When’s the last time you said – “That’s the best round of golf I have ever played!”?

When’s the last time you said – “Oh, I stink. That was the worst round of golf I have ever played!”?

It’s my belief that the latter statement is said more often than the first statement. Which is a shame because you should be having fun on the golf course and making progress whenever you play. But judging from what we hear from a vast majority of Golfers – there are more Golfers playing worse than ever versus the number of Golfers that are playing better than ever. Maybe that’s why they’re calling GMS.

There are a few reasons why so many Golfers are playing worse than they would like. One of those is that they’re trying to do too much at one time with their golf swing. Meaning how many things can you think about in the two seconds it takes to swing a golf club? The mind works fast, but it’s impossible to think about and coordinate all these things in just that short time: turn my shoulders, turn my hips, swing the club toe up to toe up, don’t sway, shift my weight, get the golf club parallel, blah, blah, blah.

And with people being so busy in their everyday lives – it puts even more of a premium on you playing better golf with less time to practice. And unfortunately, the only practice time most people get is the 10 minutes they have on the driving range before teeing off.

So what often happens is that your round of golf becomes your practice time to see what works. Although, on the first tee, it’s usually survival mode: “Lord, just let me make contact with this golf ball so that it goes up in the air for more than 100 yards and somewhat straight. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but I don’t want to be the guy that tops it 15 yards with everybody watching me.”

But once that first tee shot is finished – it often becomes a round of golf that is based on jumping from one swing thought (or golf tip) to another … trying to find something that will work for more than one golf swing. Or in other words – ‘I just want to find something that will help me to become more consistent!”

Because on your tee shot on the second hole – the thought of turning your shoulders to start the downswing worked pretty well, but when you tried to do the same thing on the third tee …. You popped the ball 50 yards straight up in the air.

So now on the fourth tee, you have a decision to make: do you try to think about turning your shoulders to start the downswing (which didn’t work last hole) or should you think about shifting your weight to your front foot. Or, hey, what about the golf tip you saw on the Golf Channel last night that said that you should start your downswing by dropping your arms into the slot?

“Maybe I should try it. The Instructor on TV said that’s what Lee Westwood was doing during the Masters. Let me try that – I need to get my right elbow tucked into my right side at the start of the downswing and hold it there through impact.”

Moving onto the 5th tee … because we really don’t want to have to relive the experience we had on the fourth tee box of having our golf ball fly sideways and almost hitting your best friend as he was taking his driver out of his golf bag – thank goodness the golf cart deflected the ball. At least with the Mulligan you played – where you went back to thinking about turning your shoulders (well you had to make a quick decision of something to think about before hitting the do-over ball because you sure as heck weren’t going to think about your elbow again … and turning the shoulders was the first thing that popped into your mind as something that might work!) – the Mulligan at least was hit decently enough that it did go forward, although you’re going to have to chip out from the trees.

But at least nobody got hurt!

I’ll spare you the details of the rest of the round by skipping to the eighteenth tee. On this last tee shot of the day – knowing that your thoughts the last 8 holes have been: “I can’t wait for this disaster to end” – you tee the golf ball up and make a golf swing without a care in the world.

Well, you know the story – it just happens to be the best tee shot of your life. And you think to yourself – “Why can’t I hit the golf ball like that every time?”

However, as you’re walking off the tee, you start to ponder what made that such a good shot: “I think I made a better back swing by taking the club more inside so that my swing was more rotational and then on the downswing I must’ve kept my head more still so that I was able to keep my eye on the ball as I released my hands at impact and continued my swing to a full follow-through. I need to remember that for the next time I play!”

One thing is for sure – it’s my bet that this Golfer’s next round will follow the same script as their previous round. Same problems, same pain, same results. As Albert Einstein said: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again — expecting different results.”

GMS has adapted that quote to Golfers: ‘The definition of an insane Golfer is a Golfer that’s doing the same thing over and over again — expecting better results.’

Do you know any insane Golfers?

The Monkey follows the same process over and over – starting each round with high hopes of a breakthrough day of golf, but just gets more and more frustrated with their inconsistency

The Player has a PLAN (preferably created at GMS) for better golf that includes the 29 Ball Warm-up before each round

Go ahead, be a Player!

Regards,

Marc Solomon