The yearning to play a better game of golf is a national mania in America. No golfer is so stubborn, so arrogant or so accomplished that he is not constantly trying to improve his score somehow. He may not make a public admission of wanting to improve, and may pretend that mediocrity is enough, but it is a white lie at best. From the hacker to the great player, they all want to improve. The hacker wants to desperately break 100, 90... and then 80. Let him shoot in the 70's, and he has but one dream, par or better! The professional is the same way, he just has more talent.
How many times we heard Jack Nicklaus, or Tiger Woods, or Phil Mickelson, or, in the old days, Ben Hogan or farther back, Bobby Jones, say something like, "I'm trying to get back into tournament playing mode. I am hitting the ball well, but not scoring very well...yet". Let a professional win a tournament, and he has but one dream, a major... then two, three, more.
Only a few days ago I saw a member play with a new set of irons. He was happy and uninhibited as a small boy with those new tools for his favorite game. In the warm glow of his infectious enthusiasm I asked myself, "why?" Then, it dawned on me... BECAUSE THESE CLUBS WERE GOING TO MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR HIM TO IMPROVE HIS GAME. The same with a couple of young college men who practice constantly and "tinker" with their equipment in order to get "the perfect match", one likes to practice in front of the pro-shop and one likes to go to the back of the range where he can practice uninterrupted. All three members (and everyone else) ALWAYS dream of better scores, all three usually accomplish improvement, if not stardom. Let's just put it like this: I have never heard a golfer say, "I'm going out, I hope I shoot my highest score ever. I enjoy playing bad"
It's funny how golfers at different skill levels see the game, here comes a member who recently texted me exhilarated that he just broke 100, while one day I saw the club champion come in with shoulders slouched, head down and in a foul mood complaining he just shot a "lousy" 73. COme on! Offer that first member a 73, and he would kill for it.
The golfer truly believes in long relationships, even when they are usually very short. Golf is like a mistress (have you ever heard the term "golf widow"?). The golfer courts a mistress as fickle as she is bewitching. She leads him with little favors that fill him with hopes of conquest. Then, when he least expects it, she scorns him and humiliates him (in front of friends too!) and leaves him despairing. Sometimes he hides his despair in rages: he hurls his clubs into the water and presents his last dozen of ProV1's balls to his caddy or friends. He is through with golf, finished, KAPUT, will never play the game again!!!
He goes home and throws away everything related to golf, including all of his beloved and favorite shoes, trophies, golf bags and mementos; then, makes a bonfire with his old golf magazines, DVD's and books. A few days later, he is having dinner while he opens his daily mail and notices the latest issue of Golf Digest which he forgot to cancel. On the cover is Rory McIlroy with the headline: "How to Hit Your Irons Dead on Target", and, another title about of another article named "Life of the Amateur Golfer". He makes the mistake of opening the magazine to read the article about the amateur and vows not to read anything about instruction... but the magazine opens in the center-fold where Rory is showing just exactly, how to swing. Painfully, he turns to the other article.
He reads how amateurs should not expect to play like pros, and sees himself as the main subject in the article. So, he caves in to temptation and turns back to the pages of Rory's article where he finds a couple of things that might just be what he would have needed to improve his game "had he continued". He is not convinced yet. He turns his TV on, and the last time he watched, it was on the Golf Channel, so, as luck and fate would have it, the enthusiastic John McBreen is on with almost the same subject and thoughts as Rory's instruction. "It can't be", he says. "I am done with golf... but, am I?" Then, something "clicks" in his head.
He borrows an old club from his neighbor and tries these new thoughts making swings in the backyard in the afternoon. It is all beginning to "click", suddenly, it is all coming back. The feeling is back... FOR SURE! Nothing had left, it was just inside waiting to come out, he just needed the right thought, the right feeling, the right "picture" in his mind. He knows next time he plays, all eight cylinders of this mean 600 horse power machine will be full throttle.
He comes back to the club, goes to Myra's office and buys his membership back, buys the clubs back from his caddy (who retrieved them from the lake at #6), and buys a new dozen of Prov1's, in fact, he knows he should change to Prov1X, for the stronger golfer!
And then, suddenly the miracle happens again, just like before his demise the last time. The despairing golfer who could do nothing right, now, can do nothing wrong. He appreciates all of his friends, his dogs and his family. He is the happiest in the world. He feels, as the song says, "now at last I know the secret of it all." On the way home, he buys flowers for the wife, stops at Walgreens and buys whatever golf magazines are left; at home, gets on line, and orders all of his burnt books and DVD's back from Amazon, "I should have never gone to the extreme" he tells himself... "kind of expensive temper tantrum".
The bewitcher leads him on once more. On the range, he is the pro or pros, and shares his tips with other members on the range, and explains to the pro what he is working on. Buys a range membership... in fact, pays double because he is going to use it a lot and does not want to be unfair.
In his mind, he is self confident, but to others he seems arrogant and conceited again. He sees things clearly. He is Murder!! As Jason Day, he is incorporated off the tees, sudden death in his approaches like Jordan Spieth, like Phil Mickelson, fearless in his chips, and of course, a veritable Zach Johnson on the greens. He is back!! The Club Championship will be his first goal. Then, who knows what's next.
In his great joy, he finds he loves golf and his fellow golfers again, especially those in his foursome, and wants to share his newly (re)discovered secrets. He gives them freely to his companions. He volunteers to help kids. He is a Daddy Warbucks for generosity. He, as you can imagine, he is also a pain in the neck... every time you miss a shot, he will tell you exactly what you did wrong and what you should be working on.
But the game, the bewitcher, will take care of him, once more. At the moment when his confidence is at the highest, his happiness indescribable, she, the bewitcher, will let him have it again. He will slice his drive into the trees and the hazards, he will blunder his way back onto the fairway, from where he will hit into a sand bunker. From there, it will taken him three attempts to barely get out, and he will finish the hole with a four-putt for an embarrassing 11 and will, once more, begin crying to the heavens, "why me? what have I done to deserve this?" The golfer who could do nothing wrong, now, again, cannot do anything right. He is chastised. He knows humility again.
"Humility". The magic word. Golf is man's most humbling game, and for that reason alone. it may be the greatest game man has ever devised. No man -champion, top professional or even people like Bill Clinton (Mr. Two-Mulligan) who get to sit at the desk of the highest office in the land making decisions that will affect the whole world, ever reaches that point where he can say: "I have learned the secret, I have conquered the game".....
AND THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS MANY OF YOU, AND ME AND MILLIONS MORE. WE WILL NEVER CONQUER THE GAME, NO ONE EVER WILL. BUT WE CAN BECOME BETTER, MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE AND CAN LEARN TO FIX THINGS QUICKER, IF WE WORK ON THE PROPER FUNDAMENTALS.
Daily, I see people in the range trying to improve their game, but mostly I see people without a plan, without a blueprint, and when that happens, they are only perfecting a bad swing. In short, they are getting worse, not better.
I have taught the game for 40 years. Sometimes with success, sometimes without. But one thing I have seen is that people who work on their "PGA" (Posture, Grip and Alignment) will do better in the long run. It takes patience to work on fundamentals rather than mechanics.
But that is exactly the way the game needs to be learned... Like Ben Hogan's "Five Modern Fundamentals" (Hogan adds the fundamentals of the planes of the backswing and downswing in his book), His book was successful -best selling instruction book ever published- because he focused on fundamentals more than on mechanics. The drawings by Anthony Ravielli, the great foreword by Sidney L James and the contribution of the great golf writer Herbert Warren Wind, and Hogan's accomplishments and mystique, made it the best selling golf instruction of all time.
That said, nothing has changed since the game was invented: If you want to improve, work on fundamentals before mechanics. And yes, if possible, get a teacher who helps you with these.
Note 1: Hogan's instruction book illustrated what he did, which included a way to hold the club that will produce a slice for 95% of people if they don't read the fine print on how to "supinate" instead of "pronate" the left wrist. That said, Hogan had tremendously strong hands, which allowed him to turn a wild slice into a beautiful, controlled fade. There are many ways a person can understand and apply fundamentals to their own benefit, but, the one thing that the reader will not think of is this: Hogan's REAL secret went beyond what he wrote in this book, His Secret was in The Dirt... Literally.
For a description of how the swing should feel, by Ben Hogan himself. click here
Note 2: I have always admired champions and what they did to get where they wanted to be. I've read the life stories of most of the champions from the early 20th century to now. Jack Nicklaus is the greatest golfer who ever lived because he had everything in his bag, but Ben Hogan is my favorite golf figure, partly because everything he had to overcome to become a champion, partly because of his mystique, and partly because he was probably the best striker of the golf ball ever.
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