Golfers....Feed your Focus!

Last week I wrote about 2 great "F" words in golf - Fundamentals and Feelings.  This week I've found a few more. 

During my too many years working in the technology industry, I have heard the terms Form, Fit and Function (sometimes called F3) more times than I can count.

Form is mostly the physical aspects of a product; fit is how it the product interfaces with other components and function is basically about how the product works. 

On Friday while playing my first 18 holes in over 5 months it occurred to me that golf could also be described as Form, Fit and Function.

Form describes your posture and setup over the ball.  Fit relates to how you interact with your clubs and the ball (assuming your clubs are fitted, which they should be).  And Function is how it all works together (or should work together) - ie. your swing.

That all made sense to me, until I realized about half way through my round, that human beings aren't robots and that Form, Fit and Function isn't as straightforward as it is in manufacturing.  One more F-word is absolutely necessary for the product we call a "golfer" to be complete - Focus.

Without focus, you can have the body of Camilo Villegas, perfectly fitted Pings and Adam Scott's swing, but you'd still be dysfunctional.  

Mr. "All Day Gay" demonstrated that beautifully on Friday when he completely lost focus and shot a 9 on the par 4 6th hole at The Heritage.  Ouch!

But Brian wasn't the only one on Friday that lost focus.  Here's my most embarrassing moment of the week.

When my golfguy and I got to our club on Good Friday, I went into the snack bar to grab a couple of tuna sandwiches to take with us on the course.  Much to my surprise, there were no sandwiches to be found - lots of salads with fish on them, but not a slice of bread anywhere.

The lady at the cash explained patiently to me that during Passover no bread is served at the club.  Ooops!  Imagine my chagrin being so ignorant about an item as important as that at a Jewish club.  I'm not Jewish, but still, I was embarrassed.  I skulked away to grab a granola bar from my locker. 

By the 5th hole my play had started to become a bit erratic - too many chillie-dips and skulls.  I was hungry and my "little grey cells" were screaming for some brain food.  I ignored them.  On the 6th hole, I hit a decent drive off the tee and sauntered up the fairway.

My ball was on a bit of an awkward lie above my feet, but I thought I could still hit a decent 3-wood and get it to the hole.  So I grabbed my club and set up at the ball.  It felt a bit weird, but I just gripped down on the club and went for it.  THUNK!  The ball went about 10 yards.  Only then did I realize that I had my driver in my hands.


Now before you go off thinking, "What an idiot!", I have to explain that I had borrowed a demo driver from the pro shop before heading out and it looked an awful lot like my 3-wood, except that it had a melon-sized head that was bright white! LOL!  Okay, now you can say it, "What an idiot!"

My golfguy had noticed me grab my driver for the shot and assumed I knew what I was doing.  I have now given him complete freedom to question my club selections in the future.

As I hacked and wacked my way to the next tee I couldn't get over what I had done.  It boggled my mind that I could stand over my ball, realize something wasn't quite right, but couldn't see what it was, even though it was staring me right in the face.  Talk about lack of focus.  Waiting for my turn to tee off (I was last as you probably guessed), it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't eaten in 5 hours.

So, I whoofed down my granola bar and after a few holes, my brain and body seemed to sync up a bit better.  At the turn I grabbed a banana and some nuts and made it through the rest of the day without any more embarrassing moments.

Saturday we made sandwiches and wrapped up the portions separately.  Every 3 holes I either ate 1/4 of the sandwich or some raw almonds or a banana.  I stretched out eating over the 18 holes, keeping my blood sugar level and my game steady.

After the round I felt great, unlike the day before when I could hardly get out of the car when we finally made it home.

Form, Fit Function, Fundamentals and Focus are all critical F's in golf.  But we need 1 more "F" in our golf bag to give ourselves a fighting chance on course - FOOD!

Yes, we may not be robots, but we can be well oiled golfing machines if we feed the little grey cells that form the missing link between a great golf day and "I'm an such an idiot!".

Golfgal

Image by: © Kirsty Pargeter | Dreamstime.com

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Great golf "F" words: Fundamentals and Feelings

When the tulips and daffodils spring up in my garden, I know it's time to hit the range with my coach, Ginny Golding, and kick off my golf season the way Jack Nicklaus did every year with his coach, Jack Grout - get back to fundamentals.

So on our first day together this year, Ginny and I started from ground zero. It felt very strange - almost a step backwards.  But I knew that if I didn't get back to the basics, my goal of shaving 2.5 points off my handicap this year would be a pipe dream.  Grip, posture, alignment, take away, turn...we worked hard on ingraining the fundamentals back into my swing.  Where the ball went during all of this was irrelevant.

Week 2, we worked on my core and balance, and again...paid little attention to what the ball was doing.  Later that night my stomach muscles were sore.  That had never happened to me before, but I took it as a good sign of things to come.  I didn't have to wait long to discover I was right.

I  had my 3rd lesson this week with Ginny - a lesson that I will carry with me on every shot I play for the rest of my life. 

After two weeks of focusing on fundamentals, Ginny told me it was time for me to work on shaping the ball right to left.  I thought, "Oh dear, it's only week 3; am I ready for this?"  I tend to favor a fade and draws don't come easy for me.  Duck hooks come easy; pulled irons come easy; but a draw...not so much.  In fact...never!

While I was battling with my emotions, Ginny put out one of those training rods about 12-15 feet in front of me along my target line.  Then she told me to line my club face square to the rod, but visualize the ball starting a bit right of the rod and ending along the target line.   Then she simply said, "Now swing."

I struggled a bit the first time or two, and Ginny stood by watching and encouraging me with positive feedback. Not one word of correction.

A few more shots later and I was hitting draws with my 8 iron.  It felt wonderful!  And bonus...I was hitting my 8 iron like it was a 7 - at least 10 yards further than normal.

Then Ginny handed me my 6 iron and said, "Do it again", which I did, over and over again.  My confidence was really building and I was feeling great.

So then Ginny said to me, "Choose any club in your bag and do it again."  So I grabbed my 3-wood.  Now I like my 3-wood, and am usually pretty solid with it, but I almost always hit a fade or even cut it.  I know that and so when I play, I "dance with the one that brung me." and plan on a fade/cut in my setup.   But today I really wanted to see if I could hit a draw with it.

The first couple of times, weren't that great, but not that bad either.  Then I nailed a couple and suddenly I was on top of the world.  I could draw my 3-wood! Woohoo!

But like all good things, my jubilation came to an end when suddenly I found myself hitting some horrific slices.  I started to panic and turned to Ginny, whining, "What I am doing wrong!?"

All she said was, "Keep hitting."
So I did and although the shots were not horrific, they weren't very good.  Quietly Ginny asked a simple question, "How tightly are you holding your club?"

I realized that I was squeezing the life out of it because I was so tense from hitting so many bad shots.  I shook my arms and re-gripped my club softly.

Then Ginny said, "Now, stop thinking about what you might be doing wrong and remember how it felt to do it right."

Epiphany!!!!

I set up to the ball relaxed, looked at my target and visualized where I wanted the ball to go - starting slightly right and drawing to the centre line.  And before I swung my 3-wood, I remembered what it felt like when I drew the ball earlier in the lesson.

Voila!  I hit a beautiful draw.  Ginny smiled.

As we were walking back to our cars after my lesson, Ginny told me that her job as my coach wasn't to throw me a lifeline every time I got into trouble with my swing, but to help me discover what a great golf swing feels like so I can repeat it when she's not there.  I felt like a kid who just had the training wheels taken off her bike - a little scared, but mostly liberated.

Golf is a game of feel.  Good fundamentals are critical to success, but once you have those, the parts of your game you need to work on the most are your mind and your feelings.

Stockpile your memory banks with a feeling for every great shot you hit.  Then as you stand over your ball on the tee, fairway or green, remember what it felt like to hit that great drive, approach shot or putt.  And then just swing.

You'll not only shave strokes off your score, you'll add a smile to your face and a lot more fun into the greatest game on earth!

Golfgal

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The Magic and Mystery of The Masters

 THE MASTERS

When you hear those two words, what thoughts, images or feelings do they stir up in you? 

For me, the first major of the year brings with it an anticipation that history is about to be made.

Two years ago I wrote an article called The Mystery, Magic And Mayhem Of The Masters for Inside Golf Magazine to try and articulate what The Masters means to me.

Here’s how I saw it then...

The Mystery

While most people talk about the revered Augusta National in hushed tones because it’s steeped in history, for me Augusta National is just an old private elitist golf club.

St. Andrews has mystery – Augusta just has azaleas. No, for me, the real mystery lies with the master of golf himself – the legendary, Bobby Jones. Bobby Jones isn’t like any other golfer that ever lived.

I have watched all 12 episodes of his “How I Play Golf” series and am still in awe of his fluid swing and uncanny ability to make golf look easy. Oh, did I mention, he was self-taught?

And what’s even more amazing to me is how he dominated a sport, when he hardly devoted any time to it. In just 7 years Bobby Jones:

• Played golf only 3 months a year on average – and only 7 tournaments outside the majors
• Won 13 out of 21 majors he entered
• Won the grand slam
• Got a law degree from Harvard

Oh, I love Jack and Arnie and Ben and so many other legendary golfers, but IMHO Robert Tyre Jones Jr., born on St. Patrick’s Day in 1902 is by far the greatest of them all. Hmmm…do you think it might be the luck of the Irish?

The Magic

This one is easy. Although some die-hard Augusta fans might not like what I said about their beloved golf club, I bet few of them would argue with me on this one.

There was nothing more magical than watching a 46-year-old Jack Nicklaus take the lead on the 17th hole at Augusta National with that birdie putt, scoring a 30 on the back nine (a tournament record) and finishing with a 65 to win his 6th Masters.

Wow! I have watched replays of that tournament more times than I can remember and it never fails to give me Goosebumps or bring tears to my eyes.

The Mayhem

Not a year goes by where the topic of Augusta National not having any women members doesn’t rear its ugly head. 2009 was no different when Cynthia Good, CEO of PINK magazine planned to be at The Masters in April to pick up where activist Martha Burke left off in 2003 – protesting once again the all-male membership of the club.

Although I'm not a fan of Augusta National's no-women policy, it is a private club and it has the legal right to pick and choose its members.  I think the policy makers at Augusta are dinasaurs myself (and we all know what happened to them.

So that was what I wrote back in 2009 and it's still true for me today. Except I'd like to add one more thing about Augusta that I didn't know back then.  I didn't know about Freddie Bennet - the legendary August National Caddy Master.

I read about the remarkable man in a book called Freddie & Me by Tripp Bowden.  I actually bought the book 2 years ago when I wrote my Masters article, but never got around to reading it until last month.  If I  had read it in the spring of 2009, I would have included Freddie as part of the Mystery and the Magic.

Author Tripp Bowden who holds the distinction of being the first full-time white caddy in the history of the club, is an excellent story teller.  He can make you laugh one minute and cry the next when he write about his mentor who had such a profound impact on his life. 

Bennet was a very special person to many who walked the fairways at Augusta - both caddies and players. 

Full of 'Freddie-isms' like "Don't ever tell anyone to lay up on the chance of a lifetime", and "You don't read Augusta's greens, man. You remember them. ", the kind hearted and gifted Caddy Master had an uncanny ability to just "know things". 

As I read the book I felt that he and Shivas Irons would have been great friends had they ever met (or maybe they had ;)).

Freddie & Me is a must read if you love The Masters and want a peak behind the scenes at one of the most secretive golf clubs in the world.  It's not only one of my favorite golf books, it's on my "must read again" list.

Golfgal

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