By: Shane Matzen, Graves Golf Membership Liaison

When I go into a restaurant, I do expect good service.  It’s nice to have someone waiting on me, fixing my favorite dishes and beverages and taking care of the clean up afterwards.  That’s part of the customer experience for sure.

If you have ever purchased anything from us here at Graves such as a training aid or signed up for any level of membership privileges, you should have expectations of service from us just like you did when you visit a restaurant.  Having said that though, there’s a big difference between the savoring of a meal after you walk out the door and the process of becoming a better golfer after your purchase arrives from the UPS truck or you get your membership credentials emailed to you to access video or get connected with CoachNow, etc.  

Let me give you an example of what I mean with the membership experience……as many of you know I sent in over 100 videos of my swing to our video coaching staff during my days as a student and member.  The feedback I got was straightforward and so very helpful.  I could never thank those coaches enough for the help they gave me.  Having said that though, at times I had feelings or was seeing something which didn’t connect in my brain to what I was getting in their reviews.  This is where being an active learner comes in.  In those days before CoachNow, I would email my coach with questions so that I could be on the same wavelength with their teaching.  If you’re a student now, that means using the #askacoach feature in CoachNow to ask those questions.

While there’s no golf instruction company in the world that does remote learning like we do, there are still limitations.  That’s where you must pick up the slack and advocate for yourself.  You are the customer and should strive for satisfaction.  Mind you, that does not mean we work miracles for you and turn you into a world-class Single Plane golfer in a few days.  What it does mean is that you should be as close to understanding where you’re at, where you’ve come from and a general pathway going forward for your improvement.  For us to do our job for you, we NEED you to advocate for yourself and raise that hand, send that #askacoach message, call us, etc so that we can do the best job possible to help you.

From the coaching end of things, I take you back to early in my basketball coaching career…..I was the typical coach who would have my team in front of me after I’d explained something and casually asked the group, “you got it?”  The natural human response is to nod or say yes.  You know where I’m going with this.  Though they gave me a moment of satisfaction with their agreement, the odds were that a great portion of my players did not in fact understand what I’d just told them.  It was at that point that I ran into noted college basketball coach, Barry Hinson.  He brought his Missouri State team to our gym where I was coaching to practice prior to a game the next day at Saint Louis University.  I of course asked if I could watch and take some notes.  Coach Hinson was so great to not only agree to let me watch his practice, but he was constantly walking over to talk me through what he was doing.

You’d think I would have learned a lot of new plays and tricks of the trade from the technical end.  You’d be right as he’s a great coach but what I remember more than anything else was during his practice I not once heard him utter those words “you got it?”  During practice, he would ask very specific questions to his players to not only make sure they were paying attention but to check understanding such as “Billy, which direction will #24 go off the dribble most of the time,” “Jackson, if #33 lines up here on an inbounds play, which set will they run?”

It took the learning atmosphere in his practice to a level I’d never seen.  You want to talk engagement?  His team absolutely had it.  And it was a valuable lesson to me as a coach.  So, we owe that to you to be on the ball to bring it from our end.  

But it’s up to you, if you really want to make this whole Single Plane learning experience as beneficial as possible, to ask questions, to be engaged, to send in videos, to not nod your head at schools when a question is asked but to try to answer it/ask what the answer is/write the answer in your notebook/ask a coach after a session is over if they have a couple of minutes for a personal session and the list goes on and on and on.

I daresay nobody has gone through more ups and downs with their swing as I have.  When I hit one of those valleys though, I will tell you that it’s a dogged determination that I have to find the answer to climb out of the ditch.  I head to On-Demand, video my swing, check a mirror, strap the 4D on, ask a staff member and so forth.  Heck, Todd talks about it all the time how he’s constantly checking his position 1.  If a world-class Single Plane golfer like he is strives on a daily basis to self-improve and check himself then really, in the end, what excuse do any of us have?

I go back to the trip to the restaurant at the beginning of this article.  If you were sitting in your chair and the server brought you a rare ribeye and you ordered medium rare….while it’s on the server and cook to have done a better job, doesn’t it make sense that you need to raise your hand and ask that it go back on the grill for a bit longer?  

The promise is made that you’re going to get our best.  But hold us and yourself accountable.  Together, and I can attest to this 100%, we can make this part of your golfing journey the best of your life.