Are You A FOODIE?

You CAN Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

PRIVATE Lessons
by Darryl Klassen

Where has all of the time gone this year? It seems as though 2010 has flown by faster than ever!! At any rate, it is now winter time, and we need a way to keep our golf swing in good shape during the cold weather.

I learned years ago while studying to become a Certified Golf/Sports Instructor that it takes 120 golf swings per day for 60 days in order for us to form a new habit. Old habits do not go away, but the subconscious mind can replace a former habit and push the old habit into some remote place in the mind. Because the old habit is never erased, it always has the potential to sneak up on us every now and them.

We have all heard the old saying “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. Well, that just isn’t the case at all. Interestingly enough, we would all like to buy into that old adage, because it provides us an escape from any new work. There’s that old four-letter word (WORK) again.

Golfers tend to believe they can learn a new thing without having to put any time and effort into it. Don’t get mad at me. You know that it’s true. Thousands of golfers down through the years have commented to me that by the looks of my professional style golf swing I must “just be a natural” at the game. What a joke!! I have literally hit well over ten million practice balls in my lifetime. Most golfers haven’t even hit 100,000 practice balls.

I may sound a bit gruff with all of this, but the truth is the truth. If you are not willing to face the facts, you will never begin your journey to becoming a better golfer. This is work!! And most of us simply are lazy, and don’t like to work.

Here’s the deal. It will take you 7200 proper swings to build your new and reliable golf swing, so you might as well get started at it now. Here is the good news. You do not have to go to the driving range in order to do these swings. You can do them in your garage or on your patio in the winter–without golf balls.

I had a golfer come to see me from Canada several years ago. He had played golf for over 25 years and he had never hit anything but a slice. His lifetime best score was 108–after 25 years of struggling. He had gone to numerous professionals for lessons, but it was all to no avail. When he first came to see me he said, “I don’t ever expect to hit the ball straight or to draw it, but it would be nice if you could at least help me not to slice so much. That way I could at least have more fun playing the game. I really don’t expect anything more than that from my time with you.”

One hour later he could draw the golf ball or fade it on command, but here is the story I want to share with you. I told him exactly what I have already shared with you about the 7200 practice swings. John put a piece of carpet in his living room that winter and every time he walked past it, he would stop and take 10 practice swings with an 8-iron.

This is a true story. The very next season John was playing to a 7 handicap and won his club championship at the end of the season. He went onto win it three more times before he dropped out of the men’s club. He will be 70 years old next year, so he was winning this title when he was already well over 60 years of age. AN OLD DOG, IN FACT, DID LEARN A NEW TRICK, or two.

Here is all you have to do to start your new journey. Go where you can practice swing and take a baseball swing at chest height with a golf club. Then lower the club so you are able to take a baseball swing at golfing level. They are the same swing!! The reason everyone teaches the golf swing IS NOT a baseball swing is because the “baseball swing” does not allow for us to try to KEEP THE CLUB FACE SQUARE to the target during the swing.

I have written over the past several years about the workings of a golf swing, so I am not going to go into it again here. You can go back into past issues and dig it out–if it is important to you.

Good luck with your winter practice. You will definitely be ahead of your golfing buddies in the spring, if you are willing to do the swings in the winter.