One of the world’s best opens up … on a swing he dislikes looking at

Pictures, as of Wednesday, continue to be unneeded on the scorecard, and for that, you imagine Ryan Gerard is grateful, though it does at least make you wonder:  

How exactly would you draw a swing that “looks like Daniel Berger and Jon Rahm had an aneurysm on the downswing?”

Poor Gerard. Talking to Golf Digest’s Luke Kerr-Dineen in 2023, he said he’d heard that about his move. But he doesn’t exactly disagree, either. 

In back-to-back-to-back sentences on Wednesday, Gerard offered these assessments:

“Yeah, I don’t really watch my swing on video a lot.”

“I know it’s not the most visually appealing thing in the world.”

“I don’t even like looking at it sometimes.”  

And yet, just look at the dude. 

Four-year pro. 

World’s 26th-ranked player. 

Masters invitee. 

So yes, Gerard’s doing fine, thank you very much. As to why, pick your cliche. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t mess with success. And so on. But all of that can go out the window when Rory McIlroy’s to your left and Adam Scott’s to your right. Gerard knows all of that better than most. On Wednesday, ahead of this week’s Cognizant Classic, he talked about it all, and since his thought, along with his swing, has gotten him where he is, it’s maybe worth a read.

Oh, and below is a down-the-line video of Gerard’s swing. 

“I think it’s just one of those things,” Gerard said, “that you get comfortable being yourself and you get comfortable with it working. Growing up, there were people that were like, you’ve got to change, you’ve got to change. I just always did it the way that I felt most comfortable, and I felt like I could hit the ball out of the center of the face. …

“When you’re working your way up the ranks, you’re basically doing whatever you can to find an edge, find a shot here or a shot there. The way my swing works is it’s very consistent for me. It might not be for other people, but for me, I feel like I can repeat the same motion a lot and hit the ball center of the face most of the time. That’s brought me a lot of success growing up.

“There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when you get to the PGA Tour. It’s about fine tuning. It’s about continuing to get better, believing in what got you here, because if you start reinventing the wheel and doing wholesale changes, that can lead down a rabbit hole of lack of confidence and bad results, and then you’re just kind of spiraling, and it’s hard to put it back together.”

Now, should you never adjust? Should you never seek inspiration? No, of course not. And Gerard does speak from a much better place than, say, the 14-handicap who’s writing this article. 

But middle of the clubface is all that you want. 

That’s easy to draw, too. 

To end things here, though, let’s let Gerard keep going. On Wednesday, he had a few other shareable thoughts. 

Gerard on the grind 

“I think there’s no easy route in this profession. You kind of have to go earn every single step. I kind of feel like that’s something that I was raised on from my parents and kind of put into my DNA through my coaches, college coaches and teammates kind of growing up. It’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be a walk in the park. You’re going to go earn it, and there’s a lot of really good players who want it really badly. If you want to compete with those guys, you’re going to have to want it just as bad, if not more, and be willing to put in the effort.

“I think kind of going from junior golf, working hard, trying to get my way into college, getting to college, being the smallest fish in a big pond, figuring out how to score on more difficult courses, learning to be a more complete individual on and off the golf course, and then turning pro, starting all over again, lowest rung, working your way up, finding success at each level, gaining experience, and then making it to the pinnacle of golf here on the PGA Tour, it just teaches you resilience. It teaches you a lot of preparation and time management skills.

“But you have to want it because if you don’t want it, there’s a million other guys sitting at home this week not playing that want it just as bad if not more, and they would trade anything to be in the spot that I am right now.

“If I’m not willing to put in the work, someone else will. There’s a limited amount of jobs up here for a reason, and someone will come take mine.”

Gerard on using launch monitors  

“I think TrackMan is a great tool. You can use it to fit golf clubs. You can use it to make sure your numbers are going where they should be. Sometimes it’ll even tell you if a club is broken, like if you’ve cracked the face on a driver.

“I’m a very feel-oriented player. I feel like I try and hit shots. I don’t try and play math. TrackMan, obviously I have one, but I use it in a way that’s basically conducive to me hitting a number or hitting a golf shot, and then I would go look at it for the distance or the height or something if I’m looking at something in particular.”

Gerard on his level of self-awareness — at the age of 26 

“I think my parents did a really good job of instilling confidence in me but also teaching me that you have to work hard, and it’s not going to be handed to you.

“I played a lot of golf in college at UNC with a lot of really good players, and I kind of came in there my freshman year being almost irrationally confident and got my butt kicked by Ben Griffin for about nine months straight.

“I think that stuff kind of teaches you that there’s a lot of really good players out here, and you’re not going to be able to just waltz in and take over. There are some guys that have that talent and that ability and kind of pop off the page, but I was never one of those guys. I was always kind of that guy that got there, kind of kept getting better, kept getting better, crept up, crept up, and by the time that I was done with high school or I was leaving college, I was one of those guys, but it took me some time to get there.

“I think it comes from having to work hard and having to put in a lot of hours and speaking to a lot of people, trying to figure out how I can get better, talking to college coaches — Coach [Roy] Williams has been great, Carolina basketball coach. Guys like that who have a lot of experience and who I have a lot of respect for have given a lot of good advice and a lot of encouragement but also remember to stay true to yourself.

“Being true to yourself isn’t necessarily just on the golf course. It’s off the golf course, too. Trying to make sure that you understand where you come from and you want to kind of keep on the path that you’re on.

“I think there’s a lot of people that have kind of helped along the way.”

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