“Conquer the fear of failure and you conquer the fear of success.”
Dr. Karl Morris
During the first three to five years, most players improve rapidly. They learn the fundamentals, acquire a basic swing and break 100 regularly. Despite investing in lessons, the latest high-tech equipment and watching the golf channel religiously, the majority of golfers never break 90.
You might attribute this lack of improvement to time constraints; between work, kid’s activities and social commitments, you just don’t have time to beat enough balls to develop any consistency.
It certainly sounds reasonable doesn’t it?
If you honestly believe this statement, then you are shutting off any access to your untapped natural ability. I’m not implying that all of us have the god-given talent to shoot par every round.
A chosen few of the games’ disciples have been granted the natural ability to swing a club over one-hundred miles per hour (My back starts to twinge when I even think about swinging a club that fast!)
No doubt about it, the golf gods are fickle. Even though you may not be one of the chosen few, you have enough innate ability to score in the eighties consistently. Many of my students, have a comprehensive knowledge of swing mechanics. They’ve learned the subtleties of the swing; the nuances of pronation, supination, hitting from the top and the delayed release - but they were never taught how to use this knowledge to improve their own games.
I can think of no better phrase in this regard than one often enunciated by the late Canadian golf legend, Moe Norman.
During our impromptu conversations at the Scarlett Woods Golf Club in Toronto, he would repeat the same maxims time after time in his inimitable high-pitched style. It has taken me 20 years to appreciate the significance of these phrases.
The meaning behind this particular one has been percolating in my mind for the last 10 years: “be a mind beater – not a ball beater.”
REVERSING THE LEARNING PARADIGM
Contrary to popular belief, your ability to memorize the intricate details of the swing is not a passport to improvement.
A second cousin to this belief is the conviction that the key to your best golf is perfect mechanics. Traditional golf instruction is based on the premise that (especially if you began to play after 10 years old) our natural instincts betray us and must be constantly suppressed.
The ability to repeat a motion consistently must take priority over technical perfection.
At this point you may be thinking: “…sure, easy for him to say. He’s probably been playing since he was 4 years old. What does he know about struggling to break 90?”
Permit me to indulge in a brief biography, and I think you’ll see that the principles outlined in this text provide the elements that can unlock the mental vault and elevate your game to a whole new level.