During a moment of boredom on the driving range at the 1993 Todos Santos Open, my caddie Ernesto playfully tossed an iron cover at my head as I was hitting a shot. Caught by surprise, I instinctively jerked my head backwards and contorted my body in an effort to avoid the incoming foreign object. Much to my amazement, that swing resulted in a mammoth drive that went far down the range. Intrigued, I asked him to do it again. Once again Ernesto threw an object at my head during my swing and, again, the drive went far and true. This process was repeated throughout an entire monster bucket of balls. Convinced that I had “found” something, I coined this swing thought “dodgeball” and went to the first tee full of confidence and ready to put it in play. Sadly, when Ernesto tossed a divot repair tool at my face during my opening tee shot, I hit a massive pull hook out of bounds.
I tell you this story as a cautionary tale. Although swing thoughts are the DNA of every elite golfer’s game, and serve as the glue that holds a golf swing together, their effectiveness can sometimes be fleeting. As quickly as they appear, they can be gone.
However, like an old putter that you pull out of the garage that still has a few putts left in it, I save all of my old swing thoughts in case they work again in the future.
As you’re reading this right now consider yourself very fortunate. It’s extremely rare that a player of my caliber opens up their private vault of swing thoughts, especially for free. Here are just a few of the swing thoughts I have used in competition throughout my career on the Mexican Mini-Tour:
- Thumbs up 7-UP
- Hold on tight
- Let it go
- The club is a snake
- Left elbow points towards mama’s house
- My wrist is a bowl of soup
- You’re giving a high-five
- Scratch that itch
- Turn around a stick up your ass
- Step on the Coke can
- To hit a draw, make your elbows see-saw
- Check the watch. Hold it. Now it’s go time
- You’re inside a jar of honey
- Don’t go right, don’t go right, don’t go right….FUCK!
- Face down, ass up
- Just like Sunday School
- Ice, ice, baby
- Bust a nut in the teacup
- Lietzke ’81
- Juice boy!
- Ring that dinner bell
- Turn to dance with Susie
- Let your kneecaps talk back
- Right heel, you’ve been a bad boy
- Left pants pocket full of Cracker Jacks
- Belt buckle don’t lie. Then let it fly
The above is an excerpt from my best selling book entitled “CPG’s Other Black Book. A lifetime of punching out sideways” and is available at clubproguy.com
