Last week at the Peak Performance Golf Schools, I had a student who had a serious case of 'head down, chin into the chest, looking over the top of his glasses.' So I had to ask him the big question. Was he wearing bifocals, trifocals, whatever? I got a resounding yes for an answer.
Back in the good old days of the 80s and 90s,I never really had to ask that question because during my pre-lesson meet, greet and question and answer session I could just look at their glasses, if they were wearing them, and see if they had bifocals and trifocals. You could see the lines.
But science came up with the progressive lenses where they hid the lines, so now I either have to remember to ask them or when I see the head down, bring up the big question.
With the bifocals and trifocals, and especially with the progressives, which are even worse, the key is that you have to put your head down to see out of the top of your glasses where the distance lenses are. So the problem becomes, with the head down into the chest, the neck is stretched out and the head, the neck, and the shoulders are out of dynamic balance. There's a lot of stress put on those muscles and it makes lifting your arms and club more difficult.
The key with the progressives is because there is not set line, finding the golf ball, the way you see it the best in the top lens, becomes difficult. When you start, if there's even the slightest bit of motion, the ball can move up and down in the glasses and be jumping around like a bunny rabbit. That's not good. It's hard enough to hit a ball standing still, never mind one that's bouncing around.
So, get yourself into a good posture, but that's difficult if not impossible to do with bifocals and trifocals and especially with the progressives. What do we do about this?
You have to get a pair of glasses you can use to play golf that are just your distance lens. If you need sunglasses you have to get the tinted ones or with some of these transition lenses. Either way you cannot play good golf and hit good shots with any kind of bifocals or trifocals. To keep your head up, we need to gave glasses you can see your distance with.
I've been saying this since the mid-80s, I recognized the situation. Fortunately, for myself, I don't need those glasses to see the golf ball. But over the years I've had many students I had to tell to get distance lenses, period. Some told me that they needed bifocals to keep a good score. I always came back with, do they want to keep a good score or shoot a good score?
What I found out is that you can go to your optometrist or these stores that make glasses now, and they can move the bifocal or whatever you need, over to the sides of the glasses. I always prefer the outside because our eyes peer inward, toward the focal point, which is out from our nose.
I had one student, whom I told for a long time, possibly even years, to change his glasses. One day he finally showed up and moved his head in front of me, kind of saying, “Look what I've got.” I said, “Yeah, Gary, you still have your bifocals on.” And he said, “Yeah, but I had them switched. The bottom is now the distance and the top is the bifocal.” Pretty smart. He overcame that.
I had another student, a dentist from Wisconsin, who always came down to Harbour Town over the Christmas and New Year's holidays. For years I told him he needed to get rid of his bifocals because his head was down too much. One year he walked into my office and sat down and he kind of gave me the kind of “look at my glasses” look. I said, “What's going on here. You still have your bifocals.” He said, 'No, I finally got rid of them. How come you never told me it could really help my putting?” I said, “Doc, I told you it would be good for your entire game, that includes putting.” He said that the most remarkable change that he saw, that really helped him the most, was in his putting, because he had a better posture and he saw the line better.
So the key becomes, bifocals and trifocals, and especially progressives, you just cannot play good golf, take good shots, swing good clubs. Play the game you want to play. I promise you, when the ball stands still and you can see it very clearly, and you have your setup in a good position, especially with your head straight up from you spine so you're looking downward so you can see the ball, you will see tremendous improvement in your swing and your ball striking. When you get those two points put together, your going to see more good shots and your scores go lower.
(Note for Golf School. Look for details soon on our California PPGS schools at Talega Golf Club in beautiful San Clemente, May 17 – 19 and 20 – 22. It's going to be one heck of an experience. Call: 1-888-84SWING(79464) or 1-864-525-7336.)
The Surge!