Sam Snead: Loose as a Goose

Tension, both in body and mind, is a killer in the game of golf.  Sam Snead, still golf's most prolific winner on the PGA tour, said that when he was playing his best, his body was "loose as a goose." He wrote:

"Tension is the product of technique or temperament, or both, and it just eats up the golf swing.  Without going into detail at this point, there is a big difference between my relatively free swing, which, "loose as a goose," minimizes tension, and the swings of my fellow tourists and numerous handicap golfers, where force, restriction, and inhibition seem to be at the core of the action."

Sam goes on to talk about the "force-type" swing verses a syrupy-smooth, free flowing swing like his.  He said:

"The force-type swing tends to severely limit, or exaggerate, the participation of certain parts of the body.  On tour, for example, certain players turn their shoulders fully but their hips hardly at all.  What that does is coil a lot of leverage into the upper body muscles that can be delivered to the ball in the form of club head speed coming down.  Fine.  But the fact is that only the supple muscles of youth can repeatedly execute such a stressful action--and even then only after a lot of training."

It's interesting that Harvey Penick wrote that he preferred watching the swings of the guys on the Champions Tour--the swings that had stood the test of time--to the modern swings on the PGA tour that he maintained would not last as the players aged.

When talking about the force-type swing, Sam went on to say:

"After thirty, that kind of backswing (in my kind both hips and shoulders turn in tandem) feels more like weight lifting than golf.  And remember that anything based on tension, as this paricular approach is, tends to dissolve in tension.  When the chips are down, the force-type swing is not an easy swing to hold together, even for a youngster...

Of course, some of these fine young athletes out on the tour can do just about anything with their bodies and still make the golf swing work.  But I, personally, believe that over the years the free-type swing has produced many more top players and consistent winners than the force-type swing.  And I know that a freer swing would be better for the great majority of golfers who play, not for a living, but for pleasure.  The swing made freely is not only longer lasting than the force-type swing, since it involves less physical and mental wear and tear, but it is one of the main reasons I'm still in the thick of things.  It is also, swing for swing, a far more enjoyable experience when you're out on the golf course."

Clearly, there are very few individuals who can produce a flowing, rhythmic swing like Sam Snead, Ernie Els, or Fred Couples.  But to avoid tension in the golf swing will surely help even us mere mortals, especially as we get longer in the tooth and weaker in the back and legs.  

Even on the tour today, if we consider the swings of top young players, we see a force-type swinger like Jason Day, and, to a lesser degree, Rory McIlroy, compared to the freer swings of Rickie Fowler and Jordan Spieth.  While the body is able, and the swing is in the groove, those force-type swingers can  produce some real magic.  But, over the long haul, I suspect we will see Rickie Fowler and Jordan Spieth playing at a higher level for a longer period of time, with fewer injuries.

With a ruined back and neck, I know I am now paying for having been a force-type hitter of the ball, instead of being a free-swinger of the club. Hopefully, a leopard can change his spots and I can learn to ease it up, get "loose as a goose," and let the club do more of the work.  It would certainly be easier on my old body, and probably my mind.

I'm Trying Not to Try

Way back in 1981, I joined the Correctional Service of Canada.  In those days, the training to be a Correctional Officer focussed as much, or more, on learning how to march and shoot straight, as it did learning how to communicate with convicts.  We drilled, and played with guns, and wrestled, and learned to use  the thirty six inch baton--my personal favourite--until we were hopefully ready to face just about anything.  Of course, the reality is that I spent much more of my thirty year career talking to convicts than I ever did wrestling with them. 

I know this is a golf blog, so I realize I have ventured off topic to a degree.  The reason I mentioned my career in Corrections is that during that training phase we spent lots of time exercising and getting fit.  We played ball hockey in the gymnasium, and it was during one of those sessions that I discovered something interesting.  

When we were warming up, I used the hockey stick like a golf club and hit shot after shot at the goalie.  I was able to consistently hit a low cut right at the target.  Watching me was a fellow trainee whose father was a golf pro, and who had himself secured his CPGA card but left the golf business in favour of the better pay offered to federal Corrections officers.  He was clearly taken aback by the way I was able to use a hockey stick to hit shot after shot right on target.  I never really thought much about it at the time, but I have since often recalled the incident.

I have recently been writing about Sam Snead's teaching.  In my last blog I talked about Sam's description of his state of mind and body when he was playing his best.  He said that his mind was blank and he was "loose as a goose."  That was how I felt on that day in the gym playing golf with a hockey stick and a plastic ball the size of a tennis ball.  I just swung the stick and sent that ball whistling at the goalie.  It was easy.

I have had other similar experiences with a golf club in my hand.  In bygone days, I have had people stop to watch me hit the ball on the range; many of them thinking I was a pro.  In every case, I had to say, "You haven't seen me putt!"  When on a range I was often able to hit every shot in the book--low, high, left to right, right to left, dead straight--it was easy.  I say "was," because my days of hitting balls on the range are pretty much over given the state of my back.  I figure I've only got so many swings left in me, so I don't want to waste any.  Besides, my swing bears little resemblance to the swing of my youth.  I'm not sure I could break an egg with my current swing.

Today, I missed my tee time with Carl and Billy.  I did, however, manage to catch up with them on the tenth tee.  It was 46 degrees and windy.  We were all bundled up and not exactly loose as a goose, given the weather.  Nevertheless, I tried to think of nothing over the ball and swing easy, like the Slammer.  A pushed tee shot into the trees on the eleventh, and a clumsy double on fifteen had me five over after nine.

Meanwhile, Carl the Grinder kept getting it up and down from everywhere and had happily announced that a par on 18 would be for 75.  "Not bad in this weather," he said, smiling like the cat who ate the canary.  He smiles a lot when he's beating my sorry butt.  

Sure enough, hitting it over the back of the green on 18 into some gnarly rough, Carl gouged it out and made the putt for his 75.  I decided to keep going and play the front nine alone.  I had found something on the last few holes and wanted to try to ingrain the feeling.  

What I had found was that "hockey stick" swing from the gym.  That relaxed, carefree, "take it back and let it go" swing of days gone by.  I played the next nine in one under par, giving me a 76.  It didn't better Carl's 75, but it wasn't so bad for an old, fat guy, playing in that weather.  If I can only keep that feeling.  Sam Snead said that he played his best golf when he felt like he was hardly trying.  That seems to be the key for me as well.  I have to learn not to try too much. I have to learn not to care as much.  That's when I play my best.

Carl is a grinder.  He plays every shot like it's life or death.  He grinds as hard for an 80 as he does for a 70.  He shot 70 again last week actually, which isn't too shabby for a guy who's 72 years old and swings like he's falling off a ladder.  Me, I'm much better being loose as a goose.  When I try too hard, I get tight.  To each their own.  The problem is, it's hard to feel like you don't care when you really do.  That's what makes this game so tough.

I'm going to try from now on not to try so hard.  That's what golf does to you.  It makes you try not to try.  No wonder I drink!

Sam Snead: Why Technique Works Better Than Method

In the golf world there are any number of "method" teachers.  There are the "stack and tilters," the "one plane swingers," the "left siders," the "natural golfers;" to name but a few.  All of these methods obviously work for some.  But Sam Snead, in his 1975 book covering the "Key" approach to golf, argues in favour of developing technique, rather than learning a method.

In chapter two he wrote:

"A free and simple approach to golf is more effective than a complicated method.  For instance, when I swing at a golf ball right, my mind is blank and my body is loose as a goose...over the past fifty years of playing top-flight competitive golf, it seems like my best results have always come when I'm hardly trying at all.  At those times my mind and body go on automatic pilot, I swing with my smoothest rhythm and greatest vigor, and the birdie side of each hole opens up for me like I owned the course."

I find this particularly interesting, because my experience, though obviously not playing at anything like Sam's level, has been the same.  Most of my best rounds, rounds under par and in the sixties, which have been relatively few and far between, have come when I've felt that I was totally relaxed and swinging smoothly and easily.  That happy state, where things feel easy, may actually just be the times when we find ourselves in that happy place called "the zone;" those happy times when our swing is in the groove and we don't have to think too much about what we're doing, or how we're doing it.

Sam goes on to say:

"Now that's bad news to a certain kind of personality. There's a type of guy who'd rather hear that golf is hard work, period.  He'd rather be told he needs lots of muscle and a special method to get around in a fair score.  Then he'll be able to go swing himself silly on the golf course and feel like he's done a satisfying amount of hard labor.

Well, golf is hard work--but not on the golf course.  It's hard work on the practice tee and on the practice putting green and in the practice bunker.  The golf swing is a learned motion, an acquired habit.  It's damn hard work thinking about what your swing really feels like, and where it could be improved, and what you have to do next to get yourself to play up to your potential.  It's a form of self-knowledge, and that isn't easy to come by in any field.  Like I said, the game is hard work--especially in the head.

As for 'method,' I've seen too many methods come and go in my half century in golf to really believe that the latest method on the market, whatever it may be, is going to solve anybody's golf problems for long.  I'm not doubting the sincerity or professionalism of the proponents of these methods.  As a matter of fact, I believe that even a poorly conceived method can indirectly help a certain type of golfer simply by getting him to think consciously about his game and about what it will take to improve it.  On the other hand, I've seen too many fine players on tour lose their winning edge because of a sudden conversion to some method or other that, once mastered, supposedly guarantees never missing another fairway or green."

Sam Snead was a classic feel player.  He knew how he felt--and how his swing felt--when he played his best.  He well knew that one size doesn't fit all in the rag trade, or in golf.  We are all unique.  The question is, when you played your best, or when you hit that great shot--because we've all hit great shots--how did you feel?  What, if anything, were you thinking?  Sam believed that this sort of thinking, or self-knowledge, was what can really make you a golfer.

Sam said his mind was "blank," and he was "loose as a goose."  In my next piece I'll cover what Sam had to say about that.