Instruction
The Big Shift: How to master pressure and the golf transition using prior sports training
If you’re an #AverageJoeGolfer, work a day job, and don’t spend countless hours practicing, you might be interested in knowing that sports you played growing up, and even beer league softball skills, can be used to help you play better golf. We’re sure you’ve heard hockey players tend to hit the ball a mile, make the “best golfers”, while pitchers and quarterbacks have solid games, but baseball/softball hitters struggle with consistency. Did you know that a killer tennis backhand might help your golf game if you play from the opposite side? Dancers are way ahead of other athletes making a switch to golf because they understand that centeredness creates power and consistency much more efficiently than shifting all around, unnecessary swaying, or “happy feet.”
Lurking beneath fat shots, worm burners, and occasional shanks, are skillsets and motions you can pull from the old memory bank to apply on the golf course. Yes, you heard us right; your high school letterman jacket can finally be put to good use and help you improve your move. You just need to understand some simple adjustments different sports athletes need to make to be successful golfers.
In golf, shifting from your trailside into your lead side is what we’ll call the TRANSITION. Old School teachers refer to this motion, or shift, as “Foot Work”, New-Fangled-Techno-Jargon-Packed-Instruction uses “Ground Pressure/Force” to refer to the same concept. Don’t worry about the nomenclature; just know, as many GolfWRXers already do, that you must get your weight to your lead side if you want any chance at making solid and consistent contact. TRANSITION might be THE toughest motion in golf to master.
The good news for you is that TRANSITION happens in all other sports but in slightly different ways, depending on the sport. Golfers can more quickly learn TRANSITION, and speed up their swing learning process by understanding how prior sport experience can be applied to the golf swing.
[The basics of a solid golf move are; 1) you should have a SETUP that is centered and balanced, 2) you move your weight/pressure into your trail side during the TAKEAWAY and BACKSWING, 3) TRANSITION moves your weight/pressure back into your lead side, and 4) you FINISH with the club smashing the ball down the fairway. Okay, it’s not quite as easy as I make it sound, but hopefully our discussion today can relieve some stress when it comes time for you to start training your game.]
Baseball/Softball Hitters
Hitting coaches don’t like their hitters playing golf during the season, that’s a fact. The TRANSITIONS are too different, and if they play too much golf, they can lose the ability to hit off-speed pitches because their swing can become too upright. Golf requires an orbital hand path (around an angled plane) with an upright-stacked finish, while hitting requires batters to have a straight-line (more horizontal) hand path and to “stay back or on top of” the ball.
Now we apologize for the lack of intricate knowledge and terminology around hitting a baseball, we only played up through high school. What we know for sure is that guys/gals who have played a lot of ball growing up, and who aren’t pitchers struggle with golf’s TRANSITION. Hitters tend to hang back and do a poor job of transferring weight properly. When they get the timing right, they can make contact, but consistency is a struggle with fat shots and scooping being the biggest issues that come to mind.
So how can you use your star baseball/softball hitting skills with some adjustments for golf? Load, Stride, Swing is what all-good hitters do, in that order. Hitters’ issues revolve around the Stride, when it comes to golf. They just don’t get into their lead sides fast enough. As a golfer, hitters can still take the same approach, with one big adjustment; move more pressure to your lead side during your stride, AND move it sooner. We’ve had plenty of ‘a ha’ moments when we put Hitters on balance boards or have them repeat step drills hundreds of times; “oh, that’s what I need to do”…BINGO…Pound Town, Baby!
Softball/Baseball Pitchers, Quarterbacks, & Kickers
There’s a reason that kickers, pitchers, and quarterbacks are constantly ranked as the top athlete golfers and it’s not because they have a ton of downtime between starts and play a lot of golf. Their ‘day jobs’ throwing/kicking motions have a much greater impact on how they approach sending a golf ball down the fairway. It’s apparent that each of these sports TRAINS and INGRAINS golf’s TRANSITION motion very well. They tend to load properly into their trailside while staying centered (TAKEAWAY/BACKSWING), and they transfer pressure into their lead side, thus creating effortless speed and power. Now there are nuances for how to make adjustments for golf, but the feeling of a pitching or kicking motion is a great training move for golf.
If this was your sport growing up, how can you improve your consistency? Work on staying centered and minimizing “happy feet” because golf is not a sport where you want to move too much or get past your lead side.
Dance
My wife was captain of her high school dance team, has practiced ballet since she was in junior high, and is our resident expert on Ground Pressure forces relating to dance. She has such a firm grasp on these forces that she is able to transfer her prior sports skill to play golf once or twice a year and still hit the ball past me and shoot in the low 100s; what can I say, she has a good coach. More importantly, she understands that staying centered and a proper TRANSITION, just like in Dance, are requirements that create stability, speed, and consistent motions for golf. Christo Garcia is a great example of a Ballerina turned scratch golfer who uses the movement of a plié (below left) to power his Hogan-esque golf move. There is no possible way Misty Copeland would be able to powerfully propel herself into the air without a proper TRANSITION (right).
Being centered is critical to consistently hitting the golf ball. So, in the same way that dancers stay centered and shift their weight/pressure to propel themselves through the air, they can stay on the ground and instead create a golf swing. Dancers tend to struggle with the timing of the hands and arms in the golf swing. We train them a little differently by training their timing just like a dance routine; 1 and 2 and 3 and…. Dancers learn small motions independently and stack each micro-movement on top of one another, with proper timing, to create a dance move (golf swing) more like musicians learn, but that article is for another time.
Hockey
Hockey is a great example of the golf TRANSITION because it mimics golf’s motions almost perfectly. Even a subtlety like the direction in which the feet apply pressure is the same in Hockey as in Golf, but that’s getting in the weeds a bit. Hockey players load up on their trailside, and then perform the TRANSITION well; they shift into their lead sides and then rotate into the puck with the puck getting in the way of the stick…this is the golf swing, just on skates and ice…my ankles hurt just writing that.
If you played hockey growing up, you have the skillsets for a proper golf TRANSITION, and you’ll improve much faster if you spend your time training a full FINISH which involves staying centered and balanced.
Now we didn’t get into nuances of each and every sport, but we tried to cover most popular athletic motions we thought you might have experience in in the following table. The key for your Big Shift, is using what you’ve already learned in other sports and understanding how you might need to change existing and known motions to adapt them to golf. If you played another sport, and are struggling, it doesn’t mean you need to give up golf because your motion is flawed…you just need to know how to train aspects of your golf move a little differently than someone who comes from a different sport might.
There may be no more painful affliction in golf than the “yips” – those uncontrollable and maddening little nervous twitches that prevent you from making a decent stroke on short putts. If you’ve never had them, consider yourself very fortunate (or possibly just very young). But I can assure you that when your most treacherous and feared golf shot is not the 195 yard approach over water with a quartering headwind…not the extra tight fairway with water left and sand right…not the soft bunker shot to a downhill pin with water on the other side…No, when your most feared shot is the remaining 2- 4-foot putt after hitting a great approach, recovery or lag putt, it makes the game almost painful.
And I’ve been fighting the yips (again) for a while now. It’s a recurring nightmare that has haunted me most of my adult life. I even had the yips when I was in my 20s, but I’ve beat them into submission off and on most of my adult life. But just recently, that nasty virus came to life once again. My lag putting has been very good, but when I get over one of those “you should make this” length putts, the entire nervous system seems to go haywire. I make great practice strokes, and then the most pitiful short-stroke or jab at the ball you can imagine. Sheesh.
But I’m a traditionalist, and do not look toward the long putter, belly putter, cross-hand, claw or other variation as the solution. My approach is to beat those damn yips into submission some other way. Here’s what I’m doing that is working pretty well, and I offer it to all of you who might have a similar affliction on the greens.
When you are over a short putt, forget the practice strokes…you want your natural eye-hand coordination to be unhindered by mechanics. Address your putt and take a good look at the hole, and back to the putter to ensure good alignment. Lighten your right hand grip on the putter and make sure that only the fingertips are in contact with the grip, to prevent you from getting to tight.
Then, take a long, long look at the hole to fill your entire mind and senses with the target. When you bring your head/eyes back to the ball, try to make a smooth, immediate move right into your backstroke — not even a second pause — and then let your hands and putter track right back together right back to where you were looking — the HOLE! Seeing the putter make contact with the ball, preferably even the forward edge of the ball – the side near the hole.
For me, this is working, but I am asking all of you to chime in with your own “home remedies” for the most aggravating and senseless of all golf maladies. It never hurts to have more to fall back on!
Over the last couple of decades, golf has become much more science-based. We measure swing speed, smash factor, angle of attack, strokes gained, and many other metrics that can really help golfers improve. But I often wonder if the advancement of golf’s “hard” sciences comes at the expense of the “soft” sciences.
Take, for example, golf instruction. Good golf instruction requires understanding swing mechanics and ball flight. But let’s take that as a given for PGA instructors. The other factors that make an instructor effective can be evaluated by social science, rather than launch monitors.
If you are a recreational golfer looking for a golf instructor, here are my top three points to consider.
1. Cultural mindset
What is “cultural mindset? To social scientists, it means whether a culture of genius or a culture of learning exists. In a golf instruction context, that may mean whether the teacher communicates a message that golf ability is something innate (you either have it or you don’t), or whether golf ability is something that can be learned. You want the latter!
It may sound obvious to suggest that you find a golf instructor who thinks you can improve, but my research suggests that it isn’t a given. In a large sample study of golf instructors, I found that when it came to recreational golfers, there was a wide range of belief systems. Some instructors strongly believed recreational golfers could improve through lessons. while others strongly believed they could not. And those beliefs manifested in the instructor’s feedback given to a student and the culture created for players.
2. Coping and self-modeling can beat role-modeling
Swing analysis technology is often preloaded with swings of PGA and LPGA Tour players. The swings of elite players are intended to be used for comparative purposes with golfers taking lessons. What social science tells us is that for novice and non-expert golfers, comparing swings to tour professionals can have the opposite effect of that intended. If you fit into the novice or non-expert category of golfer, you will learn more and be more motivated to change if you see yourself making a ‘better’ swing (self-modeling) or seeing your swing compared to a similar other (a coping model). Stay away from instructors who want to compare your swing with that of a tour player.
3. Learning theory basics
It is not a sexy selling point, but learning is a process, and that process is incremental – particularly for recreational adult players. Social science helps us understand this element of golf instruction. A good instructor will take learning slowly. He or she will give you just about enough information that challenges you, but is still manageable. The artful instructor will take time to decide what that one or two learning points are before jumping in to make full-scale swing changes. If the instructor moves too fast, you will probably leave the lesson with an arm’s length of swing thoughts and not really know which to focus on.
As an instructor, I develop a priority list of changes I want to make in a player’s technique. We then patiently and gradually work through that list. Beware of instructors who give you more than you can chew.
So if you are in the market for golf instruction, I encourage you to look beyond the X’s and O’s to find the right match!
Most pros take months, even years, to win their first tournament. Lottie Woad needed exactly four days.
The 21-year-old from Surrey shot 21-under 267 at Dundonald Links to win the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open by three shots — in her very first event as a professional. She’s only the third player in LPGA history to accomplish this feat, joining Rose Zhang (2023) and Beverly Hanson (1951).
But here’s what caught my attention as a coach: Woad didn’t win through miraculous putting or bombing 300-yard drives. She won through relentless precision and unshakeable composure. After watching her performance unfold, I’m convinced every golfer — from weekend warriors to scratch players — can steal pages from her playbook.
Precision Beats Power (And It’s Not Even Close)
Forget the driving contests. Woad proved that finding greens matters more than finding distance.
What Woad did:
• Hit it straight, hit it solid, give yourself chances
• Aimed for the fat parts of greens instead of chasing pins
• Let her putting do the talking after hitting safe targets
• As she said, “Everyone was chasing me today, and managed to maintain the lead and played really nicely down the stretch and hit a lot of good shots”
Why most golfers mess this up:
• They see a pin tucked behind a bunker and grab one more club to “go right at it”
• Distance becomes more important than accuracy
• They try to be heroic instead of smart
ACTION ITEM: For your next 10 rounds, aim for the center of every green regardless of pin position. Track your greens in regulation and watch your scores drop before your swing changes.
The Putter That Stayed Cool Under Fire
Woad started the final round two shots clear and immediately applied pressure with birdies at the 2nd and 3rd holes. When South Korea’s Hyo Joo Kim mounted a charge and reached 20-under with a birdie at the 14th, Woad didn’t panic.
How she responded to pressure:
• Fired back with consecutive birdies at the 13th and 14th
• Watched Kim stumble with back-to-back bogeys
• Capped it with her fifth birdie of the day at the par-5 18th
• Stayed patient when others pressed, pressed when others cracked
What amateurs do wrong:
• Get conservative when they should be aggressive
• Try to force magic when steady play would win
• Panic when someone else makes a move
ACTION ITEM: Practice your 3-6 foot putts for 15 minutes after every range session. Woad’s putting wasn’t spectacular—it was reliable. Make the putts you should make.
Course Management 101: Play Your Game, Not the Course’s Game
Woad admitted she couldn’t see many scoreboards during the final round, but it didn’t matter. She stuck to her game plan regardless of what others were doing.
Her mental approach:
• Focused on her process, not the competition
• Drew on past pressure situations (Augusta National Women’s Amateur win)
• As she said, “That was the biggest tournament I played in at the time and was kind of my big win. So definitely felt the pressure of it more there, and I felt like all those experiences helped me with this”
Her physical execution:
• 270-yard drives (nothing flashy)
• Methodical iron play
• Steady putting
• Everything effective, nothing spectacular
ACTION ITEM: Create a yardage book for your home course. Know your distances to every pin, every hazard, every landing area. Stick to your plan no matter what your playing partners are doing.
Mental Toughness Isn’t Born, It’s Built
The most impressive part of Woad’s win? She genuinely didn’t expect it: “I definitely wasn’t expecting to win my first event as a pro, but I knew I was playing well, and I was hoping to contend.”
Her winning mindset:
• Didn’t put winning pressure on herself
• Focused on playing well and contending
• Made winning a byproduct of a good process
• Built confidence through recent experiences:
- Won the Women’s Irish Open as an amateur
- Missed a playoff by one shot at the Evian Championship
- Each experience prepared her for the next
What this means for you:
• Stop trying to shoot career rounds every time you tee up
• Focus on executing your pre-shot routine
• Commit to every shot
• Stay present in the moment
ACTION ITEM: Before each round, set process goals instead of score goals. Example: “I will take three practice swings before every shot” or “I will pick a specific target for every shot.” Let your score be the result, not the focus.
The Real Lesson
Woad collected $300,000 for her first professional victory, but the real prize was proving that fundamentals still work at golf’s highest level. She didn’t reinvent the game — she simply executed the basics better than everyone else that week.
The fundamentals that won:
• Hit more fairways
• Find more greens
• Make the putts you should make
• Stay patient under pressure
That’s something every golfer can do, regardless of handicap. Lottie Woad just showed us it’s still the winning formula.
FINAL ACTION ITEM: Pick one of the four action items above and commit to it for the next month. Master one fundamental before moving to the next. That’s how champions are built.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “The Starter” on RG.org each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more Tips!
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Lane Holt
Aug 22, 2019 at 9:22 pm
Mr.Strube,
You are correct . If I told a 15 hdcp to HIT with his hands he would definitely perform as you stated- poorly !. However, I would NEVER tell someone to HIT period ! HIT is a word that I never use to teach. I would tell them that they must teach their external brains ( their hands which are the only connection to the human structure ) to perform a task that is totally foreign to the Human genetic design.
These facts and truths have been around since 1992 and I have been trying to share this knowledge with those interested. The golf swing is not a natural action . I would recommend you check out Cortical Homunculus . This may give you insight to the Human design.
Respectfully,
Lane
MattStrube
Aug 23, 2019 at 12:22 pm
Thanks Mr. Holt, I’ll check it out. Always open to new ways of thinking about things and learning more. Really appreciate your comments. Matt
Lane Holt
Aug 21, 2019 at 7:32 am
Mr,Strube,
Nearly 50 % of our brain is dedicated to our * HANDS* , none to our feet! Our feet seem to perform quite well without our attention. Example , walking, running, etc; .
Teaching our hands to perform this task called the golf swing in a manner that is exactly opposite to the human genetic design is the key to a successful golf swing. Our HANDS control body movements and our body will always obey the hands.
The blueprint to a successful golf swing has been laid out for all to learn from, yet we still ignore it!
Best ,
Lane
Matt Strube
Aug 22, 2019 at 5:29 pm
Just saying/teaching/preaching that 50% of our brain is dedicated to our hands doesn’t get golfers better…Proper Training does, and it doesn’t start with the hands, Full Stop.
Additionally, the other point about what you’re saying depends on the individual’s own feels. , Feel vs. Real combined with Skill Matters a lot. If you tell a 15 handicapper to use his hands to hit a golf shot, you’ll get laid over sod, blocks, pull hooks, toppers, etc. They haven’t developed the 50% of the brain that you’re telling them to use. We see a lot of those types of folks, and they first and foremost need to learn how to move their body properly, full stop. Finally, it’s all about training the right parts of the body, hands, and arms, in the right order.
geohogan
Aug 22, 2019 at 7:56 pm
I bet Mr Holt can teach the complete golf swing, as Ben Hogan did it
in less than 30 minutes… its like dominoes when you start with the HANDS!
geohogan
Aug 23, 2019 at 8:09 am
50% of the motor cortex is devoted to hands by thousands of years of evolution, not be learning
or teaching by a golf instructors. Its in our DNA our genetic makeup as human beings.
Cant teach someone how to use a tool, if knowledge of the tool is incomplete.
geohogan
Sep 7, 2019 at 1:10 pm
https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/former-blue-jay-josh-donaldson-praises-current-young-star-bo-bichette-he-has-the-gift-020323584.html
I took one thing away from Josh when I talked to him the first time I met him and he said your hands and your lower body always have to be in synch,” Bichette recalled, according to Longley. “That’s something since that day (I’ve) tried to do.
What Josh Donaldson told Bo Bichette is remarkably similiar to what Mr Holt wrote.
Maybe he also knows that 50% of the motor cortex is about supporting the intent we have for the hands?
geohogan
Aug 19, 2019 at 1:50 pm
Balance is an autonomic mechanism to keep us upright.
Our subconscious knows what it needs to do in order to maintain
balance as we move 30-40 pounds (two arms and golf club) from one side of our body to the other.
its genetic pre programming.
Ground forces are reaction forces to intent to move weight of hands and arms. The specifics of the intent
determines how the balance mechanism reacts. Golf instructors know the correct intents or they do not.
If the latter, no amount of repetition or hard work will be successful.
MattStrube
Aug 20, 2019 at 11:31 am
Yes, balance is automatic, but I would say the opposite with regards to the reaction forces you mention (if I understand your comment correctly, I apologize if I misunderstood). The movement of the golf swing starts from the ground, with the feet, then moves up through the legs and then into the body’s core to rotate everything through the shot (oversimplification). The hands and arms do not move independently of the body.
geohogan
Aug 20, 2019 at 8:19 pm
With all due respect Matt, putting out my thoughts on the matter.
Ive been taught that the hands dominate the motor cortex. ie whatever our intent is for our hands
the body will support, subconsciously. its a survival mechanism in our genetics.
We consume food using our hands. Balance is a big part of that support.
Ive also been taught that the subconscious preprograms all our complex movements in fraction of time prior to the actual effort.
Understanding the above to be true, then is it not logical that our lower body , knowing in advance
where the weight of our hands and arms are intending to move, the subconscious balance mechanism will
brace in advance.
To all external observation it appears the lower body makes the first moves, true.
If teaching or learning, it makes all the difference if the above premise are true.
Most teach and most learn one body part a time(internal focus).
As a result IMO, proficiency at golf is by any measure a tedious and fruitless effort, resulting in diminishing interest in the game.
MattStrube
Aug 22, 2019 at 5:35 pm
Possibly, but why does every low handicapper lose spine angle and “hump” towards the ball when they use their hands and arms to hit a golf ball? If what you’re saying is true, shouldn’t the subconsciously be able to properly shift into their left side and move their lower body like el Tigre every time? If you don’t train golfers how to use their lower body, then they won’t improve by telling them “how” to use their hands better.
geo
Aug 22, 2019 at 6:43 pm
It sounds you think you have figured out how to train a person how to balance during a complex all body motion with bodies comprised of over 200 bones and 600 muscles, rather than letting the hundreds of billions of neurons in our brain and thousands of years of evolutionary learning in our DNA do its job.
Think about how arrogant and foolish that sounds when we have evolved to do that work subconsciously, perfectly.
Tiger is the poster boy for bad golf instruction, one body part at a time. His swing in 2000 was perfect
until the long line of instructors began f… with his swing and his body and his balance.
Golfers loose spine angle , hump the goat and all kinds of other contortions because their golf instructors dont know the correct INTENTION to teach.
Golfers are either provided with the PROPER INTENTION for use of their hands in the golf swing or if not the correct intention, golfers will suffer from evolutionary genetic tendency that causes all sorts of golf swing issues, not to mention the self inflicted damage to their bodies that will also result.
As Mr Holt wrote, the brain makes sure the intent of the hands is supported both by the entire body and the autonomic balance system. It is the evolutionary basis of survival for all humans, even golf instructors.
geohogan
Aug 22, 2019 at 6:57 pm
and to “hit’ with the hands is absolutely the worst intention and cause of the majority of golf swing problems.
GG
Aug 18, 2019 at 3:09 pm
I can teach the transition in 30 mins or less like dominoes.
Matt Strube
Aug 19, 2019 at 12:15 pm
If this is the Real GG, I’m sure you can…mad respect.
geohogan
Aug 24, 2019 at 8:38 pm
No doubt about it a perfect transition can be taught. What good is a perfect transition if the rest of the golf swing sucks.
Complex movement by humans is one continuous preprogram, set up by a singular intention,
not a patchwork of positions to piece together.
Larry
Aug 18, 2019 at 2:50 pm
Great article!
Cameron Wilson
Aug 16, 2019 at 3:10 pm
Shout out to Robbie Schremp.
Matt Strube
Aug 19, 2019 at 12:17 pm
Any chance you know his handicap? I bet he could hit the cover off a golf ball