Archives for August 11, 2014

I recently started working with a student Rob B. This student has been away from the game for over twenty years. Say life got in the way. Now that he has some more free time to devote to golf he has returned to the game. He was a 6 handicap when he quit. Keeping the Driver in play for 18 holes was a primary nemesis at the time. His goal is to get back to a six by the Spring of 2015 and then improve from there to his potential.

This is both good and bad. According to Wikipedia goal setting should be “SMART”. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time sensitive completes the acronym. As you can see from his short statement he has met all of the criteria so to speak. Therein lays a problem I believe. While the criterion seems to be met, there is much more to look at here. I’m looking at full swings with a six iron and driver. What about the rest of the game? Such as the other areas to track those stats are:

• Scrambling %: When you miss a green, how often do you up and down?
• Driving Accuracy %: How often do you hit the fairway?
• Greens in Regulation %: How many greens do you hit? Remember, fringes do NOT count.
• Putts per Green in Regulation: When you hit a green, how often do you make birdie?
• Total Putts: How good are you at controlling the speed of your putts? How consistent are you on the greens?
• Sand Save %: How often to you get up and down out of a bunker?

My point here is that we all need to set goals for our game and what we want to accomplish. These goals should meet the criteria and should be SMART. We have to include all parts of the game and have specific goals and objectives for each.

I didn’t pick up golf until late in my teens, and then it was primarily a side hobby with guys on the football team to have something to do in the off season. I really didn’t take the game too seriously, but unknowingly at that time, I was hooked. Although I really enjoyed the game, I stopped playing for several years through college and a stint in the U.S. Army.

Fast forward to 2000, and my lovely bride came to me one day and told me that I needed a hobby. It was her diplomatic way of saying she wanted me to get out of the house. So, I ran right out and purchased some new clubs, and like any amateur golfer, ran right out the range and starting hitting drivers. I had a group of buddies I played with a couple times a week, and to be frank, I was just awful. My average score was 105 for 18 holes, and I often considered a round to be a success if I made it off the 18th hole with golf balls still in the bag and all of my clubs still intact. My club throwing prowess was legendary in my playing group.

Now, fully engaging my new addiction, I watched the Golf Channel religiously, subscribed to the golf magazines, and went to the range to work on my swing 3-4 times per week. But I never got any better. I still sucked, and bad.

Then I saw a late night infomercial on the Golf Channel talking about this thing called Natural Golf, and this Single Plane swing of this weird Canadian guy named Moe Norman. I can honestly say I must have watched the infomercial 80 times. The ideal presented of a Single Plane swing made so much sense to me, and Moe wasn’t what a “typical” great golfer looked like in the infomercial, and so after the 80th time watching, I purchased the Natural Golf “Lifetime of Better Golf” package. I had found my answer! The Natural Golf swing.

After implementing the fundamentals, my ball striking improved right away. I could keep the ball in play more, I was enjoying the game. But there was just one problem, and it was a big one – I lost a ton of distance. I couldn’t hit the ball out of my shadow! And my ego didn’t handle that too well.

So I referred back to the videos from Natural Golf, and in them was young man wearing a red shirt name Todd Graves that was swinging like Moe, and his swing looked pretty good. He looked just like Moe, so I sought him out for instruction.

I went to a school with Todd and Tim in 2003, and that day my life changed. I not only understood the swing more, I understood Moe more, and started modeling Moe that very day. Within a few months, I broke 90 for the very first time, carding and 87 at a course I wasn’t familiar with. To this day, I still have that scorecard framed on my office wall.

I came on board with Todd and Tim in 2004 to help with Customer Service and marketing, and they decided they wanted me to teach as well. So I began to teach, and now 10+ years into it, I have progressed from a guy who couldn’t break 100 to a Master Instructor. Along the way I’ve learned more from our students that I believe I’ve taught them, and somewhere along the way established a handicap that hovers around 7, even with as little as I get to enjoy the game currently.

Growing up, I would have given someone a boatload of money if they told me I was going to end up as a golf teaching professional, but here I am today, thankful and blessed to pass what I’ve learned on to other golfers who are in the same boat I was in all those years ago.

Scott