Decoding the 'Crash Out': When an Amateur Golfer's Body Rescues a Swing With Another Mistake

At the fifth hole of Rye Golf Club, on a summer afternoon, the ball left the driver's face and went hard right. It cleared the treeline, crossed the road, and landed on the roof of a house. No glass broke. Nobody came out. There was only the silence of four men standing on the tee, and one of them — Alex Myers, a senior writer at Golf Digest — trying to work out what to say.

He later described the fifth as "never a fun one." It is a difficult tee shot, the kind that makes an amateur stand a beat longer, adjust the grip a beat longer, and think a beat more. That shot was the worst of his day, and it happened on the hole he feared most. Three birdies in the same round suddenly went pale. The story spread among his playing partners. It became, in his words, the talk of the town — in exactly the way an amateur tells the story of his own failure.

What caught my attention was not the ball. It was the moment before the club came down.

I once wrote 2,000 words about tactics, and then realised that a single pointing finger told more. This story is the same. A ball flying right does not tell us much. But the body that produced it tells us a great deal — if we know where to look. And here, the place to look is not the ball. It is the lower body of a man trying to rescue a swing that went wrong from the very start.

Context: An amateur between two worlds

Alex Myers is not a tour professional. He is a senior writer at Golf Digest, an amateur with a mid-to-high handicap, and the author of "Late Scratch?" — a year-long project with one goal: to see how good he can get. This is a very American genre of golf content: a journalist becomes the protagonist of his own improvement story, both narrator and student.

The notable thing is that his driver fault had returned earlier in the summer, showed up "a couple times a round," and worsened under the pressure of an annual buddies trip — where the stakes come not from a formal tournament but from close friends and a green jacket the group awards itself, a nod to the Masters. In amateur golf, that is the real major. No world ranking, no purse, no cut. Just honour, memory, and the fear of a bad shot being repeated back to you forever.

I recognised the parallel while reviewing amateur rounds in Busan. In Korea, amateurs often treat a round as an organised social occasion, where laughter on the cart matters as much as the score. In Vietnam, where I was born, golf remains a sport of a certain class, and every shot carries a different pressure: the pressure of someone learning to belong to a new space. But the essence is the same. A man stands on a tee, and there are twelve thoughts in his head at once.

Myers's story is therefore not America's alone. It belongs to anyone who has ever stood on the hardest hole of their home course, with the club they trust least, on the day they most want to score. That is why I want to write about it — not to discuss a shot, but to discuss the body and mind behind it.

Decoding the 'crash out': When the body rescues itself

After the fifth hole, Myers went to Mario Guerra, a coach named on Golf Digest's Best In State list. He arrived with the familiar assumption of every amateur: "It's in my head." I have heard that assumption hundreds of times in conversations with amateurs. When a shot does not obey, the first instinct is to blame the mind — the fear, the lack of focus.

Guerra looked elsewhere. He told Myers he had "too much vertical force in his swing and not enough horizontal force." It is a lay phrase, but it lands at the centre of a biomechanical problem modern coaches have described for years: the imbalance between rotation around the body and driving down through it.

Picture it this way. A healthy swing is essentially a rotational movement. The body turns around its axis, the shoulders turn, the hips turn, and the club travels on a shallow, free arc that at certain points runs parallel to the ground. When a player loses that rotational feel, the body begins to press downward. The pelvis thrusts forward, the upper body stands up out of its forward bend, and the club descends on too steep an angle.

This is the state Guerra described with a vivid phrase. He said that on certain swings Myers "gets so steep" that his body "instinctively knows it is in a poor position and crashes out in a desperate but futile attempt to save it."

The phrase "crashes out" is the key to the whole story. It does not describe what the player intends. It describes what his body is forced to do. When the body senses the club is in the wrong place on the way down, there is no time to analyse. There is only reflex. And the reflex of a body losing balance is to push the pelvis forward, stand up, and use the wrists to save the clubface. The result is a shot the player never planned — which is exactly why it is frightening. It came from himself.

In modern golf biomechanics, this is generally seen as a form of early extension — the hips pushing toward the ball, the torso losing its forward tilt, and the club forced into a wrist flip at the bottom. The key point: the player does not choose it. The body chooses it, in less than a blink.

In other words, the fault is not psychological weakness. It is a wrong position detected too late by the body and handled by an unavoidable reaction.

Vertical and horizontal force: A different view of a recurring fault

What makes Guerra's diagnosis interesting is that it does not stop at description. It proposes a feel-based correction.

He asked Myers to swing "more horizontally around his body," keeping the club "as low and as parallel to the ground as possible in both the backswing and downswing." His phrasing was simple: "almost like making a baseball swing but while in golf posture."

This is a deliberate reverse drill. It is not meant to produce a finished swing. It is meant to create a feel opposite to the old one, so the body can learn a different path. In motor learning, this is a familiar principle: when a pattern is deeply grooved, you do not fix it by tweaking. You exaggerate the opposite, so the body has a clear reference point, and only then do you blend the two feels.

It sounds simple. But there is a problem the article does not resolve: there is no data on how long that feel lasts.

Myers reported the drill "did not take long to produce improved shots." He saw a "much lower, better ball flight." On video, the swing "looked much better than his normal move." These are encouraging signs. But they are early signals, not proof. There are no figures on distance, accuracy, greens in regulation, or how often the fault recurred afterwards. We have one practice session, one drill, and a visual impression.

As someone who has watched countless team training sessions, I have learned one thing: the range is generous. It gives a faster sense of progress than reality. The course is where the question gets answered.

'Moment of truth': The checkpoint the body cannot lie about

There is one detail in the story I consider the most important, and it sits buried among the others. It is the checkpoint on the swing-analysis app Myers used to review his move.

At the position called the "moment of truth" — roughly halfway between the top of the backswing and impact — a good swing shows the shaft "more in line with his trail arm." On a steep swing, the shaft points down toward the ball at a narrow angle. On a shallower swing, the shaft sits in a freer plane, more parallel to the trail arm.

This is a type of evidence I pay special attention to, because it does not depend on subjective feel. The sense of vertical and horizontal force is an internal matter. The shaft line on video is external. When two different instruments — one of feel, one of image — point to the same cause, the diagnosis becomes far more credible.

And here, both point the same way: Myers is entering the ball from too steep a position, and his body is trying to fix it with a movement he does not control.

There is a personal anecdote I want to share here. In 2026, as a second-year communications student working as a contributor for a Korean football site, I was assigned to follow the national team training in St Petersburg. I spent a lot of time analysing tactical diagrams, positions, defensive principles. But what I remember most is a very small gesture: Kim Young-gwon pointing up at the stands after the team eliminated Germany from the World Cup. No diagram explains that gesture. But that gesture explains a great many other things.

I tell this story because it bears directly on how I read the Myers piece. What matters is not the club. What matters is the moment the body decides to do something the man never planned. That is the real data. And it sits somewhere no app can measure.

The mental layer: When the mind adds a club

If the story stopped there, it would be a neat technical lesson. But Myers adds another layer: the mental one.

He admits he has "too many swing thoughts." He consults mental coach Josh Nichols, who confirms the physical-mental link and names the most common complaint he hears from amateurs: being "too steep/open at the top and trying to flip things back on track during the downswing to square the club up."

This is a precise description, and it matches the analysis above. A player who reaches the top with an open face, in a steep position, must do something at the bottom to bring the face back to square. And the only thing the body can do in that short a window is flip the wrists. That flip is why the ball goes right. But the flip is not the cause. It is the symptom.

Here lies the self-reinforcing loop I consider the most transferable idea in the whole story. A player with too many thoughts detects the bad position mid-swing. That detection creates one more thing to think about. That extra thinking creates a new compensation. And the new compensation reinforces the original faulty pattern. The harder you try to fix it, the deeper you sink.

For an amateur standing on the tee of the hole he fears most, this is no longer a purely technical matter. It is a psychological state with a physical expression. Nichols compares it to the yips — a movement disorder that tends to appear under pressure and is notoriously hard to cure and prone to relapse. Myers does not claim a clinical condition. But his description — a fault that appears only on pressured shots, vanishes on the range, and returns "a couple times a round" — has the exact structure of a situational yips.

This explains why his story reaches so many amateurs. Very few of them have a completely broken swing. But many have one club, one hole, or one situation that makes their body do what their head does not want.

The lowest-risk solution: Breathing and a single cue

Across the whole story, there is one detail I rate as the lowest-risk, highest-confidence solution. It is the breathing technique Myers had used before: breathe in for three, out for three.

He says that in the year he used it, he played "some of his best golf," and won the green jacket on the annual buddies trip. It is a small detail, but it matters for a simple reason: it is the only tool in the story with a track record longer than one practice session.

A technical drill needs time to become habit. A breathing rhythm does not. It works immediately, it does not depend on the body having learned a new path, and it creates no over-correction risk.

I want to say something here that I believe applies to most amateurs. When you face a frightening shot, what you need is not one more technical thought. What you need is one fewer thought. A single cue — or one breath — beats twelve reminders. Because the body cannot process twelve reminders in the time of one swing, and it can process one breath.

This is why I always look at the seemingly trivial details in golf writing. A pointing finger. A glove adjustment. A breath. These do not appear on a scorecard, but they are the heartbeat of the shot.

The line between the range and the course

There is a gap in the story I want to make clear, because it is a gap anyone who follows amateur golf will recognise.

Myers reports that the new drill produced good results. But he also says he has "homework to do on the range," and that the on-course goal is to "find a blend." That means the transition period is not over. It has only just begun.

In motor learning, there is a phase called the transition period — when the old pattern has not disappeared and the new one is not yet automatic. In that phase, players often play worse than before they started. Very few instructional pieces tell amateurs this, and it is why so many give up halfway.

Another point to note: the "baseball swing in golf posture" drill is an exaggeration drill. Applied too literally on the course, it can create a new fault — a swing that is too flat, a ball that flies low and blocks right or left. Myers himself acknowledges this when he talks about finding a blend. It is a valuable admission, and it shows he understands a corrective drill is not a finished swing.

I have seen the same thing in football. A team overhauling its defensive system often plays worse for a few matches. A midfielder learning to hold a deeper position often loses confidence for weeks. Transition always has a cost. And that cost rarely appears in the coverage.

The contrarian angle: What readers misunderstand

This is the part I consider most important, and the part I believe most readers will skip.

Myers's story is told in a very appealing structure: a bad shot, a diagnosis from an expert, a corrective drill, and a better result. That structure invites a conclusion: the problem is solved.

But a closer look shows at least four things the story does not say.

First, there is no measurement. No figures on distance, accuracy, greens in regulation, or recurrence. Every judgement of progress rests on visual impression and subjective feel. This does not mean the progress is unreal. It means we do not yet know how durable it is.

Second, the fault is framed as a situational yips — meaning it tends to recur under pressure. Even if the technical drill succeeds, the probability of recurrence on the next buddies trip remains high. The story does not make this clear.

Third, there is a light promotional current in the piece. A ranked coach, a mental coach, a sport psychologist, and a swing-analysis app are all named. No sponsorship is disclosed. But naming so many experts creates a cultural effect: it reinforces the idea that amateur improvement is an expert-led process, and therefore a purchasable one.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, readers are very likely to generalise this story to their own games. If you are an amateur with an annoying club, you may read this piece and conclude that you too are "crashing out," that you too need a horizontal drill, that you too need a swing app. But Guerra's diagnosis is specific to Myers. It rests on direct observation of one person's body. It is not a universal diagnosis.

This is a trap I see many amateurs fall into, in both Korea and Vietnam. They read about a famous person's corrective drill and apply it to themselves with no one watching. The result is usually a new fault layered on top of the old one.

In other words, what the story truly teaches is not a specific drill. What it teaches is a way of seeing. When your body does something you did not want, it may be a sign of a wrong position the body is trying to fix. And the fix is not necessarily one more thought. Sometimes it is one fewer.

What the story is really telling

I want to return to the moment at the fifth hole.

A ball flew right and landed on a roof. Nothing was broken. Nobody was hurt. There was only a man on a tee with a feeling every golfer knows: the feeling that his body has just betrayed him.

In professional golf, a bad shot is just a bad shot. It goes on a scorecard, gets analysed on television, and is forgotten the next week. But in amateur golf, a bad shot is a memory. It stays in a group's stories for years. It resurfaces on the next trip. It becomes part of how a player tells the story of himself.

That is why I believe this story matters more than an instructional piece. It shows that for amateurs, golf is not only a game. It is a way of facing personal failure, and of learning to forgive yourself.

Myers writes about his shot with self-deprecation. He tells it before anyone else can. This is a deliberate choice, and a smart one. By owning his failure, he controls the story about it. And by turning that story into a technical lesson, he turns embarrassment into something of value.

In my own work, I once interviewed more than forty long-time Busan IPark supporters during the empty-stadium period. Mr Park, 67, who had not missed a match in thirty years, told me the stadium felt like a grave. I have never forgotten that line. And I remember that after the piece ran, many people reached out to share similar stories.

A stadium without a crowd is a body without a heart, still beating but heard by no one. This is what I always think about when I write about sport. Numbers matter. But stories are what keep the numbers meaningful.

The next rhythm

So what happens next for Myers?

There are a few signals I will be watching, and I think anyone interested in this story should watch them too.

First, whether the horizontal drill transfers to the course. The answer will come in a later installment of the "Late Scratch?" series, and it will be the first real test of Guerra's diagnosis.

Second, whether the driver fault returns under pressure on the annual buddies trip. This is the context in which the fault appeared before, and if it returns, it will confirm the situational nature of the problem.

Third, whether the breathing and single-cue routine is sustained. This is the most reliable element of the whole story, and sustaining it may be the deciding factor between success and failure.

And fourth, what I watch most closely: whether a new fault appears. If the exaggeration drill is applied too literally, a swing that is too flat may emerge. This is a sign anyone undergoing a technical change should watch for.

I will read Myers's next piece with particular interest. Not because I am curious about the result. But because I want to know whether an amateur, after his body betrayed him on the hardest hole, can learn to trust that body again.

Data only tells us where we stand; emotion tells us why we stay. The answer to that question will not be in a swing-analysis app. It will be in the moment a man stands on the tee at the fifth hole, with the same driver in his hands, and this time, his body knows what to do without him having to think.