Go to any online golf forum and sooner or later there will be someone saying “feel is not real” in response to whatever you can imagine. I can’t think of anything more wrong to say about golf.

When we learn to play golf, we learn certain techniques that get us to swinging reasonably correctly. We make those techniques our habits on the practice range. But while practicing, we are not learning how to perform the technique. We are learning what it feels like to perform the correct technique.

And those feels are real. They’re not imaginary.

Now, what you feel like you are doing and what you are really doing, might be different. That’s what people mean when they say, “feel is not real.” But who cares? Your practice has given you a feel that you have associated with a proper movement, and that feel is every bit as real as the movement is.

I’m not playing with words here. Your understanding of the relation of “feel” to “real” is critical, because your feels of the right technique are what you play golf with.

For a while, you have to concentrate on “what am I supposed to do?” But while you are learning that, concentrate on what it feels like when you do what you are supposed to do, because feels are what you play golf with, and are what will bring you back to normal when your swing goes a bit sour.