Getting Better: How to Make Golf Swing Changes Stick

The golf swing is a complex move and making a swing change can take some getting used too. Especially if you have developed some bad habits and have some swing faults. 

Making swing changes is always a scary feeling but usually necessary to break through plateaus and improve to reach your ultimate goal. In most cases, the majority of golfers don’t make swing changes until they’ve hit rock bottom.

The times when you’re ready to quit, throw your clubs in a lake, and start watching more football on weekends. But for some golfers, they choose to make swing changes based on achieving a big goal. Planning to change your swing vs. having to change is very different.

This way, you can schedule your practice time and avoid any big golf trips or tournaments when focusing on updating your swing. 

How to Make Swing Changes – 9 Ways To Make it Happen

Key Takeaways 

• Making a swing change can be difficult depending on if it’s a major swing change or a few small tweaks.
• When making a swing change, time it correctly with your season and try to make these during the offseason (winter months).
• Other ways to make a swing change permanent include visualizing off the course, lots of hitting balls at the driving range, practice swings at home, and training aids. 
• Don’t try every swing tip you read, focus on working with one coach and trusting the process. 

Figure Out the Goal

Before you start tinkering with your swing, hiring an expensive coach or buy a bunch of gadgets, what’s the point of changing? Why are you trying to change your swing in the first place? Are you …

• Experiencing pain when you swing? 
• Having this issue with all clubs or your driver only?
• Are you trying to break 100, 90 or 80 for the first time?
• Not liking the way it looks on camera or what your friends say?
• Not liking the shots your swing is producing and hate having to scramble all day?

Clarity is power.

Analyze your statistics to identify if a specific part of your game (driver, irons, bunkers, etc.) is holding you back. Don’t just make a change if everything is working! 

And when you’re changing your golf swing, it can be a bit uncomfortable and frustrating. Make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons (i.e. your swing creates pain or you want to improve) and not because you read another Golf Digest swing tip.

Make a clear goal so you know why you’re doing this because any change is inevitably hard. Is this going a band-aid fix or a long-term solution? As long as you know why you’re doing it, you’ll have the perseverance to see it through.

Commit to the Process

The more you’re changing in your swing, the longer it’s going to take – even if you’re Tiger Woods. Smaller things might take a few days or a few weeks while bigger changes might take a few months. 

You just never know, so make sure you are committed to the process by finding the right time to make your changes. Find a downtime of the year where you’re not going on a big golf trip or have any tournaments coming up. 

Remember, it’s going to be uncomfortable and awkward in the beginning. And if it isn’t feeling that way, you’re probably not fully committed and doing it wrong.

Anytime I’ve made a major swing change it feels so awkward at times I can barely remember how to take the club back. Doing it could lead to a hybrid of your old swing and your new swing which is no man’s land in the game of golf. 

Work With a Golf Coach

Now that you know why you want to change your swing and when you’ll do it, next up is finding someone to help. Coaches, for the most part, can help you speed up the process of learning how to change your golf swing. There’s a reason that everyone on the PGA Tour has a swing coach, mental coach, and trainer.

You want to find someone that has your best interest in mind, not just another income stream for them. Tiger had Hank Haney guide him to a massive change in 2004 and Butch Harmon before that. Phil, Jack, and so many other greats all had coaches too.

Every golfer can benefit from taking lessons. However, finding a coach is easier said than done though. 

The biggest tip I recommend is finding someone with a similar body type to yours and finding someone you enjoy spending time with. If they’re just there for a quick buck or you get a bad feeling from them, get far away.

Don’t forget, you can also find coaches at local golf clubs, golf stores with practice facilities and even virtual coaches. They can help improve ball flight, grip, and hopefully make a major swing change a lot simpler with drills to use. 

Record Your Progress

When it comes to learning how to make swing changes, I always recommending documenting the process. If you can’t measure it (and in golf’s case, see it), it’s hard to manage it. Think of changing your golf swing as big weight loss transformation, you want to document your results from A to B.

I recommend that you learn how to video your swing so you can record it on a weekly basis. That way you can easily compare your new swing to your past swing. 

Getting a video of your swing frequently also increases your awareness of your swing and makes it easier to spot old, bad habits. Plus, having them on your phone will make it easy to watch on the range to get in the right positions. 

Practice on the Range First

Once you’ve worked with a coach or at least a buddy who likes teaching, the next step is to take it to the driving range. Always start at the practice tee and get comfortable with it before you start playing golf with your new swing. 

If you’re dealing with less than ideal winter golf conditions, use practice drills in the mirror or in your garage. Start by doing slow motion rehearsals of the new move you’re trying to learn. Remember, focus on what you want the arms and body to do, not what you don’t want.

Do these drills 50-100x per day with practice swings, every day so you ingrain your new habit.

Remember, the older the habit, the more time it takes to replace it with a new habit that will help you shoot lower scores.

If you really want to boost your practice sessions, think about using a launch monitor to track exactly how far you hit each each club. Plus you get instant feedback on parts of your swing (like spin, path) that you would normally only get from an instructor.

In addition to range practice, don’t forget to work with an impact bag at home. These simple training aids can help you engrain changes without taking full speed swings.

Start With the Shorter Clubs

If the weather does allow you out to the driving range, make sure to start practicing your new swing with the shorter clubs first. If you go out and start trying to pipe drivers, good luck ever making that change!

For the most part, you want to ingrain the feeling of new swing changes with wedges, then short irons before moving on to longer clubs. Shorter clubs are easier to control and allow you to make a swing change less awkward before moving on to harder to hit clubs. 

Swing in Slow Motion 

To feel a technical change, make sure to do a lot of slow motion (less than full) swings. Many golfers try to make swing changes at full speed which makes it nearly impossible to feel the new feeling. 

Don’t forget, making swing changes is supposed to feel awkward! Start at slower speeds, then gradually build to get your swing heading in the right direction. 

Use Training Aids 

Once a coach helps you identify a certain issue you want to change, consider finding a trainig aid that can help. Each training aid can help making specific changes (improve takeaway, create more lag, etc.) and a great resource to use with practice sessions. 

Visualize A New Swing Pattern 

According to research, one hour of visualization is worth seven hours of practicing in the real world. While sitting in a room visualizing your new swing isn’t as fun as being on the links, it can drastically speed up the changes.

How?

According to Psychology Today, “Brain studies now reveal that thoughts produce the same mental instructions as actions. Mental imagery impacts many cognitive processes in the brain: motor control, attention, perception, planning, and memory. So the brain is getting trained for actual performance during visualization.”

This is how Roger Bannister became the first person to break the 4-minute mile. In fact, Olympians and golfers like Jason Day, still regularly use visualization to compete at the highest levels.

Instead of thinking about banging more balls at the range, find a PGA pro who is swinging like you want. Then, watch clips in slow-motion on YouTube of what you’re trying to do. 

Imagine yourself making that move and even keep a club close the TV to practice and visualize. Most golfers will never do this their whole life and miss out on the powerful benefits of mental imagery. 

Stay Patient and Trust the Process

Patience is key to improving as a golfer. Think back to Tiger Woods switching to Hank Haney in 2004. 

Everyone thought he was nuts for changing his swing and he went a year without a victory (and this was in peak Tiger era). Then, he went on to win several majors and tons of events until his Thanksgiving incident in 2008.

Remember, old habits aren’t easy to break, stay consistent with your changes. You have to have the mentality, “Trust the process, don’t’ rush the process.” 

Nothing good ever happened overnight. Do the little things and I promise with due time you’ll see big results.

You can’t expect to do the same things and expect different results. Mix up your practice routines, record your progress and have fun! 

When things inevitably get hard, don’t quit. And don’t put more pressure on yourself either by playing in tournaments or even keeping score for that matter.

Don’t Neglect Short Game

Everyone wants the perfect swing but at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter how you do it if you’re scoring well.While swing changes are important, don’t take too much time away from your short game or you’ll never have the scores for your hard work.

So much of the game comes from scoring inside 125 yards. 

Make it a point when you hit balls to spend at least ⅓ or ½ of all your time working on the shots under 125 yards. While it’s not as sexy as hitting woods and drivers, it’s going to make you a much better golfer. 

My Experience

A swing change isn’t always easy but if you follow these steps, I’m confident it will help. I can’t stress enough the fact you need to go all in on a swing change. 

Otherwise, you’ll be in this weird halfway point where you have part of your old swing and part of a new one. Which as you can imagine, isn’t ideal for your golf game. 

If you’re making a major change, always try to do it in the offseason. If you have a golf simulator at home (or net), it can help a ton instead of hitting every few weeks if the weather is good. This way you can be hitting balls any day of the week at convenient times.

Plus, when you’re making swing changes in the offseason, you can avoid as much frustration while you’re playing lots during the season. 

Final Thoughts on Making a Swing Change

Once you train your swing changes at home and at the range, then take it to the golf course. That way you’re training fully so you don’t get out onto the course and start thinking mechanical swing thoughts. That pretty much never works.

Take one new swing thought to each round and focus on that. Hopefully, these tips will help you learn how to make swing changes and make this your best golf year yet!