Get Your Poop in a Group!

Tiger Woods may be out of the golf headlines after reconstructive surgery, but he is still using a coach to help recover as well as focus on his golf swing.  We don’t tend to think about the best in the world as having or needing a coach, but they all do.  Primarily, because coaches make even the best, better.

Zach Johnson recently won the Sony Open in Hawaii after winning the 2008 Master’s in Augusta Georgia. Zach’s swing coach is Mike Bender and fortunately for me, Mike is good friends with an excellent Grand Rapids, MI golf coach, and friend of mine, Charlie Vandenberg.  As such, Charlie held a weekend golf workshop with Mike Bender in Grand Rapids last summer and I was able to learn from one of the master coaches of the day.

Now, I am a good golfer and carry an 8 hcp.  What that means to all you “non-golfers” is that I shoot about 8 over par.  If that doesn’t make sense it means I’m a pretty good golfer for a weekend player.  Well, let me tell you that spending 3 consecutive days with Mike Bender did amazing things for my golf game.  He gave me new mental pictures to use.  He gave me specific drills to work on that were unique to me and my situation.  And he gave me the confidence and encouragement to practice more perfectly so, when I got “in the game” I would be ready and it would be more automatic on the golf course.

He was able to do this for a few reasons.  First, he was not too close or emotionally involved.  It is very difficult for anyone to see how they look to other people.  I would swing the golf club and he would ask me to make a change, then I would swing again, and nothing had changed.  Because he could objectively look at me and see what I was and was not doing in a way that I never could, even with a video camera.

Second, he had years of training experience and was able to pull from his years of experience, many different ways of saying the exact same thing.  Good coaches know that everybody learns a little differently. As such, they need many different illustartions to make the same point.  If one didn’t work, he would try another until one conencted with me and I began to make the change required to become a better player.

Finally, he has been where I wanted to be.  He could speak first hand about the successes and failures of being on the PGA tour.  In addition, because he is working with players at the top of their game, he personified confidence and authority that made it easy to place my trust and ever precious golf game in his hands.

It could be summed up with three T’s.  Talent, Teaching and Trust.  Remove anyone of them and the coaching-student relationship breaks down.

RJ Regan is the author of Gambling for Life: Swinging the odds in your favor for more money and great sex.  He is a resident of East Grand Rapids, MI, married to his sweetheart Julie, father of four, an entrepreneur, speaker and life coach.  His website is www.getyourpoopinagroup.com

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