No, not how I react to good shots and bad ones, but how I make good shots and why I make bad ones.

All the technique you read about and try out gets reduced to a feeling. Actually, any physical skill you learn is the same way. You have to learn, step-by-step, the right thing to do, and work from there to (a) repeat it, and (b) attach a reliable feeling to it, so when you feel X, you know that means you’re doing it right.

One of the problems with trying to find the feeling too soon is that as you adapt and get used to the right movement, the feeling changes. As you learn to perform the movement more reliably, the feeling is quite different from the one you had when you first started.

I have many examples from my own investigations in golf, but my current one is getting a flat left wrist at the top of my backswing. I’ve been working on it for about six weeks now. At first, it felt like the left wrist was curled over, but that was a reaction to my habit of the wrist being severely cupped. Now, if I put that same feeling in the left wrist at the top, it is curled over. The feeling of doing the movement correctly is now more subtle.

The final step in getting the feeling right is to have done the movement correctly so many times that it feels like the natural thing to do and you don’t have to check on it anymore. You can rely on it always being right.

That, of course, takes many thousands of repetitions. And that doesn’t take skill, it takes perseverance. but that’s another post.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.

I read an article last year that said Lorena Ochoa would work on a new shot for three weeks to learn the mechanics, then use it for three weeks in practice rounds, before she took it into competition.

Let’s keep this in mind when we’re learning something new. One good day at the range doesn’t mean you got it down. It needs to be done over and over and over before it’s ready.

Why? Because it has to be installed in your subconscious mind and well as in your hands.

When we play we revert to what we believe in, what we know we can do, even if that isn’t very good. It takes a lot of repetitions to come to believe in a new habit.

So when you’re working on something new, work on it every time you go to the range, find a way to work on it at home, to get those repetitions.

You’ll know the new shot, or the swing fix, is ready when you go to the range and start hitting the shot and feel like you own it instead of you’re learning it.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.

Lots of people, famous golfers as well, say they never learn anything from the rounds in which they play well, but only from the rounds in which they play poorly. Bobby Jones said this. I don’t get it. Maybe if I shot ten strokes above my handicap every time out I’d be the smartest golfer in the world.

The only thing I learn from doing something wrong is, don’t do that again. But in that lesson is no advice on how to do it right. There are generally thousands of ways to do something wrong, but only a few ways to do it right. I can only learn to do it right by doing it right.

So if you’re playing poorly, it’s because you’re doing something wrong. And probably the slowest and least effective way to get back on track is to try to locate your mistakes and fix them. Nuts to that.

Go back to the beginning, start over, and learn the right way all over again, from the ground up. Just do one thing right then add on something else that’s right and so on until all you know how to do is the right thing.

That’s how to learn this game.

See more at www.the recreationalgolfer.com

When I’m working on something new, I go to my local executive course to test it out. On four of the holes you would tee off with a wedge, but on the remaining holes you can hit a 2-, 5-, 6-, 8-iron, and a driver. That’s a good enough sample of different swings.

I went out this morning to see how my latest swing change is going.The change (cocking my right wrist back on the backswing) seems to be going well, since I’m not hitting those wicked hooks that just drove me nuts. and my chips and pitches were really good. The greens are slow and bumpy, so I never take too much stock in how I putt there.

My guidance for this particular change is in Nick Faldo’s book, Golf-The Winning Formula, on pages 82-86.

See my tips at www.therecreationalgolfer.com

When I stood bridge watches in the Navy, at certain times it got pretty hectic. I had to make the right decisions at the right time and there were no second chances. When I got used to it, I looked forward to it, because I knew nothing would come up that I couldn’t handle. I knew what I was doing.

This came to mind when I was browsing through Afternoons with Mr. Hogan, by Jody Vasquez. There’s a quote from Hogan that goes, “Don’t just hit practice balls. Hit the 9-iron into the back left corner past the bunker. Then remember what it felt like, so when you get to a shot and you need to make it, you already know what it feels like.”

It’s one thing to be able to hit the ball. It’s another for your mind to be at ease with the shot you’re about to hit. A 9-iron to the center of the green or to the back left corner is the same shot if your mind feels that it is. And that sameness is that you know what you’re doing, because you’ve done it before.