It’s never too late to improve.
Let me ask you something?
- Do you think you know all you need to know to swing the club well?
- Are your swing habits too fixed to change?
- Can you teach an old dogs new tricks?
- Is change wasted on you? Not good enough to waste time and effort for no improvement?
Well, imagine this, you’ve already won 5 Open Championships, 2 US Masters, 1 US Open and over 50 other Tour events around the word and you come out with this statement!
‘I didn’t know how to swing a golf club until 1992! It was 3.15pm the Tuesday of the Heritage Classic 1992 … I figured out the golf swing!’
In 1977 as a teenager I was lucky enough to spend the whole week and witness the now famous ‘Dual in the Sun’ battle between the greatest player of all time Jack Nicklaus against my hero and swing model Tom Watson. It came down to the last putt and Watson ultimately became the victor, winning his second Open Championship at Turnberry which incredibly also became the scene of potentially one of the greatest sporting moments of all time some 32 years later. On the 72nd hole after his approach shot skipped over the green, the then nearly 60 year old just needed to get down in two to win the Open and make history. Alas, with the par putt shaving the hole Watson eventually lost in a playoff to Stewart Chink, nevertheless let’s not undervalue how incredible this performance was.
So how is it possible for a golfer to continue playing top quality Championship golf well into his late 60’s?
Watch this video and begin to appreciate we can all improve, we all have the capacity to keep learning, adapting and refining our technique for improved performance- no matter what age or experience we have!!
If you really want to improve your ball striking, enjoying the experience of playing more consistent and enjoyable golf you really need to be open to improvement.
In my experience of coaching for nearly 40 years I genuinely and wholeheartedly feel there is not one of us who can’t learn to change and play better. Whether you are Rory McIlroy or an avid amateur golfer, we can all improve our concepts of what we are trying to do, then work towards playing better.
For serious golf professionals heavily involved in coaching it is a daily occurrence for most golfers tend to mis-diagnose their swing flaws, not helped by consuming the vast amounts of material of the internet, which is often very entertaining and accurate but simply not interactive or relevant with what they are doing wrong.
So if an all time great like Watson accepts and is prepared to be open to a new way of viewing his swing, maybe just maybe it might be wise to clarify exactly how you ‘see’ your swing and doing it as best you can?
So if you-
- don’t feel you’re getting better?
- don’t understand why you are not more consistent?
- don’t feel you hit the ball as far as others?
- Are not sure why you slice?
- question why you don’t strike it as well on the course as the range?