As I sit in my comfy chair sipping a coffee, I often think about my golf game. I wonder what I have to do to improve and more importantly, what I am willing to do. Most times, these two ideas do not jive and a hybrid solution needs to be developed in order to keep my golf game moving forward. This is always a slow time of the year for my golf game because I still have four months to wait before the courses open. I know this is crazy, but I do not travel in the winter and so I am here lamenting not being able to hit the links. Not to worry, there is a bright spot in my situation and it is not what you think.

In order to improve my golf game, I need to have a fresh perspective on how to approach my golf game. Never one to sit by and watch, I decided many years ago to use my offseason to focus on other fun things in order to be ready, mentally, come spring. If I stay only focused on golf, I would be exhausted by the time spring rolled around. So, I have other hobbies to keep my mind active and fresh for golf.

My primary activity is coaching high school basketball. Being retired, I am blessed to have the time to spend researching, developing strategy spending time in the gym. All of this seems that I am focused on myself and in a way it is I guess. However, the 20 hours a week I spend in the gym and another 10 researching drills and strategies is like a full time job. The great thing is that I love coaching and so the effort to be a better coach seems like nothing in the big scheme of things.

In order to be a better basketball coach, I follow many of the same processes I use to improve my golf game. In the military we used the training process of ‘crawl, walk, run’ whereby they would teach a new skill, give basic drills to develop that skill and then provide advanced drills to hone the new skill. Golf is the same thing with respect to my game. I find a skill I want to learn, develop simple drills to improve this skill, the place myself in game time situations in order to sharpen the skill. Sometimes the ‘crawl, walk, run” process works very well and sometimes I fail because I transitioned to the next phase too early. Believe me, we know if we have tried to move too quickly in the high scores we record on the scorecard.

As I sit here thinking about getting another coffee, I search for skills, drills, and processes to improve my golf game. Fortunately, they are transferable to my other interests and as such my off-season time quickly passes by. I do not have anything in particular I am researching at this moment (with Christmas around the corner) however, I will start strong in the new year.

I am a grateful golfer! See you on the links!