A bad trot

I'm now well into a string of very ordinary rounds of golf. In part, this is a function of putting myself under too much pressure and trying too many new things, but it's also related to not having enough fun and not really enjoying the game.

I know that I don't have perfect technique or exceptional physical ability, but I have been able to play some decent golf in recent times, so there really is no excuse for not playing at least some reasonable golf somewhere near my handicap.

My approach in the coming games must be to get back to where I was a month or so ago. Basically this involves keeping the ball in play, not missing shots badly and playing sensible short game golf. It's almost boring golf, but it can also be very satisfying - provided one doesn't overreach, try too hard and expect too much.

I've just watched a couple of Bradley Hughes videos. He seems to be an excellent teacher. And the video I like best was the one where he explains that golf is not about hitting the ball, but rather it is about swinging through the ball. Nothing new in this, but it's a valuable concept.

Hughes uses the analogy of the karate expert trying to break a pile of five bricks. The idea is to break the bottom brick, not the top one. So the hit has to be through all the bricks right down to the bottom brick - no stopping. It's worth thinking about in relation to the golf swing. I experienced the stopping and the poor result just yesterday in my most recent poor round.

I'm hoping that an idea as simple as swinging through the ball might just get me out of my bad trot. That would be fun.

Addendum:

Last round I briefly tried the Moe Norman method (high hands, single plane, etc) with disastrous results. I couldn't get the club back at all or make decent contact. The alleged benefits of virtually replicating set up position with impact position were, for me, completely negated by the awkwardness of the whole exercise. Not that I'm abandoning connected arms and single plane theory because I think they make sense, I just need to find some rhythm. Speaking of which, I found it very helpful in my last round to think of swinging at only 50% on all shots, except chips. The reality is that thinking 50% probably equates to 70% plus in actual swing speed, but the greater sense of rhythm and better clubface contact mean that very little distance is lost and accuracy improves quite a bit. It's an interesting tactic and something I might well start my next round with, together with the Hughes et al swinging through the ball concept.