There have been nights I've stayed up late thinking about, 'What's wrong with my swing? What do I need to fix?'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
But hitting is so crazy. You feel great today and get three hits. And the next day you show up and it's, 'What happened to my mechanics? Where's my swing?' Sometimes I even Google it and the search comes up with no results.
I slowly continued to compensate for the physical problems I was having and ended up completely destroying my swing, my set-up, my posture. Everything was gone.
I started changing my swing in late 1999.
Swing is extreme coordination. It's a maintaining balance, equilibrium. It's about executing very difficult rhythms with a panache and a feeling in the context of very strict time. So, everything about the swing is about some guideline and some grid and the elegant way that you negotiate your way through that grid.
When I'm playing my best and find myself in contention late on Sundays, it's usually when I'm not thinking about my swing, but rather trusting my setup and smoothly pulling the trigger. I won't completely rely on feel - I like to keep a few images in the back of my mind to make sure that I get the most out of my driver, irons and wedges.
When I'm swinging the club at my best, it's because I'm not thinking about mechanics at all. I feel like my body is loose. My arms are soft in front of me when I'm setting up, and my chest and shoulders feel as if they can move and turn easily.
There's nothing I can really do but keep going out there and swinging.
The toughest thing in hitting shouldn't be deciding when to swing. It is, for me, deciding when not to swing. You should be swinging from the time you get into the batter's box until something says don't swing.
The full thing is God-given. I don't know how I got my swing or what I did. I know I worked every single day. I know I did as much as I could with my dad. But I never really looked at anything mechanical. There was nothing really like, 'Oh, put your hands here.' It was, 'Where are you comfortable? You're comfortable here; hit from there.'
If I have got a swing, I have got a shot.