Golf Extraordinary and Not So Much

I'm reading Extraordinary Putting by Fred Shoemaker. He wrote Extraordinary Golf an excellent book that I read several years ago. It's a SHAZAM! kind of book that I would recommend to anyone regardless of whether they are into golf or not.

Extraordinary Putting is also good. The thrust of each book is to try and shift your perceptions of what's going on so as to create extraordinary performances, or experiences from which performance can flow.

After reading some of the book, I went out to the practice putting green to try some of the exercises. In one, Shoemaker suggests putting to a long target - the flagstick on its side, or a driver laid out, and putting to that from about 6 feet. After doing that a few times, you are to shift to hitting to the cup.

I try this out. I hit to my driver that I've laid out on the green, and hit it every time. It's an easy task, which is the point. It's hard not to hit the driver. So I switch to putting to the cup from about 6 feet.

My focus is on trying to see the after image of the ball. Shoemaker suggests trying to see this image as the first task in the book. If you stare at the ball for a bit, and then move it but not your eyes, you'll see an after image of the ball. It's sorta cool, but easier to get if the weather is sunny. (it was a bit mixed when I was out trying this).

So that's what I'm trying to do in putting to the cup. I haven't done anything special in trying to line up the putt, just sort seeing it in my peripheral vision. I putt my three balls.

Clunk, clunk, clunk, they all go in the hole. I am stunned. Take 'em out and try again, because, hey, that could have been a fluke. Clunk, clunk, go the first two, and the third just slides by the cup. Wow.

It's amazing! There's definitely something to the method, although the rest of my putting practice wasn't quite as impressive. It's harder to get this to translate to putts from farther distance.

You'd think this would spell great things for my Wednesday golf outting. Well, yesterday at the Canoe Club I shot ... 61. A pretty bad day, although I did shot 61 earlier this year too. My putting was OK, though not great, but I only hit about 1 in 4 shots well. Not sure what was up, because I've been pretty good the last couple of weeks.

Ah well. If I can put some more of the extraordinary suggestions into play, then things should come around.