Entry 24.10

Alfred Einstein is credited with saying “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” There is no evidence that he actually said this, it was attributed to him in the 1980s, decades after his death. The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, a compilation of his memorable quotes, even says the quote was misattributed to Einstein. It was first used in Rita Mae Brown’s novel Sudden Death. A little free education for you that has nothing to do with my actual topic. How many of us are guilty of proving Rita Mae correct when it comes to your swing or your golf game in general? I know I am. Go back a few weeks and I talked about my intention of creating the same golf swing over and over like a robot by eliminating variables. You might as well slap me in shackles now and take me off to the asylum because that in of itself should be proof enough of my guilt. But let’s delve further into what I mean and where this thought comes from.

I’ll be honest with you, I turned on The Black Desert Championship to see the beautiful high desert views as I did to watch the golf. I love the high desert. The wind and water carved landscape of beautiful colors and the odd coincidence that I don’t get migraines while at elevation make it a major double whammy for me. But while watching the final round, I watched a professional golfer define insanity. The entire final round wasn’t broadcast on the Golf Channel so when it first came on one of the first things the announcers talked about what Harris English and his left miss for the day. Of course, every time they showed him hitting a shot, I paid closer attention to see if I could see what was going on. Now Harris prefers to hit a cut, but he was hitting straight pulls. As PGM students and players yourselves, you should know that a straight pull means the path is out to in and the face matches the path. I don’t know how many straight balls I watched Harris hit, but almost every shot (probably every, I didn’t keep count) was a straight pull. And Harris just kept pulling the trigger the same way every time. Same setup, same swing, same result. I don’t know about you, but if I keep hitting a straight pull, I’m going change something, anything. For me, I have a decision tree in my mind of my most common reasons for certain misses that way if I start seeing a common pattern developing while I play, I can easily work down my decision tree to help me correct the issue. Now it’s going to take 3 or more misses of the same type for me to start initiating my decision tree. But it doesn’t appear that Harris has that mentality, and/or his caddie had no idea of what to tell his player to keep him on track. After a few shots, I had a simple decision tree made for Harris. First, aim right. So simple and not what a Tour player wants to do, but if I keep missing one direction, the first thing I’m going to do is aim the other direction. Second, I’m going to flare my lead foot even more to give myself more time before going into lead leg lock up. Lead leg lock up is directly connected to the timing of the face closing. Honestly, for me, this would be number one due to my lead leg issues. I don’t have the greatest hip mobility, and I completely tore my ACL, MCL and PCL in 2010 with a partial tear of my meniscus. Finally, I’m going to move my trail hand into a more cover position (open club face relationship aka weaker). Well, of course, the commentators eventually pulled up Harris’ old swing and his new swing pattern from his coach and compared the two. And voila, Harris’ new pattern at setup includes more of a cover grip which helps the shaft get more down the line and Harris’ grip in tournament was a little further under with the club shaft laid off at the top which was his old pattern. You would think his caddie would know to look for those things, but I know some Tour players don’t want their swing advice coming from their caddies. Either way, Harris was defining insanity in that final round and ended up shooting a 71 even par and dropping from second at the start of the round down to tied for 6th at the end. It’s hard to score well when you are scrambling all day. But enough of ragging on poor Harris. He’s still a really good player.

Now let’s start applying what happened to Harris to us. Well, more specifically to you. I know that most of you want to play better golf. I can’t say all of you because there are still PGM students that I haven’t seen on the facilities yet this fall. Some I see on the facilities rarely. I’m talking to those of you that I see on the facilities daily. I love watching you girls and guys grinding, digging it out in the dirt as Tiger says. And maybe this is the selfish coach me in watching some of you grind it out with no idea what you are supposed to be digging out of the dirt. You just seem to think if dirt and grass are flying, you are getting better. And I see things that we could change to help your digging be more fruitful. Something I have learned from experience is that when someone doesn’t want help, any help offered will probably not be accepted. I’ve been there done that on both sides of the coin. So, I have a decided that unless I know the player is going to accept my help, I don’t offer it. Boy, do I want to help though. I love walking up and down the range just watching players practice. I learn a ton. I get better at seeing patterns, both good and bad. But until a player turns around and goes “what do you think?” I keep my mouth shut. If I’m being an idiot and you want me to jump in, please tell me. I will gladly start jumping in. I love helping players diagnose, adjusting their patterns and watching them get improve. It’s why I’m in the instructing business. I want to do everything I can to help you improve.

I’ve expanded my teaching repertoire from active teaching to passive teaching. Active teaching is me doing my thing in my bay, on the practice facilities or on the golf course. Passive teaching is my bulletin board. The practice routines that I built over the summer were my pride and joy. My goal was to give you direction to your practice sessions instead of just beating balls. I used every single drill I put up there personally this summer and I can see a huge improvement in my skill but even more so in my decision making. Last year, you all told me you wanted less technical and to me there is very little technical in any of those routines besides a very few. There are other things on my board as well. I broke down my first six months of lessons by lesson and gave my thoughts on it. I analyzed an 18-hole event so players can see what holes they need to focus on and really learn how to make better decisions on to score better. I will continue to do this for 18-hole events so you can start to compare them. I’ve added my Professor’s Ponderings series to help you learn more about me and more about yourselves. But there is only so much that I can do. Active or passive, if you don’t want the help, that’s ok. I have to live with that because at the end of the day, it’s your decision to make. But there are some of you that I so desperately want to help. I know how good you really are. I know you can get back to that or surpass it. But like me, you are stubborn. You think that if you continue to grind it out, that you will get better. The problem is you are grinding it out the same way that you have been for the last two months, and nothing is changing. You aren’t getting better. In fact, some of you are getting worse. It’s breaking my heart. I see your love of the game dwindling. I see the frustration written on your face and the disgust that you have at the same old same old. Stop doing the same things, expecting different results. There is no shame in asking for help. In fact, I see it quite the opposite. There is bravery and strength in asking for help because you are being vulnerable. I’d much rather be vulnerable than insane. I may be too far gone on the insanity train, but you aren’t. So, let’s try something new to get you playing your best. We both want that.