At the bottom of this article, you will see “The Ball Strikers Creed” which is a part of the really good “Purify Your Swing” Master Class. If you’ve never watched it, I highly recommend it.
Anyway, with my retirement a couple of weeks ago, several people who I am good friends with congratulated me with the gift of free golf, and I love it. For those of you who don’t know, I worked in public education for the last 30+ years, and the last nine have been as an athletic director at the same large high school that I spent the last 27 years at after 18 as a basketball coach and teacher. During that time, especially the last nine, the job has really been a roadblock for me to actually go out and play. For the past two years, I’ve studied and practiced the Single Plane swing as much as possible in the time I could and have made some good strides. Having said all that, there’s something to be said for just being on the course to get better as a player and to find out where you’re really at….
Scores are relative of course, for each of us. Some of you, I see you posting your scores in the 70s and I am jealous, but I keep in mind where I’ve been and where I need to go. And while I flirted just above and below with bogey golf yesterday depending on which nine of the course I was on, I counted on one hand the number of swings I took which didn’t result in contact, which to me, was more than acceptable. And really, if you’re striking the ball well, a score which isn’t where you end up wanting to be could be a result of not taking into account wind, not having the best handle on your club distances, the contour of the course you’re on and the list goes on and on and on. But if you can strike the ball and get that Moe-like “click” where he would exclaim “SOOOOO PURE” then you have to feel good about where you are and where you’re headed. Those other factors just mentioned can be conquered SO much more quickly than not being able to put a club face on the ball properly.
There was a point in my basketball coaching career where our program was doing fine but we weren’t taking the next step with where I wanted us to be. Being a coach at public school, you’re always faced with the fact that the talent you put on the floor is what it is. You have to maximize it with how you prepare. Much like we are the athlete we are as a golfer. But I thought to myself, “Who are the teams and coaches in our state which are the gold standard?” Two came to mind. One of the programs was known for their ultra-aggressiveness and the other was known as the team that was most well-prepared each and every year. I thought to myself, “If we can prepare and be completely ready to compete with these two teams, it would stand to reason that we would be perfectly fine with the final score vs any team we played” (including those two); and add in to that….the raw talent we had on any roster would not play a factor in this equation. We would just be maximizing everything we brought to the court.
As much as someone might wonder how the sports of basketball and golf relate to each other, the will to prepare to be the 100% absolute best you can be regardless of a single round or game’s outcome to me, has to be the goal. There are zero variables to aspiring to this.
And, as someone who is the same guy now as a member of the Graves Golf staff as I was as a Single Plane Academy member, I write this to hopefully help those who may have been, will be or who are currently in the same situation as me. Much like the positions of the swing which we have to conquer sequentially, I think our progress in becoming the player we know we can be has to be in some semblance of order too.
I love reading everything Paul Monahan submits for us to ponder. I kept thinking of Paul yesterday and The Ball Strikers Creed as I would write down a number I normally would let ruin my round. Everything in golf, and life really, is about how you approach things. It’s up to us.
