Episode 4 - Haste and Speeding up the Process.

All I’m saying is, I have begun to notice that golfers—especially adults new to the game or taking the game back up after time away—readily sacrifice technique for effort. It’s even more evident among senior golfers, also new or returning to golf, leaving their abbreviated swings untested—“Well, I can’t move like I used to…” 

The number of players I meet who actually can move more than they thought is high. The problem is HOW they try to move, though, which blends into the WHY of the motion, that takes us out of our toolkits and scrambling for outside insight, or it makes us try harder to make what they’re attempting work.

Despite high-speed, hi-def swing replays and access to teachers sharing swing fundamentals on the internet, we still lose something in translation between understanding and realizing that understanding in terms of lower scores…leaving us re-discoverers feeling like boaters on frenzied seas. 

The first time I looked at GolfWords™ —my own game—as a real learning device was while playing a game of “Six-Ball Scramble,” where you putt six balls and then spell the highest point word with the letters the balls land on. I quickly fell into a strategy, a lot like when I play golf without getting to warm up: the first three balls I can just kind of send out, which I can use to “find” my putting stroke, then use a better touch to putt to targets with the last three balls. 

I realized that the next three balls would have added pressure on them if I were to pre-select a word…and this is where it kind of broke open for me. My own strategy adds pressure. I thought giving myself a chance to “warm up” would make the last three putts easier, but that would be canceled out by the expectation I’d place on myself. If I don’t have confidence in my game, that’s not a good strategy… And that’s when it really hit—I’m standing on a game that lets me think through my golf game! AND IT’S FUN!! 

My swing has continued to improve, to translate better to the course, and I for a while I encountered a new kind of “pressure” when I stood over a medium length putt: Could I let myself be as good as I was getting??

In short, yes. Giving myself TIME not to put in the reps, but to see what I was trying to do, is what has had the best effect on my effectiveness as a teacher and a happy golfer. Sometimes we need to slow down to find the better, if not quicker, path, and sometimes we need a place to help you with the process and to get fun back into the frustration. 

GolfWords™ is a game system built for those very purposes. Own your game. 

That’s all I’m saying.

- Don Parker