College Golf Team Troubles
 

This is the scenerio. I play for a local Community College here in mississippi. We have only 5 players at this time and 1 of which is out until late January due to his lung collapsing 3 times since september. So we are down to 4. Of the 4 there is myself and one other that really care about our game. The other 2 could be decent but have the wrong attitude about this. I guess they dont realize that they can transfer and either walkon or get a full ride from golf to their new school if they just get their game in shape.

We have a female coach that is stretched very thin. She is a teacher, mother of 2 and going through a divorce, so her time is limited to when she can be at practices. As soon as she leaves the others leave. This would not be a problem if they were actually practicing somewhere else or on other days other than the scheduled practices but they are not of coarse.

the main problem we have with these 2 players is on how they play the game. they think it is all about how far they can hit their driver. They will sometimes hit it 320ish in the middle and still make bogey on a par 5. This is completely useless to them because they do not want to really work on the shape and structure of their swing to not only gain more power but the consistency and accuracy they need to play decent golf. I consistantly beat them by 5 to 10 shots per round but they will not listen to me when i offer advise to them. There is one in partictular that i go round and around with.

There is a hole at our home course and from the back tee it is 210 to the center of the green. we played the hole one day and there was no wind and the temp was about 60degrees. He pulled a 5 iron out of the bag, pin is in the middle of the green, and proceded to miss the green 20 yards right and about 12 to 15 short of the flag. The very next day the temp dropped and it was about 40 degrees, 15 to 20mph wind gust and the pin was in the back so it was playing closer to 225 that day before the wind was figured which if i remember correctly it was into off the left. Before the shot our coach asked what i had hit and i hit a 2 iron with a slight fade to the center of the green safely, not to mention there is water on the left side of the hole all the way up to the middle of the green. She asked him what he was hitting and he said 5 iron. She was appauled at his stupid decision and we both said there is no way He proceeded to pull out the same 5 iron he was short with the previous day, and gave it a mighty lashing. the shot ended up about 5 yards short, and 10 yards right just off the green in the fringe. he did wind up hitting it very well but we cannot get it through his head that the game is not all about distance.

This is something i have had to learn for myself and it took alot of time but in this situation we really dont have much time. He could be a decent mid 70's player consistantly but he will not play smart and practice. Is there any advise that you could give on another way to approach this problem.
Chris

Only worry about what you can control....some people don't share your passion, some don't understand the process. It sounds like you'd be wasting your time here. Concentrate on playing your best...

well i feel as if it is my job to help motivate these guys being the captin. They could be decent if they just tried.

I feel your pain grapegoat. Only in the last year was I able to help my dad turn into a low 80's player from a mid 90's player because he finally listened! I had been trying for 5 years. I am extremely glad I didn't give up, he shot his first 70's round about a month ago! Anyhow, the first things that come to mind is Fred Funk's scoring average on 7300 yard courses and Pelz's statistic that pro golfers fall in the 5% - 9% error ratio on long game shots. Pelz isn't talking about how you have to hit it 320 yards in order to be a great golfer, accuracy is most important. Driving in play and solid iron play solves about 65% of the game I figure. Most of the great iron players will much sooner hit an easy 6 iron than a 7 iron, or in the case of your golf team members smash a 9iron. On the golf channel the other night they showed that one guy got a hole in one from 183 yards with a driver, and another guy a hole in one with a PW from 178 yards, SAME SCORE!!!!!!!!!!

I think your coach has to help you out on this one. If they go out and play 9 holes, on one ball they dictate the strategy, on the other ball the coach dictates the strategy that might wake them up. Unfortunately some people have so much ego they cannot help trying to smash that ball, even with a short iron. Tiger Woods, perhaps the greatest golfer of all time, still is unable to swing within himself all the time with a driver. I don't anticipate he will ever learn that the extra 20 yards in the trees doesn't help and will probably cost him 35 tournaments over his career.

My advice, for what it is worth, try your best to be a good captain, and accept whatever results that yields. Try to work with your coach as much as possible to get through to your teammates, but realize it may not work and that is okay. At the end of the day, take pride in playing the best you can. I've been on bad golf teams before, I know how it feels. It just stinks all the more when you see the potential.

Matt

Tough problem...

What is needed is for you to find someone that they respect that will show them how They Can Get better. That assumes that they really want to get better.

Sometimes all it takes is for them to get a spark from a praticular good round, maybe a practice session where they discover themselves and something that is exciting to them.

However you will not be alone as time passes where you discover the number of golfers that only see golf as a power sport, how far, how hard, how long and hopefully you can find the ball afterwards...