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A Golf Pro Is Not God
A professional l will tell you the length of the club you need, and the flex of the shaft. The more flex, the more strength will be required to break the club over your knee.
I hate to tell you this, but the Fountain of Youth will be found before the answer to mastering of the golf game will be found. The only hope would be to find a way to disconnect the brain from the hands during the course of the swing.
You have spent your entire life having a good time and assuming that you will be healthy forever. One day you become aware that something is not right. Armed with all the medical books you can get your hands on, plus the information supplied by TV and the many advertised miracle products, you try to cure yourself.
The same thing happens with your golf game. You have spent many years developing that awesome slice, and playing a golf course with all dog legs going to the left. You have read published item on the golf swing, bought dozens of video, and spending countless hours watching instructors on TV, each with a different theory of the golf swing. In sheer desperation, you make an appointment wwith you doctor/pro.
There are good and bad doctors and pros. Both have the knowledge needed, but their "bedside manner" may not be suitable for your personality. That is very important. You, as a patient, have a choice, we do not, and have to adjust to your personalities. Some of you have to be pampered, while others dominated. That is one of the reasons the PGA schools us on how to get along with difficult people.
Knowing that you will not follow our prescriptions to the letter, makes it difficult for both of us. You would have to quit your job and do nothing but what we have told you, and that will not happen. Bad habits in your golf swing are similar to bad habits in life. They aare easy to acquire, but hard to change. If you have glaring faults in your swing, it will take time and patience. If it is minor fault with a basically good swing, it can be a quick fix. My whole career was saved by a quick fix.
I had applied for the Pro -Manager position at a large Air Base. I had met al of the qualifications required, but needed to pass the interview with the base commander, who was described as "Old Blood and Guts." He was all of that, and had been murder on the previous pro. I survived the interview and got the job. Every night I would go to bed and pray that he would never want a golf lesson. The day finally arrived when the dreaded call came, "The Colonel wants a golf lesson." There was no doubt in my mind that he was going to try to kill the ball and he would have a slice that would have us ducking on its return flight. . He arrived and immediately pulled a 2 iron out of his bag and teed up a ball. He, as expected, planned on annihilating the ball. Instead of the expected slice, was a diving hook. I let him hit another to make sure that the first one was not an accident. Another hook. After I got through thanking the man upstairs, I adjusted his hands on the grip in a manner that would have been impossible to hook. I teed up another ball and it went as straight as an arrow. After a few more good shots I asked him why he didn't use his driver? (As if I didn't know.) He said, "Can't hit the damn wood." I pulled out his driver, teed up a ball, and told him to take a shot at it. Straight down the middle. We went out and played after the lesson. Between his good shots, and the Base "Ernie Bilko" padding the scorecard, he had the best round ever. My job was now secure. My time there would have been shortened if he ha had a slice.
Due to the availability of golf instructions on the market, it is becoming more difficult teaching. The student comes out with his head full of theories he has acquired. He can't hit the ground with both hands, but he knows all about the golf swing. I have been teaching golf most of my life. I was one of the pioneers in TV golf and did six straight years of weekly live shows. It does not take six years to explain a golf swing, but in most cases you can explain one portion of the swing in several ways. One of those ways may work, while the other two did not register with the student. Golf is an individual game, both physically, and mentally. You can take two individual who seem cloned. One can throw a baseball through a brick wall, while others can't break a pane of glass. If both become good golfers, their feelings in producing a swing will differ.
A golf pro will run into all types of people in teaching. We had a man in our area who went from pro to pro. He would take a decent practice swing, but the moment a ball was put in front of him, he fell away from the ball. Frankly, he was a pain in the butt to all of us. When he finally got around to me, I knew what to expect, so I took him out to a portion of the golf course that had a sharp embankment. I put him on the edge of the precipice and dared him to fall away. He didn't fall away.
It is very difficult to stop a person from trying to kill the ball. It is virtually impossible to play consistent golf, but some just play for hitting the long ball.
One time I had one of these students in Florida and was having a tough time with him. The golf course was narrow and tree lined. When you h it it out of the fairway you had to take a gun with you. He was a walker, and I would send him out with one ball. When that ball was lost he had to come back to the clubhouse. It took him a month before he finished a round, but he stopped killing the ball..
Thee full rules of golf are complex, and if a golfer had to learn all of them before he was allowed on the golf course, the game would be nonexistent. With the increased coverage of golf on TV, many players are getting fined for temper outbursts, and the fines are very substantial. The most outstanding fine of all times was imposed on Tommy Bolt in the 1959 Memphis Open. Tommy had been fined many times for temper outbursts, but this time he was fined two-hundred and fifty dollars for passing gas while his opponent putted.
©2004 Fred Larsen All rights Reserved