The Golf Swing: It's easier than you think

This is one of the top three books on the golf swing ever written. Cochran and Stobbs and Broadie are the other two.

This book summarizes 100's of journal articles and sheds light on how people actually learn a motor skill.
It's not through swing positions and internal body part thoughts, but through external focus on the effect of the motor action. Dart throwers don;t think about their wrist, they think about the board. Rifle shooters don't think about their finger, they think of the target.. etc.

It's called the constrained action hypothesis: if you think about a motor skill, you are going to adversely constrain your muscles.

Study after study shows that "forgetting swing thoughts" is the best thing you can do for your swing! No wonder why various tour pros
say they had no idea what they were thinking when they played extremely well. Just imagine what Tiger Woods would have done if he hadn't been so inwardly focused on his swing.

There are great external swing thoughts presented at the end of the book that really help. You would be amazed what happens when you forget your hips, knees, shoulders, wrists, etc. and let it go.

Spells trouble for traditional golf instructors.

I have been playing golf for 4 years now, and it started as a joke at my job that i couldn't swing the golf club. So that weekend i went to the local course and played 9 holes, while i was there on the the 8 hole i hit a remarkable shot that put me a foot from the pin. I thought to myself wow this can't be that hard. So i decided I was going to try to make it my weekend hobby and try to get good at it. I know i could have decided to go at it 2 different ways, a positional way or a natural way. The first mistake i made was going at it the positional way. I would get up to the tee box and have to think about elbow position, weight on the backswing, and etc and then i would chunk the ball or top it, i think you get the picture. Upon this season i decided hey im tired of positional golf and see if i could find some other way to learn this. I decided to buy this book after reading the first sample from my Kindle and it was exactly what i was looking for and it had all the answers on why i havent been able to remember position a and position b. I highly recommend this book to anyone whether you a really good player to a horrible player, either one will benefit.

Thanks Chris for you hard work i greatly appreciate it!!!!

This was recommended by Shawn Clement, who has loads of tutorials on Youtube and his own site. Shawn teaches a dynamic style of golf stroke, ie one where the emphasis is on movement and letting gravity and momentum do the work, rather than one that emphasis moving through fixed positions.

As you can guess this book emphasis the dynamic approach.

The bottom line of this book is that recent research in peer reviewed journals on golf swings and on learning methodologies show that a dynamic approach to golf, with the focus on the target, is better than one that emphasizes moving thorough fixed points as the latter is almost impossible to do, and if you fix on the target you will make the minor moves to get the ball there automatically.

His argument is "trying to learn the golf swing as a long sequence of positions conflicts directly with the way humans learn physical skills. We learn best when we think as little about technique as possible."
He also points out "Unfortunately, the golf swing has existed in an evidence vacuum - we've never had sufficient scientific evidence to support or refute anybody's claims or opinions about how to swing a golf club."

He particularly admires Ernest Jones whole swing method and of focusing on the outcome and letting the brain subconsciously decide how to achieve it. (I must admit I had never heard of Jones before)

His argument is "as long as we practice our individual swing solutions - whatever they look like - implicit learning will ensure they become effective.... (provided they) adhere to some important mechanical principles", and that swing improvement improves despite and not because of practice on technique.

The book then goes into detail into what the author belies are the five key skills

1. An external mental focus - the key controlling skill focusing on the target and not the technique
2. An accurate clubhead path through impact - for accuracy
3. A coordinated muscular chain - for power.
4. A tight initial downswing radius for power
5. A passive wrist release - using the double pendulum for power and accuracy

To me what lets down the book somewhat is it is not fully referenced There are notes, but not for everything. The author says he's done that deliberately and gives details of the research articles and suggests that you look them up online. To me that's not good enough, we don't have the time or access to the research databases to do this. I think the author should have used the modern referencing method where if you state a fact you then have a reference in the back with short quotation from the page and details of the reference or further points. For example I am interested in following up details of the studies he reports on brainwave activities in the gold swing, and it would have been nice if it had bee referenced as so

Page 30 Brainwave activity of beginners and experts in the golf swing: See Blogs Joe XXX etc.

This is an example of the style I mean from the Wisdom of Psychopaths

xiii Even today, anxious individuals are better than the rest of us . . . See Elaine Fox, Riccardo Russo, and George A. Georgiou, "Anxiety Modulates the Degree of Attentive Resources Required to Process Emotional Faces," Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience 5, no. 4 (2005): 396-404, doi:10.3758 ICABN.S.4.396.

The authors says his approach is evidenced based and so his argument stands or falls based on these references and at the moment the link is a bit weak

I have read them all, well most of them anyway, and without a doubt this book had the most impact on achieving my golf goals. Which at the time, was to shoot in the mid 80s. Which I ended up doing. Now after a 5+ year hiatus I am getting back into the game and had forgotten about this gem of a book. Even at my advanced age of 65 I am confident I can get back to my old form...and scores, applying some of the techniques and logic found in this book.

Giving it a read right now and just wanted to throw my hat in the ring. I would also recommend Ben Hogan's Five Lessons. It is a much more complex breakdown of the swing dynamics, but IMO a good companion book to this one. Although a completely different approach to learning what makes a good golf swing.

PURE GOLD. Chris Riddoch declutters the golf swing. First things first. if you do not have a passive wrist release in your "swing", you are not swinging the golf club, you are hitting, just like almost every other golfer on the planet. Riddoch emphasizes the use and development of the centifugal force. This is a result of a tight initial downswing radius and then allowing the club to release without any effort by your hands. He also cites an article that identifies bringing "the clubhead from a position of trailing the shaft to a position abreast of the shaft at impact." He gives great non-technical explanations of the physics involved and provides some additional explanation of these ideas at the end of the book. I might add that his comments on the physics involved it totally accurate. The only other book that I have ever seen do this in both its emphasis and accuracy is Joe Dante's "Four Magic Moves." These books share a lot in common, but Riddoch's is more straight forward and less complicated. Another thing to note is that both of these men are golf instructors. They are not pros telling you how they got to be so good. This is reflected in their books.
To me a beautiful thing about this book is that he doesn't even bother with grip or stance. He solely emphasizes the correct forward swing path and how to achieve it. It is accomplished with the double pendulum as describe in this book with a passive wrist release. You don't have a thing (or much), if you ain't got that swing.
Probably best for golfers with some experience. I think I can safely say that I have advanced from a "hitter" to a "swinger" of the golf club with incredible results as a result of this book. If I can do it, so can you.

I have bought many golf instructional books but felt this one was one of the better ones. Shawn Clements refers to this author in one of his u-tube segments and that says a lot.

must read it again to see if anything jumps out at me that is meaningful to a better golf swing,,,only thing garnered first time was to swing with two hinges !!

It just simply brought the entire golf swing into proper focus. It is one of the best instructional books I own and I am in the process of reading his book on putting.

Having said this, I do think that the reader who is an absolute beginner should have some of th very basics of the swing engrained such as grip, stance, take-a-way, etc. However, it is a fantastic book which details many of the instructional books that I have but in a simplified manner.

Worth every cent plus more!

This is a book on mental focus as it relates to the golf swing and not about the mechanics of the swing.
I found it good in helped me to keep my swing thoughts minimal and focus on the target more.

I have about 50 books on golf and about 25 videos . This book is in my top 10..
I bought it and read it yesterday. I tried its theory today.
I must say, I did not see any improvement in my game. BUT, we all know, in the game of golf, nothing happens in a day.
I'm going to keep applying the principles , and if I breack 80, I'll let everyone know.