Alright, let me tell you about this little experiment I did recently. My golf game, especially my driver, has been all over the place. Slicing it like crazy, you know the feeling. Frustrating stuff. I was scrolling through some old golf forums, just looking for anything, really.
Then I stumbled upon some discussion mentioning a guy named John Bailey. Not a superstar name you hear every day, but some folks were talking about his really simple, repeatable swing motion back in his day. Got me curious.
Trying it out on the Range
So, next time I went to the driving range, I thought, what the heck, let’s try and see if I can find anything online about this Bailey fella’s swing. Found a couple of really old, grainy pictures showing his setup. Looked pretty straightforward, nothing too fancy.
I decided to give it a shot. Here’s basically what I tried to copy:
- His stance looked a bit wider than mine. So I widened my feet. Felt kinda clunky at first.
- He seemed to have less body movement, more arms. I tried to quiet down my hips.
- Just focused on making a smooth tempo, not killing the ball.
Honestly, the first few swings were terrible. Topped one, shanked another one right. Classic me. Felt really awkward trying to change things I’ve been doing for years, even if they weren’t working well.
But I stuck with it for maybe half a bucket of balls. Just focusing on that setup and a smoother swing. Then, something kinda clicked. Hit a few drives that actually started straighter. Not perfect, mind you, still lost a couple to the right, but definitely fewer wild slices.
It wasn’t like finding the holy grail or anything. Didn’t suddenly turn me into a pro. But focusing on someone else’s simple fundamentals, this John Bailey guy’s approach, kind of reset my brain. Stopped me from overthinking my own complicated swing thoughts for a bit.
So yeah, that was my little John Bailey experiment. Didn’t fix everything overnight, but it was a good reminder to sometimes just get back to basics. Keep it simple. Definitely something I’ll keep tinkering with next time I’m out there practicing.
