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One Under Par
Volume 7, number 2

A Newsletter fromKeyGolf.....April, 2006

Is Golf a Reality Game… or Just Another Pipe Dream.

Judging from the number and character of questions about behavior styles that arrive here from KeyGolf students, Bird Golf students, a wide group of Double Connexion Book readers, and a few forum members, it appears clear that we may not yet have said enough to break through faulty perceptions promoted by far too many people who should know better, resulting in impressions and notions that continue to fall short of usefulness for our favorite game.

We will try to improve on that. Of course, we don’t hear from each and everyone, but enough to see patterns. One such pattern lies in a common misconception that persists, no matter what we have said about it. It seems the TV, the Internet, books about the mental game have all conspired to leave even the best informed to a belief that behavior style is optional, that one can shape it anyway one chooses. So, if you don’t like the one you have, just find a model that appears to have a “better” one and modify your own to match. That is flat out “No Cigar,” and not even close. 

We will say it again. The notion of changing one’s style for golf is about as worthwhile as trying to put T-model Ford parts in a modern Cadillac. It has a productivity quotient comparable to cutting your front yard grass with a nail clipper. It betrays mental preparation for learning and playing the game much like trying to repair the engine on a car without knowing the make and model or the difference between a sparkplug and a condenser.

You may have noticed that the market is flooded with a “cookie cutter” mind-set. If not, we call your attention to it. Clubs, balls, course management, pre-shot ritual, preferences in teaching methods, how to swing a club, how to hit the ball, cloned clubs, physical readiness, mental toughness, post-hypnotic suggestion, to name a few. All of those are regularly hyped from various armchairs, and even given occasional after-the-fact “validation” from some of those among the most recent winners on tour. It is amazing how a game winner can receive instant regard as an authority on most anything, if not everything, even if the player would rather not have it that way. (Enter the media, as if anyone could slow them down, let alone stop them).

The “clone this” mind-set produces an environment that few golfers are escaping, if in fact they even see any reason to do so. Ambrosia may be tasty, but does it deliver health?  Probably the best place to see what golfers are thinking is to visit at least four or five golf forums and simply listen to the posts, questions and not so professional suggestions put there by anonymous writers, players and an occasional authentic, knowledgeable person. Once in awhile a true professional will mention something, which, if it matches the going “cookie,” will be applauded. If it doesn’t, it will be ignored, even if it is “right on” target. Then there are those professionals, who haven’t figured it out either, and that further misleads the average golfer.

The rift is so large that it is hard to pick a starting place. But we’ll jump in with style information.  What does knowing about your behavior style do for your golf game?  First, that depends on whether you fall into the group that thinks style is optional and available for change or whether you are in the group that understands the genetic issues. It also depends upon whether you focus your attention on cloning what we describe in our books and articles concerning style characteristics, or use those descriptions as a road map, which does not require a particular kind of car to ride the territory that is shown, but usually does provide a clear frame of reference for your trip. .

If you are in the first group, there is no starting point, since knowing your style will do nothing for you, other than reinforce your individual idea of how you might match your play with a Tiger or a Phil. If you are in the latter group, confirming your style will give you a platform for measuring where you are, knowing how to improve your game without wasting time, energy and motion, and monitoring your progress, whether in practice or on the course. Style knowledge is not likely to be “news” to anyone, but its value in confirming what any one of us has suspected about ourselves is priceless. It removes the doubt and the wondering if we are “right,” or maybe just a little warped, and replaces it with measurable substance.

Style knowledge becomes a keen part of a player’s diagnostic tool kit. For instance, if you are a Driver and you are trying to “slow down” your swing, you will have at least some ability to distinguish the Driver’s typically faster speed from that of a “slower-paced” Craftsman. If you are a Persuader and you are trying to “keep your tee ball in the fairway,” you will at least be relieved of wondering what is wrong when you do the typical thing and scatter those drives. If you are a Craftsman and you are bothered by leaving putts short, you can turn to the knowledge of that style and find that one who is low assertive tends to do that, thus allowing for a remedy to be shaped. If you are an Analyzer who is disturbed by too much thinking, and interrupted by forgetting part of your pre-shot, you will notice that as a typical trait and be able to find relief for yourself.

Style knowledge allows you to distinguish between such things as playing safe or going for broke. Drivers and Persuaders are high-risk people who can be “at home” going for broke and will make fewer errors that way than trying to play it safe. Of course, it’s reasonably smart to determine if you really have an option in the shot you are facing. The opposite of that is true for Craftsman and Analyzers. Their better path is the safe one since they are “low-risk” people. For them, “going for broke” is a fast track to disaster, unless there is no other choice.

Those are but brief examples that describe part of the self-managed means of curbing anxiety, and subsequent glitches in your game, without having to visit a hypnotist. The more you become familiar with your own style, the easier it gets. Familiarity, in this case, should not, however, stop with a greeting and a handshake. It needs to be well enough invested that it becomes part of the way you think, not something you merely think about. That requires not only commitment, but a lot of study as well.

When you study style information, first commit to the available evidence showing that, indeed, one cannot escape, safely, his/her own “skin.” Such escape routes are loaded with potential damage. We can all make temporary departures from our styles without harm, when the environment calls for interpersonal activity, communication and pacing others. And we will do that without any conscious determination, if and when we need to gain the endorsement of other people. Such “changes” are exactly what we all see in each other that we typically label “personality.” Style is the real thing. Personality is a manifest alteration of style. Trying to live a life in one’s personality is a distinct stress producer and energy robber – unless it is knowledgeable, intentional, purposeful and short-termed.

Golf needs nothing of personality. In fact any self-initiated, independently executed activity requires full cooperation with one’s style throughout, assuming we desire the best possible result. Obviously if we don’t care about the result, it won’t make any difference. Note that if you try to play like someone else, you will, in effect be toying with personality issues and those have absolutely nothing to do with golfing aptitude or productive playing. Style holds that trump card.

Watch the top players. They struggle, too, but get away with a lot more than less talented others. Tiger fights his driver. His countenance following a number of missed putts have a way of telling at least part of his story. The rest of his story lies in an over-filled plate of lifetime concern for his father, which even a Driver like Tiger cannot exclude from awareness. Phil now has two drivers and the good sense to back off to his Craftsman lead style at least in the Masters. This is the second time we have seen him leave the jollies of the Persuader that he shoved into his “command” post, and go to the steadiness of his Craftsman, which is his true leader – the 2004 and the 2006 Masters. These two players, however, are so talented, that one is reluctant to propose that they may not have all the knowledge they need and that they could find even more consistency and confidence than they now have if they fully understood their styles. It is easy, of course, to display those traits from the vantage point of the winner’s circle. But one wonders how much of that carries over following a losing moment.

Notice the top 100 instructors’ list. The number among them who have knowledge or willingness to teach to the style of the student is sharply limited. Most instructors have a “recipe” for their lessons. It’s up to the student to fit that mold. If you can’t cut the cookie, then you may be in trouble. Add to that, most instructors don’t even know their own styles. Let alone those of their students.

This is where the cookie cutter causes serious problems for many a player. Fantasy begs one and all to get out of their own skin and into one that will magically deliver the “great game.” Secretly, practice and playing take on a cloaked presence, active in the player’s mind, but unconfessed publicly, except to please the instructor. When fantasy becomes confused with reality, the trap is set, and it is quite evident that we are not talking exception here, but a newfound “rule” of conduct “in the book” for a majority of golfers.

We have no wish to moralize the matter, but we are ready to take issue with those who either knowingly or unwittingly foster golf’s “garden paths.” Until there is some sort of golfing “anti-virus” remedy that cleans the “registry” of our “operating systems,” and our “hard drives” so that reason prevails and valid knowledge informs our perceptions, we are all in jeopardy of being mesmerized by the “majority” view, which is anchored in cookies and cloning. If you want your best game, you will need to “get with” the program that can take you there.

 Summer is coming. Time to reach for your best game – or the stars. Fantasy or Reality. Take your pick.