Welcome to The Golf Scene — Your Weekly Golf Fix.

If this is your first issue, welcome.
If you’ve been following along, thanks — I appreciate it.

This week we talk about Bartender Golf and the concoctions it creates, find out if Dr. Bogie can solve another mystery, and discover the muscle-building methods available in the back shop.

And somewhere in there, we’ll help you hit a few better shots.

Let’s get into it.

In This Issue:

Swing Insight: What’s in your blender?

Detective Series: Meet Dr. Bogie

Golf Life: Does your golf bag weigh more than the legal limit?

Mix two parts YouTube video, one part TikTok, one part Instagram, and one generous splash of unsolicited advice from the driving range wannabe pro.

Blend thoroughly.

Serve immediately.

Congratulations — you have just created everyone’s favourite golf swing:

Chaos.

And the best part?

Every ingredient sounded useful at the time.

That is the dangerous thing about golf advice. Most of it does not sound ridiculous when you first hear it. In fact, some of it might even be correct.

Keep your head still.
Turn your hips.
Shallow the club.
Stay connected.
Swing easy.
Release the club.
Rotate through.
Don’t sway.
Use the ground.

By the time most golfers are finished collecting advice, they are not working on a golf swing anymore.

They are hosting a cocktail party in their brain.

This is what I call Bartender Golf.

It usually starts innocently enough. A golfer hits a few bad shots, which is perfectly normal because this is golf, and golf enjoys making grown adults feel inferior.

Very inferior.

So naturally, the golfer goes looking for answers.

The first stop is usually YouTube.

Twenty minutes later, they have discovered that their trail elbow is too high, their lead wrist is too cupped, their hips are late, their shoulders are early, their club is steep, their takeaway is inside, and their entire backswing may need to be reported to the authorities.

Then comes TikTok.

Now they have 14 seconds of a “golf guru” doing something with a resistance band, a medicine ball, three pool noodles, and some kind of contraption that will require a chiropractor afterward.

Then comes Instagram.

More drills. More feels. More slow-motion swings. More arrows. More circles. More lines. More someone saying, “This one secret move will change your golf swing forever.”

It might.

But not always in the direction you were hoping.

And just when the golfer is already mentally full, along comes the final ingredient.

The guy at the range.

You know the guy.

He has watched you hit six balls. He does not know your name, your golf history, your ball flight, your body, your goals, your tendencies, your injuries, or whether you are working on something specific.

But he has thoughts.

Many thoughts.

Possibly a TED Talk.

And before you know it, one guy who can’t break 100 is now giving you his full thesis on the golf swing.

That is when the blender really starts spinning.

At this point, you may feel like you need to wear a helmet just to prevent your head from exploding all over the hitting mat.

The problem is not always that the advice is bad. That is what makes this tricky.

A lot of golf advice has some truth in it.

The problem is that not every truth belongs in your swing right now.

A golfer with poor contact may not need a lesson on shaping a draw.

A golfer with a wide-open clubface may not need more hip rotation.

A golfer who is topping every iron may not need to think about lag, compression, shaft lean, pressure shift, wrist angles, shoulder tilt, and three separate tour-player drills before breakfast.

They may simply need to learn how to brush the grass in the right place.

That is the real issue.

Golfers often confuse information with direction.

Information is everywhere.

Direction is different.

Direction means someone has looked at your swing, your ball flight, your contact, your setup, and your tendencies, then identified what matters most right now.

Not everything.

The next thing.

Because trying to fix everything at once is not practice.

It is confusion wearing a golf glove.

Imagine walking into a kitchen and deciding to make dinner by opening every cupboard, grabbing every spice, dumping all of it into one pot, stirring aggressively, and then wondering why the final result tastes like regret.

That is what many golfers do with their swing.

A little grip change.
A little takeaway thought.
A little hip turn.
A little head position.
A little “keep the left arm straight.”
A little “swing out to right field.”
A little panic from the pond on the right.

Blend thoroughly.

Serve with a double bogey.

The better way is much less dramatic.

Pick one priority.

Work on it.

Understand it.

Repeat it.

Let it become familiar.

Then, when it starts to hold up, stack the next piece on top.

That may not sound as exciting as discovering the secret move that will transform your golf swing forever by Thursday afternoon, but it works a lot better.

Golf swings are built.

They are not downloaded.

This is why good coaching should not leave a golfer with twelve swing thoughts. If you walk away from a lesson more confused than when you arrived, something has gone wrong.

A good lesson should help you understand what matters first.

Maybe that is contact.
Maybe that is setup.
Maybe that is clubface.
Maybe that is body geometry.
Maybe that is finish position.
Maybe that is simply learning to stay in your posture until after impact.

Whatever it is, it should be clear.

Not because golf is simple.

It is not.

But because the golfer needs something they can actually work on.

One useful priority beats twelve random thoughts every time.

So the next time your golf swing starts to feel like it has been assembled from five apps, three buddies, and one guy who can’t break 100 but is now giving you his full thesis on the golf swing, take a breath.

You may not need another video.

You may not need another tip.

You may not need another ingredient.

You may need a recipe.

Because better golf usually does not come from throwing everything into the blender.

It comes from knowing what actually belongs in the glass.

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There are few mysteries in golf more troubling than the case of the missing swing.

The evidence usually appears on the driving range, the first tee, or beside a golf ball that has already developed trust issues.

The golfer steps aside and makes a beautiful practice swing.

Balanced.

Smooth.

Relaxed.

Almost athletic.

Then they make another one.

Still good.

Maybe even better.

By the third practice swing, witnesses begin to believe something special is happening. The club brushes the grass. The finish looks balanced. The golfer appears calm, composed, and possibly employable.

Then comes the ball.

And everything vanishes.

The same golfer steps in, looks down, tightens every muscle from the jaw to the shoelaces, and produces a motion that appears to have been assembled during a power outage.

The practice swing is gone.

Missing.

Last seen two feet away from the ball.

This is when Dr. Bogie is called to the scene.

He arrives with a notebook, a pencil, and the weary expression of a man who has investigated this crime before.

The witnesses are questioned.

“Did the golfer make a good practice swing?”

Yes.

“Several?”

Yes.

“Did anything change when the ball was introduced?”

Everything.

This is the key detail in the case.

The golfer believes they made the same swing.

They did not.

The practice swing had no consequences. No scorecard. No pond. No people watching from the patio. No internal voice whispering, “Please don’t embarrass yourself in front of Kevin.”

It was just a motion.

Then the ball appeared.

Suddenly the golfer was not making a swing anymore.

They were trying to hit something.

And that is where the trouble began.

In the practice swing, the body moved freely.

With the ball present, the brain took over, called an emergency meeting, invited every swing thought it could find, and formed a committee.

Keep your head down.

Don’t top it.

Don’t slice it.

Swing easy.

Turn your hips.

Don’t swing too hard.

Don’t hit the people on the next fairway.

Whatever you do, do not think about the pond.

Naturally, the golfer immediately thought about the pond.

At this point, the investigation usually turns toward intent.

The golfer intended to make the same motion.

But intent is not evidence.

Dr. Bogie has seen this before.

A rehearsal swing and a real swing are not always the same event. One is a motion without pressure. The other is a motion with a result attached to it.

That result changes people.

It changes their tempo.
It changes their grip pressure.
It changes their balance.
It changes their finish.
It changes their ability to remain a reasonable citizen.

This is why a golfer can make three wonderful practice swings, then step in and hit a shot that suggests the club and ball were never formally introduced.

The missing swing was not stolen.

It was abandoned.

Left behind the moment the golfer stopped making a motion and started trying to guide, steer, lift, help, rescue, or personally negotiate with the golf ball.

And golf balls do not negotiate.

They only report what happened.

So what is the lesson?

The goal is not to admire your practice swing from a distance and then become a completely different person when the ball is present.

The goal is to make the ball part of the motion, not the reason the motion collapses.

That usually means simplifying the assignment.

Brush the grass.

Finish in balance.

Stay in your posture until after impact.

Pick one clear priority and let the ball get in the way of the motion.

Not twelve priorities.

One.

Because the more the golfer tries to control the strike, the more the swing disappears.

Dr. Bogie closed the file shortly after impact.

Cause of disappearance:

Too much effort.
Too much tension.
Too much ball awareness.
Not enough trust in the motion.

Another mystery solved.

The swing had not gone far.

It was hiding in the practice swing the whole time.

Most issues contain at least one thing intended to help your golf game.

Below is this week’s version, which may help explain a few back-pain mysteries.

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No fluff. Just ideas, insight, and the occasional reality check.

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Most private golf clubs have a back shop.

That is where members’ clubs are stored, cleaned after every round, pulled before their tee time, and often loaded onto a cart before they arrive.

It is also where a group of high school, college, and university students discover that what looked like a pretty cool summer job may actually be a disguised strength-training program.

On paper, it is a terrific job.

You hang around a golf course. You usually get playing privileges. You work with people your own age. And for a young golfer, there are certainly worse places to spend July and August.

But there is work involved.

Every set of clubs that comes back after a round needs to be cleaned and returned to storage.

Sometimes the bag goes onto a lower shelf.

Sometimes the upper shelf.

And every now and then, you reach for one and immediately realize you should be wearing the same back-support belt used by Olympic weightlifters.

Because some golf bags are not really golf bags.

They are storage lockers with shoulder straps.

Inside may be four Gatorades, two bottles of water, sunscreen, rain gear, spare shoes, three gloves, enough snacks to survive a minor weather event, and approximately 24 golf clubs.

The Rules of Golf allow 14.

Apparently, nobody told this guy.

But the real killer is the golf balls.

Some members carry six.

Some carry twelve.

And some appear to be preparing for a round in which every shot may be lost forever.

You lift the bag and discover there are 50, 70, perhaps more than 100 golf balls buried in various pockets.

At that point, you begin to wonder whether the member is playing 18 holes or supplying the Tibetan Army Open Championship.

Add it all together and the bag is coming in just under 100 pounds.

And now some poor 17-year-old has to clean it, carry it, and occasionally lift it onto the upper shelf.

Do that often enough and suddenly the back shop starts to look less like club storage and more like a private training facility.

So if you want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, maybe you don’t need a gym membership.

Maybe all you need is a job in the back shop.

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If you've made it this far...

you may have experienced the missing swing mystery.

This week we’ve learned three important things:

When the bartender asks if you want the latest concoction, tell them “no.”

Your golf swing may already be in there somewhere — you just need to stop inviting every swing thought to the meeting.

And your golf bag may have reached its maximum weight allowance under several international treaties.

And please...

If you have 150 golf balls in your bag, do everyone a favour and leave a few in the trunk of your car. Wean yourself off the confidence-blocking emergency supply.

If you found this useful, or at least mildly entertaining, feel free to share it with:

a friend

a playing partner

or someone whose swing rivals Tiger’s, but only until a golf ball gets involved.

And if you're looking to take your game a step further...

👉 I'd be happy to help — in person or online.

David Govan
PGA of Canada Professional

Golf Excellence Academy
Modern Golf Instruction

Creator of the 5C Golf Performance System
👉 GolfExcellence.ca

P.S. Next issue we’ll discuss whether you have stumbled into competence, think about the effort that goes into making something look effortless, and welcome Dr. Bogie back as he solves another mystery.

Beyond that, the editorial strategy remains remarkably similar to my golf game:

We have a general direction, but the exact landing area is still unknown.