A ball, a stick and some Instincts...

Golf is a funny game.

There's one school of golf which swears by the art and technique of a swing. And the swing is the end-all be-all of the sport for them. Everything else falls in right if you master the swing! But of course no one has the ideal swing. Would it be Tiger's? Or would it be Nickalus'?Or would it be mine?

Then there's the other school of thought which says there is a ball, there is a club and there's instinct. Everything else happens if you just hit the ball with the club. The club is angled to provide the trajectory to the shot. The ball is stationary, so just aim for the right spot on the ball. And let your instinct take over, just like a child would hit a ball with a stick!

I started off getting indoctrinated into the first school because I took golf lessons last year at ISB. And of course all instructors only talk about the swing! But over the last couple of months, I have just been swinging alone at the range near my office. And I am beginning to let instinct take over. I see the ball, I hit the ball. But there's still technique to it. It's not all wild heaving. I still have to work on the angle at which my arm comes down. And I certainly have to work on keeping my wrists steady. The easiest thing to do by instinct is to let the wrists control the shot at the time of impact. DON'T DO THAT! It can only lead to sore wrists within a couple of days. And then instincts, or no instincts, you don't wanna hit the driving range when it hurts with every swing.

So just like with most other sports, a good blend of technique and instinct will probably serve me better than either one alone. I guess somewhere along the way I had simply forgotten that Golf is also a sport!