The Best selling Golf Book on the web !!
More than 76,000 cyber copies in 1998!!
by bill spears
In "Golf Vision", we spend alot of time on the importance of learning things both mentally and with our muscle memory..We continue to dissect the golf swing into its fundamental elements, both physical and mental. Now, just as you sat and watched your smitty carefully craft each link of the chain before he went to the next, you have to do the same with your golf chain.
Once you mentally understand the importance of each particular link in the golf chain, you have to give your muscles repetitive commands, over and over again, until that particular link is installed and part of your muscle memory.
The first link of the chain is grip. It is very easy to think that something as simple as grip requires five minutes of practice to commit it to muscle memory.
The truth is, it will take a week or more for you to feel comfortable with the grip and only then with you gripping a broom, the steering wheel in your car, the stair rail as you walk, the edge of your desk, etc., etc.. You want your mind to constantly be aware of the muscles controlling the fingers, wrist and forearms and what minute movements and changes in the position of your fingers activate or de-activate each muscle or muscle groups. The proper grip and place ment of the hands and fingers has to become as comfortable and as natural as walking. You never think about how to walk, which muscles to activate or de-activate, or whether to walk on the top or bottom of the feet. You learned to walk before you learned to talk yet the action of walking is deep down in your muscle memory. You trust your muscle memory. Your feet move, your knees bend, your thigh muscles activate , your ankles bend , all in perfect cadence without a conscious thought. That is the goal for the first link, the grip, and then for each subsequent link.
You will get to the point where you would never dream of gripping the club incorrectly, just as you would never walk on the top of your feet. Either would feel too awkward and terribly unnatural. You will know when this link is second nature to you and has been installed in your muscle memory. Then and only then will it be time to move to the next link.
Be constantly aware that each link controls the next link and has to be installed into muscle memory before going to the next. One weak link destroys the entire chain. Keeping that in mind, the link you are working on is THE MOST IMPORTANT LINK in the building of your golf swing.
Remember, it is a chain.... any shortcuts or band-aids will only cause your chain to come apart. You might think that no one will notice if you rush and skip just one link. If you rush and don't commit each link to muscle memory before going to the next, you will not have a chained, or connected swing. The only person you will be fooling will be yourself. The first time you put your chain, or swing, under any pressure, it will come apart.....
Learn from your own smitty. Be patient. One link at a time, your chain will be finished in good time. You will have confidence that you have crafted each link very carefully, that it is down in your muscle memory and you will know its strength. The links have to be connected and have to be strong enough to remain connected when put under the pressure of executing this connected athletic action known as the golf swing.
Rome wasn't built in a day
You have to learn to walk before you run
Anything worth having is worth working for
Everything in life is progressive
There are no shortcuts to quality
No one plans to fail but some fail to plan
The hardest part of any trip is the first step
What are these as it relates to an athletic action ??
* Mental memory vs muscle memory;
* Subliminal messages
* Conscious mind vs subconscious mind
* Controlled vs out of control
* Conscious action vs reflex action
* Muscles under stress
Before we can start to learn the fundamentals that control the golf swing, we have to understand the following;
1) the importance of each small detail
2) what happens to these details when put under stress
3) what is muscle memory and what does it control
4) what can we control [ie., can we control the club head with our small muscles, hands, when the club head is traveling at 85 to 110 mph at point of contact]
5) and when do we lose control [ie., at set-up, at the beginning of the back swing, at the slot, at the beginning of the downswing or just prior to impact at the point of release]
Do you know the answers to those and understand how they control the golf swing?? Do you think that everyone's swing is different and these things don't matter.. Let me only tell you this.. Every swing is different.. Every single person on earth is different.. Putting the differences into the correct perspective, realize that everyone drives a car differently.. Some left handed, some right.. Some with their hands on top and some on the bottom of the steering wheel.. Some very slow..Some very fast.. Some very careful.. Some very reckless.. Some risk it all on one curve.. Some risk getting run over by being too careful.. BUT there are certainly controlling fundamentals that all drivers have to apply everytime they drive or they would wreck, end up in the ditches and in the rough along the road.. The steering wheel, the gas, the brake, the road, and on and on.. Same thing with golf.. There are certain controlling fundamentals that HAVE to be there in every golf swing.. They are always in every great golf swing whether you recognize them or not.. You have to have golf vision to know what to look for..
Golf Vision was first published in 1989 as a golf instructional manual on the ''unchanging fundamentals of
the full golf swing'', sold to golf professionals and golf teachers of the great game..
Re-written in 94-95 and published on the web in 1995.
1995 sales of 137 cyber copies.
1996 sales of 1104 cyber copies..
1997 sales of 2371 cyber copies.. Needless to say, this was a learning experience from day one..
In 1998, I had more than 1.6 million visitors to my little site and more than 76,000 people hit the little
button that says... 
Last Updated: March 10. 1999