Golf_ The Mind Game - Marlin M. Mackenzie [34]
There are hundreds of fine pros. One of the best I know is Willie Carter, from Middletown, New York. He’s worked with the best of the touring pros, Gary Player, Tommy Armour, and Orville Moody among them. Willie confirmed to me the legend that he once shot 33 for nine holes using only a 7-iron, scored a 61 for 18 holes using a full bag, and made a hole-in-one on a par-4, 326-yard hole.
Willie emphasizes swinging the club, not hitting the ball. He dramatically demonstrates the value of a good swing over the clubs you use by stroking the ball out to the 250-yard sign using one of Gary Player’s old putters. Watching that can be both a humbling and instructive experience.
Willie simplifies playing golf into a three-count pattern: (1) set up and waggle, (2) swing, and (3) finish and pose to watch the ball. He guides attention to only one or two keys in the first two steps to reduce confusion and brainlock. In step three he insists that you follow every embarrassing dribble until the ball stops rolling, or interrupts the snooze of some jungle creature. During that time Willie directs your mind to “take a lesson.” He uses a basic NLP pattern of “refraining”—changing self-criticism of dribbling dubs into appreciation for opportunities to learn.
Taking a lesson during the finish pose becomes easy with Willie as teacher, because he’s a master analyst. He can pick out the single most important elements of the golfer’s address position and swing in need of correction, like seeing the blink of a gnat’s eye from thirty feet. Then he lets his student know how to identify and correct the error.
Willie is wily on this score. He deliberately lets the golfer experience a swing error several times before he corrects it. Then, as he points out the error and explains the correction, the learner comes to know his mistake well, and especially learns the effects of his correction. As a result the golfer becomes his own chief mechanic later on.
Willie also points out that there are two ways to play a round of golf: One is to practice without regard for score, thinking about one or, at the most, two key elements of the swing, making corrections as you go along; the other way is to play without thinking about swing mechanics—just play—without regard for score except that a record of your strokes is kept. He encourages his pupils to use the latter approach during tournaments.
Willie’s approach to learning and playing are consistent with the perspective I have advanced throughout this book—limit your attention to important cues, rely on your own mind to analyze and improve your game, play mindlessly and enjoy yourself. I encourage you to find a pro who shares that perspective also. Willie’s approach also reinforces the metaskills techniques to follow.
The Difference That Makes the Difference
For low handicappers I find that the way they process very small bits of information, visual and auditory, just before or just after they are set up to the ball determines the success or failure of a shot. The pro within can identify the differences between a good and not-so-good shot easily and quickly.
Early one morning one of my doctoral students and I were working with Mike Davis, the assistant pro at Areola Country Club, on approach shots to an elevated green from about seventy yards out. Mike had just made a poor shot and seemed confused about why it had been bad, especially after he’d been making a lot of good ones just moments before.
So I said to Mike, “Go inside yourself and replay that poor shot in your mind; see, hear, and feel what you saw, heard, and felt on the inside and the outside when you made it. File away in your memory for a minute or two the internal and external A’s