slow movements a lot before I could speed up my swing.  Your comments about the 25, 50, 75 then full swing are great practice methods for the swing.   But they were also very helpful for tip toing in to find out my body parts could perform the movements safely. 

I decided last Thanksgiving that bike riding indoors and outdoors would be my main source of exercise for life.  Watching pro bike races got me interested in training.  Training harder got me into the pro rider’s health habits.  That got me and my wife into better nutrition, which was already good thanks to my wife.   I started getting into joint mobility and stretching after seeing and listening to you and Chris.  My wife made stretching a little competitive as she would ask me if I could do some of her Yoga poses.  I couldn’t, and my hips would actually cramp up just from sitting on the floor and spreading my legs out.   That was freaky.   I have been working on hip flexibility regularly for the last year and will continue whole body mobility as long as I breathe.   I am conscious of and work towards keeping full shoulder range of motion.  The golf swing itself helps with that.  The golf exercises from Chris, of course, are tremendous.  I may not get stronger, but flexibility will help maintain my golf swing’s range of motion.  It appears to me that range of motion is most important for the proper swing positions to take place and create the effortless power you talk about regularly.    

In the last month I have begun to feel effortless power.   I actually feel I need to slow the swing down.  I was always trying to swing hard to make up for a less than perfect swing.   Maybe it is not slowing things down but just using less tight muscled-up force.  I have reached a connectedness in the swing where I can feel I am hitting the ball hard; it sounds different as well.   The ease of the swing now makes me feel I could easily do 36 holes a day if I wanted to.   It is just mind boggling seeing the changes in the last 2 months.  

This is getting a little long again, sorry.  Apparently, I don’t do short emails.    

Thanks Again,

Dean Jenson 

Practice Slower, Play Faster

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By Paul Monahan, Graves Golf Mental Game Coach

Sounds like a directive. Right?

Actually I think of it as a mental game approach. Here’s why:

At almost every Graves Golf school I attend, lots and lots of students are doing their level-best to achieve the Single Plane Swing model. But many, if not most suffer because of two important missteps.

They practice too quickly. And they PLAY the game too slowly.

Interestingly, these are not execution missteps (caused by lack of focus or an inability to understand a strategy)…they are mental game failures.

Let me explain, first with the concept of Practicing Slower.

The Single Plane Swing curriculum that Todd and Tim Graves and their instruction team have refined over the years is based on the very latest in skill development research: that we learn best from slow, deliberate and proper practice movements. (Not beating balls over and over again.)

One simply cannot groove and assimilate new body positions without this kind of work.

Moe Norman famously said to Todd and Tim that he once spent an entire day holding what we call position five. Why? Moe said he wanted to “…make it stronger.”

Just last week I heard Todd tell the story that when one of their Master Instructors was converting from conventional to the Single Plane Swing, he was known to spend hours on the practice range working on one thing: perfecting his move into position one.

Why won’t most students spend their practice time like this? One word: Their EGO.

It’s more satisfying to the EGO to hit ONE great shot every once in a while rather than spend the time needed to master a position or two.

In other words, even though it is a rational-enough concept (practicing slowly during your swing development), it is much harder to do because a part of your brain wants to “show the world” what you are capable of.

The harsh reality in all of this is: Until you SLOW DOWN and develop a deliberate practice regimen that includes far MORE correct body movement and far LESS actual shots with a ball, you will continue to delay the mastery of the Single Plane Swing. (Sorry. That’s just the way it is.)

This requires cultivating the awareness that your EGO will try to sabotage a regimen like this. It requires that you learn to tune into your mental and emotional tendencies…and be disciplined enough to stay on track with the deliberate, deep practice that will yield the changes you are looking for.

Dan Coyle wrote about this in  The Talent Code…and Todd and Tim refer often to the research and insights from Coyle’s work. Skill development comes from deep, deliberate, proper practice.

Now let’s address Playing Faster:

When it comes to playing the game, most players play too slowly. Specifically, they tinker and hover too long over the ball when they are hitting their shots. This causes paralysis by analysis – and yes…this is an actual technical term.

Sian Beilock, in her book Choke chronicles the trouble we get into when we linger over a golf shot too long. Basically, she explains that the part of our brain that is responsible for moving the body in space (procedural memory) switches off in those moments, and then our working memory takes over. This causes over-thinking and less-than-optimal muscle movement. (And yes, often is causes: The Choke)

The antidote? Play faster. Stop lingering. Pull the trigger over your shots sooner. This will prevent over-thinking and will allow you to play golf more as a reactionary sport…and you will be able to execute shots up to your talent level, not BELOW your talent level.

So if you want to get better this year, do yourself a favor and tune up your Mental Game skills: create a discipline to practice slower when off the course, and to play faster when on it.

Have Fun!

Mastery Orientation

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By Paul Monahan, Graves Golf Mental Game Coach

GGA Mental Game Coach

Your brain is amazing.

It regulates your body process, allows you to analyze and interpret external stimuli and is the source of the very consciousness that allows you to read this sentence.

And it is also an incredible survival tool.

The brain has a very powerful (but primitive) threat response system designed to keep you alive. Great when you need to run from a tiger (as you may have needed to 50,000 years ago), but not so great when you want to perform at your best in a competitive situation (like the Spring member-guest against your buddies.)

Your brain’s threat response system is always monitoring your external environment to determine if your safety is in jeopardy, much like aa software program running silently in the background. You probably aren’t even aware of it.

The challenge with this system is that it is not smart enough to know the difference between a saber-toothed tiger running toward you (which could ACTUALLY harm you) and a slippery downhill 10-footer on the eighteenth hole to tie your match.

In both cases, your brain goes into threat response because it has assessed that you might lose something very important to you. It signals to your body that you are in danger.

The problem? On the golf course, this response has physical and mental implications. Sweaty palms impact your ability to hold the putter properly. Nervous, shaking hands affect your ability to move the putter as you would like to. And clouded judgment can impact the kind of decision-making that keeps you in your process.

So what to do?

I believe that we can be successful more consistently in nearly any performance context when we do certain things to prevent the brain’s threat response from activating.

I coach my clients on the distinction between operating from a Mastery Orientation versus operating from an Outcome Orientation. And I teach them how to adopt a Mastery Orientation whenever stepping into any kind of performance arena.

The primary difference between the two operating orientations is this: people who operate a Mastery Orientation are concerned with elevating their competence. People who operate from an Outcome Orientation are concerned with proving their competence.

Because of this, a golfer with a Mastery Orientation has a distinct performance advantage. They are more likely to stay connected to all their skills and abilities. And they can execute at a high level and do things like:

  • tune into their surroundings in productive ways
  • stick to their game plan and make clear decisions
  • stay in the present moment and execute their process
  • feel the putter move freely
  • be playful and PLAY the game

This is because they are not wrapped up in results. To them, outcomes are important, but only insomuch as they (the outcomes) reflect where they (the golfer) are on their own path to mastery.

They know deep down that the WORST that can happen is that they will learn something: about their game, their capacity for resilience, their ability to compete in certain conditions…etc. And because they hold this knowledge, their brain’s primitive threat response is not activated as easily.

When they hit wayward shots, they see those shots in the context of their overall goals in golf – and not as defining moments in that particular competition, nor even how they define their own self-worth.

In a way, golfers who operate from a Mastery Orientation have written a story for themselves about what their experiences on the golf course mean to them. And they access that story each time they play.

For them, golf is not (entirely) about winning or losing, but rather about growing in their mastery of the game. Each shot – no matter the stakes – is an opportunity to learn and improve, not a challenge.

The result? They play better. They score better. And typically enjoy themselves more.

On the other hand, the golfer who operates from an Outcome Orientation is typically in for a much more emotionally-charged ride on the course. Why? Because their ego is heavily involved in how they see each shot. (Remember, they are trying to PROVE their competence, not grow it.)

When they stand at the first tee, they experience anxiety because they are trying to show the world the fruits of all their hard work on the range. (We call this pressure.)

And when they have to face that slippery downhill 10-footer, the dominant thoughts are not about what they could gain, but rather about what they might lose. They experience what my colleague and NHL hockey prospect coach Walter Aguilar calls horizontal thinking: they “move horizontally” in their thinking to the future, imagining how awful it would be to miss the putt and to lose their credibility with their friends and/or competitors.

As a result, they begin to lose access to their high-level cognitive functioning, as well as the physical skills and abilities they possessed prior to starting the round. And of course, this can start a kind of performance death spiral that is very difficult to pull out of.

The good news is that you have options. You can choose the mental and emotional stance from which to operate when you play. You can choose the orientation you want to adopt when playing golf.

xI hope you choose a Mastery Orientation.

“Do Not Try, Just Do”

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By Dr. Ron Cruickshank, Golf Mind Coach & GGA Director, Canada

Today was a good day. My son Blade, a collegiate lacrosse player at Guilford College in North Carolina, was requested this year to take up the goalie position. Now, if you know anything about lacrosse you know this is like setting yourself up at the business end of a shooting gallery, without much padding. His first month was a regular series of phone calls asking Mom for some home remedies for bruises and bumps all over his body.

Most of his buddies questioned his sanity for taking up the goalie position, as it is common knowledge that this position can result in being ‘gun shy’ and develop an early case of the jitters as you are trying to avoid getting whacked on the shins with a ball about the same density as a hockey puck. Not fun!

So, why was it a good day when my son’s schedule calls for him to show up as the target for 30 top athletes with sticks? The reason was a call we had today in which he shared he had a great day of practice, maybe his best ever at this level. That was a change from the last couple of months.

As we queried the reasons, he told us that he had pulled some advice from the past (meaning something his old Dad had told him) and decided to start humming whenever he was under intense assault from the opposing attack men. “It worked great,” he said. “Got a few strange looks from my teammates, but they liked the results.” He further added. “I was able to quit trying so hard and just let it happen without thinking about it.”

Read carefully here and understand the message. What he was doing by humming was interrupting his own internal dialogue (negative, fearful, uncertain) and letting his body do what it already was programmed to do. That is, watch a ball coming towards him at 90 MPH and catch it in a net connected to stick in his hands. His body knew how to do that because he has practiced it thousands of times and has it stored in his brain within thousands of neural circuits. Yet, something was getting in his way.

What most often gets in the way is a negative internal dialogue that gets manifested as some self-defeating behavior. It gets more complicated when you attach real pain to this dialogue (he actually got whacked a bunch of times). It then becomes what is known in behavioral science jargon as a “kinesthetic or visual anchor’. That is, just the visual imagery of the ball or even a feeling or thought can cause the body to be less than resourceful and reduce overall performance.

Let me give you an example. If you will imagine you are driving along a nice scenic highway on a lovely spring day. Your car is new and freshly washed, the windows are down and the trees seem extra green and vivid. The flowers are out, the air is crisp and you have a sense of well-being and things seem right with the world. All of a sudden a flashing blue light appears directly behind you and the Highway Patrol guy is motioning you to pull over.  Whoops! Now tell me what happened to your emotional state as you imagined this scene?  That is an anchor and the feeling you got is similar to what happens when you let your dialogue get negative under stress.

There is a memorable scene I love in the movie Star Wars. Luke Skywalker is trying to raise his crashed ship from the primordial ooze and is unable. In frustration, Yoda tells him. “Do not try Luke, just do!” What a great statement by a great teacher. Yoda was telling Luke to get his preconceptions, his fears, his wishes and his wants out of the way and just let his mind and body do what it knew how to do. In Yoda’s sentiments, trying doesn’t exist, you either do or you don’t.

The lesson here, for each of us, is that performance is often inhibited because we care too much. We want to do well so intensely that the desire itself becomes a type of over care or stress and the toll it takes – is our performance.

If you are seeking to maximize your performance when playing golf, or any other aspect of your life, where you get into a state of over care, it makes great sense to reduce the significance of the event in any way you can.   My son is doing it by humming because you can’t think and hum at the same time (try it, it is true).

You can practice reducing significance by trying the following:

  • Being truly in the here and now. Focus on what is happening this second.
  • Think of the game you are in as just a fun round without any real consequence to you. You dissociateyourself from the emotional meaning.
  • Focus on a physiological aspect, like your breathing.  This moves your thoughts of performance into the background.
  • Direct interruption of your internal dialogue – hum your favorite tune. This can be done sub-vocalized to keep the noise down, or perhaps you might be playing with the members of a rock band and they would enjoy it.
  • Develop and rely on a routinethat allows you to minimize your thoughts beyond what you are actually doing. This is why so many Pro’s use a strict pre-shot routine for every shot, especially putting, because this is when they are most susceptible to minor muscle movement related to stress. When they get under pressure they have a familiar routine to fall back on that lets them compartmentalize their internal dialogue to the rehearsed procedure.

You hear this reflected often in post-round interviews when a pro will tell the interviewer. “I was trying to not get ahead (a head) of myself.” What he is telling us all highlights his desire not to let distracting, and unrelated to the task at hand, internal dialogue begins to affect his performance. If you are thinking about getting the trophy in an hour, or your gracious acceptance speech, it is hard to be lining up and executing the perfect putt.

In general, if you reduce the emotional significance of an event, you will reduce negative emotional impact on your state of being and that translates into improved performance. Your body is a closed and connected loop and every part is interacting with the other.

So, as to my humming lacrosse playing goalie son, I will report that his team is off to its best start in 20 years, with 5 wins and 1 loss so far this season. Now that’s a tune we can all enjoy.

About the Author: Dr. Ron Cruickshank recently opened the GGA – Moe Norman Golf School as part of the GGA expansion program into Canada. He is headquartered at the Royal Ashburn Golf Club in Whitby Ontario. This year’s offerings include a variety of Specialty Clinics in addition to the regular GGA Schools. If you are serious about getting better this year call Ron at 647-892-4653.

Old Dogs and New Tricks: Mastering Mental Flexibility as We Age

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By Dr. Ron Cruickshank, Golf Mind Coach & GGA Director, Canada

A few years back I had the privilege of studying with a group of Aikido martial art masters in Tokyo at a legendary Dojo (training center) in the heart of the city. All of these men were over 60 and several over 70 years of age. What became immediately apparent, and of long lasting imprint on my mind, was how fresh and dynamic they all were. Not of just of body, but of mind, energy and spirit.

This made an enormous impression on me that has lasted for many years. Each master constantly had a calm smile on his face. When on the tatami mats (and off), they exuded a sense of confidence and wellbeing. To a man, they were funny and constantly finding things to laugh about. However, mostly I noticed they seemed incredibly flexible in their approach to things around them.  It was a palpable and observable phenomenon. Later I came to think of this energetic as ‘no resistance’. They didn’t seem in resistance to “things” around them.  I’ve come to believe this is a major component to maintaining our vitality as we age and in our ability to take on and master new things.

My impression of these men began with their physical carriage and manifested in their approach to things around them. These guys weren’t all crouched over; bent of spine and looking like aged steaks. They walked upright, held their shoulders back, glided when they walked. They had a sense of dynamic tension in their bodies and one had the sense they were highly attuned to things around them. In other words, these guys didn’t match societal norms for being “older”.

While admitting the stereotypes might be changing, I find most people still have a diminished personal representation of what it means to be ‘older’ or to age. Try a fun experiment to discover the societal archetype of an older person. Ask anyone to stand up and demonstrate what it looks like to be ‘old’ by walking 5 feet across the room. In most cases your respondent will adopt a stooped body position, their shoulders bent forward and be a bit off balance in their carriage and stance and move with a halting gait across the 5 feet. THAT demonstration is their internal representation of what it means to be old and I believe is the pattern they will adopt as time passes.

What would happen if we had a different and more empowering representation of what it means to age? This is worth exploring because it is my position that all these mental and physical representations require energy to maintain in both your mind and your body. Ultimately, your body will manifest into reality your imagery of being old and aging. Remember, every thought requires energy and all this energy must be accounted for and maintained.

My mentor, and model of positive aging was Dr. Jim Farr. A brilliant psychologist and lifetime martial artist, he was vibrant and active to the end of his life at age 84. He was still teaching at the University on a part-time basis, still going to the Y a few times a week and maintained an inquisitive and probing mind till the end. On the day he died, he spent the morning weed eating the ditch on the long driveway into his farm, and then worked in his garden. He came in and had lunch, took a walk and then came in for a late afternoon libation. At some point he told his wife he didn’t feel great and he went into his bedroom and left the planet.  I can only aspire to go out the same way.

So what characteristics did both the martial arts masters and my friend Jim have that made them so perceptibly different in the way they aged? The following observations are taken from my journal writings on this subject, many going back over 25 years. In fact, the first entry on this subject was in 1977.

  • Negative aging is associated with energy being spent in maintaining a particular view of the world and how it ‘should be’, as opposed to how it is. People that want it “different” spend enormous energy trying to rearrange things to fit their world-view. This seldom works and is a big energy drain. It also produces anger and frustration when expectations aren’t met. The chemicals within your body that are released from anger are correlated with aging and stress related diseases.
  • Individuals that age well don’t seem to express or hold a lot of judgments about things. They aren’t spending a lot of their life energy seeking to organize things ‘the way they should be’.
  • Anytime you hear yourself or others utter the words “should”, “shouldn’t”, “must”, “have to”, “got to” or “ought to”, you should become aware you are expressing a judgment that is energy draining. Ask yourself. What would happen if I didn’t… (fill in your judgment statement)?
  • These judgments require enormous energy to carry around and manifest in your life. Positive older people recognize that if you can’t change something, the best avenue is to accept it and move on.
  • Vibrant older people want toWear out, not rust out. They keep their body moving. The single greatest reason old people get frail and fall, thus starting the inevitable decline, is because the muscles in their legs and body core are underutilized and they can’t maintain their balance under movement and duress.

Research published within the last three years show that falls and loss of balance in older people are correlated with three issues.

o   The inner ear balance mechanism degrades with time.

o   Due to inactivity, the body core muscles are not strong enough to hold a person upright when leaning in a particular direction or balance is lost and they don’t have the strength to recover

o   The small muscles of the feet and ankles are so depleted as a result of people’s sedentary life style, that their balance is compromised.

With some basic exercise you can absolutely control two out of three of these variables. Exercise like yoga and Pilates are particularly helpful.

More good news! Regardless of your age, a significant body of research has shown you can grow and develop muscle at any age. Strength or resistance training has shown to develop lean muscle in people of all ages. In one study, a group of elderly people that were restricted to wheelchairs were all able to walk within three months just by doing weight training and balance exercises. It is never too late. Your body will respond and you can get stronger or more flexible or have better balance regardless of your age.

Hardening of the Categories

Most people think about hardening of the arteries when thinking about aging. From a mental perspective I suggest that the rigidity of both body and mind that is associated with aging is more a result of hardening of the categories.

By the time you have reached 50 years of age, you have made millions of choices in your life. Imagine that each time you have had a negative experience you decided to not do that behavior or make that choice again. From one perspective that is the voice of experience (don’t stick your hand in a blender – good choice). From another perspective, you are vastly limiting your options or choices for any given situation.

If your automatic reaction is to not consider an option because of a previous experience, then by the time you are 70 years of age you have a greatly diminished selection of options. Fewer options mean less chance of system survival. I wrote about his phenomena, called the Law of Requisite Variety, a few blogs ago. Essentially, the system with the most options wins and the converse is also true.

What do these thoughts about aging have to do with playing better golf or achieving a higher level of performance in your game? Quite simple. Many people won’t even consider making a change in their game or adopting a new approach because they have a belief that they are too old to change, or that making a change is too hard at this stage of the game.  This is not supported by the facts. You can make a change at any stage and it is never too late to learn and get better. All it takes is your decision.

One year I was with Todd, Moe and Larry Olsen in Titusville, Florida on the driving range. Moe was in his 60’s at the time. As usual he was hitting balls with unerring accuracy. On this day there was a stiff breeze into our faces and Moe was working on trajectory into the wind (he hit the pin four times from 180 yards in the first 15 minutes by the way). However, what I most remember was Moe telling us how excited he was about a swing change he had made recently and he kept telling us with much animation that he had ‘finally learned how to putt”. The lesson was clear, if Moe was learning in his 60’s, then what a great example to follow.

For me, what the martial arts masters, my professional mentor and Moe all demonstrated was a joy of learning and full engagement in life. They all knew or discovered that age is just a number and that you can be ‘aged’ at 20 and ‘young’ at 80. Let’s all reverse the aging process this year and challenge the self-imposed archetypes of what it means to grow older.   What do you have to lose?

About the Author: Dr. Ron Cruickshank recently opened the GGA – Moe Norman Golf School as part of our expansion program into Canada. We are headquartered at the Royal Ashburn Golf Club in Whitby Ontario, a top 50 Canadian course. He is currently seeking to age well while simultaneously accepting applications for a limited number of students this year.  If you are serious about getting better and owning your golf swing you can reach him at 647-892-4653.

SLOMO Putting Can Make You a Fast Eddy!

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Dynamic new technique for becoming a great putter

By Dr. Ron Cruickshank, Golf Mind Coach & GGA Director, Canada

When thinking about using slow motion training techniques what comes to mind for most folks is the big movement, the full power swing. However, we’ve been working on developing a slowmo process for putting this winter, and the results are promising. Just like the big muscles, the fine motor skills used in putting are in need of stored repetitive skill circuits, building myelin superhighways in the brain through repetition of high quality movement.  We KNOW this is the path to excellence. At this stage of our understanding, I believe the slow motion practice to be the most effective method of building skills circuits known.

If you need any motivation to spend more time getting better at putting, let the following statistic tell the story. On the PGA Tour for the years 2008 and 2009, 40% of all strokes were putts, and these are the best players in the world. Over time, your ability to putt effectively will determine your score more than any other part of your game.

The two most important variables in putting are your distance control (governed by speed) and direction control. They are often referred to as the “Two D’s” of putting. The best putters always favor superior distance control, because they know that even the pros miss over 50% of putts from 6 feet. If you’re a mid to high handicap, your percentage of misses from 6 feet is probably higher.

If you aren’t close to the hole after your first putt, your two-putt percentage will suffer dramatically. This is very important, but not the subject of this blog. In our slow motion training, we are going to focus on the second most important element in great putting – DIRECTION control – that is primarily controlled by alignment and path. These are variables you can control as well as the experts.

One reason slow mo training aids your putting dramatically is that putting well requires the highest degree of precision within your repertoire of shots. The slow motion putter training allows you to get highly accurate feedback relevant to the critical DIRECTIONAL components of face angle at address, the moment of impact and path.

Research has shown that a 3-degree error at impact with your driver will STILL hit a fairway of 36-yard width with a drive of up to 340 yards in length. The same 3-degree face angle error at impact with your putter will not make a putt of longer than 2.58 feet from the hole. So remember, when on the green precision rules.

In putting there are Four Determinants that will control your outcome (putts drained). Those four determinants are:

  1. Face angle at address
  2. The path of the club during the mini-swing
  3. The speed of your swing through the impact zone
  4. The face angle at impact

Working with students this winter we have determined they get noticeably better at all four determinants when using the slow motion training techniques outlined below. I am not sure why this training helps in speed control or rhythm, but it does. My opinion at this point is that when your confidence is high that you are doing the other three determinants correctly, it allows you to focus more attention on the speed and rhythm. Ideally, I believe, once you have aligned the putter correctly, all your attention should be focused on speed/distance/rhythm. However, this can be highly individualistic, as you might like to focus on path or a spot in front of the putter.

Technique for Practicing Slow Motion Putting

Training Tools Suggested:

  • A ball marked with a T-line
  • An Eye-Line putting alignment aid
  • Your putter
  • A coin – preferably a dime or a penny

I like using the Eye-Line aid because it has a built in mirror that insures you have your eyes directly over the target line as you practice and it has visual perpendicular lines to insure your face alignment is correct at address and impact. If you don’t have one and are practicing indoors, you can lay down a 1 foot bright piece of yarn on the carpet with a 6 inch piece intersecting it at the impact point. This will give you the alignment for your face angle.

Being obsessive about this, one of my favorite places to do a couple of quick slowMO drills is in the kitchen, using the large floor tiles as a T, sans a ball. When in the kitchen I just grab my putter and do some drills when the coffee is percolating or waiting for the kettle to steam.  My wife calls me the best linoleum putter she has ever seen.  Hmmm!

The Slow Motion Putting Drill

  • Place the ball down and put the coin about 2 inches (5 centimeters) in front of the ball directly on your target line
  • Set up with putter face alignment exactly perpendicular to target line.
  • Align the putter sweet spot with the T marked on your ball.
  • Hover the club in your hands, just above the line. Do not ground it. This helps keep your grip pressure light, reduces tension in your hands and forearms and reduces the tendency for start-up friction to fractionally move the face off line.
  • Look at the spot on the ball that you intend to strikewith the centerline of your putter (the sweet spot).
  • Take the putter back very slowly. I would start with 7-10 seconds to take it back 10 inches (25 centimeters).
  • Pause at the completion of the backswing and hold for 5 seconds. Track the putter with your peripheral vision. Do not watch the putter going back; maintain your focus on the ballimpact spot.
  • Return the putter face to the ball impact point in EXACTLY half the timeit took you to go back. If your backswing is 10 seconds, return to the ball in 5 seconds. Maintain this ratio of 2 to 1 always, as this is the ratio we see in the best putters whether they swing fast or slow. (By the way, I believe this might be the source of great rhythm in putting)
  • Hold for another 5 seconds at impact spot. Insure your face alignment is exactly the same as at set up.
  • Complete the putter movement by pushing the ball directly over the coin. Hold for 5 seconds more.
  • Repeat this drill AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN. Build skill circuits through repetition.

Remember, simplicity is crunched complexity. Pay close attention to the physical feedback you are getting from this drill. A little practice will noticeably improve your face alignment, your impact alignment, your eye line stability and your balance.  Some specifics to observe and practice:

  • Be aware of your balance at set up and how it changes during the putt. Where is your weight and how is it distributed. Do your stance allow for optimum stability?
  • Feel and specifically identifythe muscles you use to initiate putter movement. Are you using small muscles in your hands and forearms or large muscles like your lats in your back and shoulders? Which muscles allow you to be more consistent and smooth?  Once you identify the muscle(s), trigger every putt with the same stimulus to the same muscle(s).
  • Observe how your eyes track the putter head. Are you following the putter head back with your eyes and moving your head slightly? Your head (and body) will go where you eye look – always.
  • Watch for your eyes to move off the target line (inside or outside). What is your tendency?
  • Practice how to eliminate the excess movement. We find that the most common cause of excess movement is balance being off due to grounding the club at address, stance not stable or following the club back with your eyes. These will typically cause movement best eliminated.

Try this slow motion technique if you want to noticeably improve your PUTTING. Students tell me it has particularly improved their stats from inside 10 feet. Stay tuned and let me know how these techniques work for you.

About the Author:  Dr. Ron Cruickshank lives outside Toronto in a 110-year old farmhouse with linoleum kitchen floors that are perfect for practicing slowmo putting. He recently opened the Moe Norman Golf School as part of our expansion program into Canada. Headquartered at The Royal Ashburn Golf Club in Whitby, a top 50 Canadian course, Ron is ready to help fellow Canadians looking for a winter tune-up. He can be reached at 647-892-4653.

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