Well I wish I could say that was the case but it was the exact opposite. I have to just get it out…97, 85. Ouch! But you know the one thing I can say is that I am in a good place mentally and to my credit after posting that 97 after round 1 I went back out there unlike every other person who posted in the 90’s….they all WD’d. I absolutely would not even consider that…never quit…it is NOT an option!

I just don’t know what happened but the only thing I can say is that I was Tiger on the range and Barkley on the course…at least that is how my swing felt. I know that tournament golf is very different than playing on the weekend and I have preparing for that for the last 2 months. I have immersed myself in books on the mental game and have even been working with a local coach with guided meditation techniques which I have to say honestly is probably the only reason I was able to press on.

I woke up early and took my dog for a walk to warm up and then spent about a half an hour stretching and loosening up and then drove to the course. Once at the course I took my driver, a hybrid, 8 iron and wedge to the practice tee to loosen up and as I said I felt like Tiger. My swing felt great…very relaxed with a great tempo and I was throwing darts and nailing every target with a great strike and a baby draw. I spent the final 30 minutes chipping and putting and after the great warm up I was excited about what lay ahead.

Well I get to my first hole (#10) and yes I had some butterflies but I have trained myself to channel that into positive energy. They weren’t “oh please don’t shank” butterflies but they were more like “Thank you God for giving me this opportunity…this is what golf is all about” excitement butterflies. Well…I stood over my ball and executed my routine flawlessly and proceed to hit a snap hook through the trees on the left which I couldn’t see but there was the 18th green on the other side and a lake there so I hit a provisional and did the exact same thing only this time the snapper went farther up the treeline and I knew that one would be in play. Anyway long story short a few chunks and chili-dips later I put the ball in the hole for a quad. And that is pretty much the way the rest of my day went. I can honestly say that I felt like I was able to stay in the present on each shot (and there were many) and I didn’t feel as though I dwelled on the bad ones (and there were many) so I am not sure what went wrong. I do know that my swing felt tight and rushed the whole day and it was no where near the smooth rhythmic swing I had on the range.

So here I am left to wonder what had happened and why things went the way they did. I have received a lot of great input from my brother, who is an excellent golfer and athlete, and other good golfers that I know and I am very excited to get together with my pro and discuss what happened so that I can learn why things went the way they did so that at the next one (yes there will be a next one…and soon) I will be better prepared. I feel that the only way this can be a failure is if I do not learn from it and believe me when I say that I will take the time to digest every stroke of the 182 that I took this weekend to understand what happened and why. And although this bull really tossed me off pretty hard I have already dusted myself off and am ready to get back on for another ride.

Every year I have the same goal in mind…to work my butt off to break into the single digits and this year was no different. I started this golf season with a handicap of 10.6 and worked on my own and got it down to a 9.0 around May. I then decided that I can get even better and went to a local pro for a couple of lessons and immediately the wheels began to fall off and before I knew it the handicap was a 10 again with the possibility of going higher because I was now a mess obsessed with tinkering and freaking out. Then I found RotarySwing.com and hooked up with one of the long time members who I found out lived not too far from me. 

Through the site and the help of Bob34 I was able to get a grip on myself and calm down and start to really understand the golf swing and my playing leveled off from the upward climb. Then the first week of October I had my first one on one lesson with Chuck Quinton and things have just been incredible ever since. I am much more consistent and can now go several rounds without losing a ball (that saves me a lot of money!)  

Well…The golf season is now officially over here in Virginia. As of December 1 I can no longer post scores into the handicap system until March 2009. And since my lesson with Chuck Quinton in October my handicap has dropped 2 full points to 8.0! So boys and girls this guy can say that the Rotary Swing revolution is without a doubt the best golf instruction I have ever experienced… the proof of the pudding is in the eating…and this pudding tastes damn good!

Handicap Index History:

 This winter is going to be one of the most exciting for me because I am really dedicating a lot of time, energy, and resources to improving my overall game and to make a run at playing in the state of Virginia’s qualifying for local and US amateur events next year. To accomplish this I have to get my handicap down another 4 points by May of next year and I am confident that I can do it…especially if Chuck ever gets in gear with this 2.0 stuff    

So to start things off I have signed on with a Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) certified trainer to get an evaluation and a golf specific workout. Because of the RS site I have come to realize how important it is to not just be in good physical shape but you have to be in good “golf shape” and although I feel like I am in awesome shape I have come to find out that I am in HORRIBLE golf shape. I have extremely limited range of motion in my upper core area and my shoulders and really tight leg muscles (calf and hamstrings). This comes from years of pumping iron and not stretching!

 So for the first time ever I am not down about the arrival of the cold weather or lost about what to do with my new found time, for me this will not be a winter of discontent. It will be an exciting winter as I challenge and push myself to take this next step in this wonderful journey of mine.

Well, time to check my inbox…my TPI workout should be ready any moment now and I cannot wait to start! God I love this game!

MATHEW 17:20 “…if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

The biggest take away from today was my mental game. In a previous post I discussed how I allowed myself to be taken out of my game by a situation I found myself in on the course well today I did not let that happen. I found myself playing with an older gentleman who’s TREX was huge (ego) and he was cussing and throwing clubs which I absolute cannot stand (cussing not too bad but I hate when people throw clubs). Anyway I was really able to keep focus on the task at hand and my own shots and did not allow this idiot to bother me especially when I was on that early bogey train. So even though I shot 82 I still feel that today was a HUGE success and I don’t think I could have done it without all of the info on the mental game in the Rotary Swing site…it definitely save me a bunch of strokes today!

Well I tried it. I strutted into Gold’s gym at 0530 this morning with my 7 iron in hand and went up to the yoga room, which is has wall to wall mirrors, and proceeded at my attempt to make it through Chuck’s 300 slow motion golf swings. I was only able to make it through 185 swings but man it was a great “golf swing” workout.

Since my lesson with Chuck I have one goal and that is to properly learn to rotate my shoulders and core on the backswing by sliding my right scapula back to flatten out my back at the top. It took more than the ten minutes it took Chuck before my brain started to realize what my body was trying to do. It was about the 75th swing before I was able to finally “feel” the move that I was trying to achieve but once I did it was awesome.

Around the 100th swing I was so loose and comfortable with the move that I integrated the training into slow motion full swings. I was tucked in the corner of the room so that I was in front of a mirror face on and down the line…it was perfect. By the time I reached my last swing I was free flowing and my body movements felt very natural and like Chuck and Hayes I couldn’t even feel my arms as they were whipping through to the finish. However when I was finished my lower back muscle, not sure if it is the lower lat or external oblique, along with my left glute were on fire…not in pain but burning…the kind of burn you feel when you lift weights. I had never felt these muscles really in my swing before.

I was only able to get through 185 swings because with the mirrors I was really able to focus on my setup and at first I had to REALLY concentrate on it. Having the mirrors face on and down the line allowed me to really set up correctly. Right off the bat I noticed I was too close to the ball and I was not letting my arms hang straight down and I was able to fix this and a few other smaller things but it chewed up some time.

Overall I thought this was a great workout and I think that I found a way to cure the winter blues when it is too cold to play. In doing this I honestly walked out feeling like I just went to the range!!!

I do now!!!

Well I don’t know where to start…I guess I can say that it is a good thing that I listened to Ray and changed the name of this blog from 12 months to greatness to journey to greatness because it only took 4 days

Quick background…I have been playing horribly all year. After getting down to an 8 last year I had extremely high expectations coming into this year and as you have seen from my ramblings on this page I had become a mental midget and in my eyes a horrible golfer with no end in sight. Last year I was shooting consistantly in the 70’s and this year I have been in the high 80’s to lower 90’s  (see all my scores from this year below).

Well I finally got to see Chuck Quinton for a little 1 on 1 with the great one this past Saturday. I went there humbled with the expectation that I would be starting from scratch and that I would definitely probably be on a LONG road to improvement. I had booked 1.5 hour lesson with Chuck and I have to tell you it was the best investment I have made in my game in years.

I was a little nervous at first, after all I was going to see THE Chuck Quinton, and he has read all of my psycho ramblings on his site and answered all of my panic personal messages so this guy could easily think that I am a clown. But that feeling was squashed as soon as I got there because Chuck greets you with a huge smile and shakes your hand and makes you feel as if you are a friend that he hasn’t seen in years.

By the time I was finished with my lesson I felt as if I was just out there on the range working on my swing with a friend. I was extremely relaxed which I believed enabled me to better absorb the instruction that Chuck was providing and here is the kicker…I was all of a sudden hitting the ball the best I had all year long. It was incredible. I thought I was going to go there and have to start from scratch and an hour later I am compressing my irons and hitting them as straight as an arrow instead of slicing or pulling it off the planet.

So after mine and my dad’s (I took him to see Chuck…he is another thread all together) lesson was over we had to hang around for the wives to come and pick us up and we went in to grab a bite to eat. Well, Chuck came in and ate with us and hung out and then he went out to work on his swing a bit and invited us to hit balls with him until our ride got there…Think Leadbetter or Harmon would do that? I doubt it! Thanks Chuck for the experience it was incredible and you definitely have a student for life!

Ok now for the best part we were driving to my parents house after the lesson, they live in the Villages in Florida which is a golf haven, and Dad asks “Do you want to get a round in before you leave tomorrow” I said sure, but I cannot lie I was extremely nervous about what would happen…would I be able to carry Chucks lesson over to the course so early…after all if I go out and hack it up who knows what that would do to me mentally.

The course we played on was the Nancy Lopez Legacy and the yardage was 6550 with slope rating of 71.4/137….I shot 75 with two3 putt bogies!!! I hit 6 fairways (most others were first cut), 10 GIR, had 30

putts (2-3 jacks), and got up and down all six times using Chucks short game tips from the clinic.

My swing was a little tight b/c as Chuck said a lot of it is just a trust issue but man I was compressing the hell out of the ball and the ball was hissin’ like a mother off of my club, I can’t wait until I have 100% trust…sky is the limit! Talk about being fun again…Now I know it was just the first round and I have to maintain it but there is no doubt in my mind that it was not a fluke and I am in for an awesome ride!!!

If you haven’t had a lesson in person with Chuck what are you waiting for? Before you spend a ton on the next cool training aid or new club because you think it will produce the result you want I can’t stress enough that a lesson with Chuck would with out a doubt be the best investment you could ever put into your golf game!

Posted 9 October 2008

This is the most difficult thing I have done in a long time but it is the first step. A good swift kick in in the nizuts of that T-Rex ego of mine. I have my first one on one with the great one this weekend and I have been engorging myself in the mental game area. Using strong words not weak such as “I will…” not “I will try” and I will be using Doc’s reframing technique through the process….well here it is…… I will get it done…I have to or as you can see I will break my back  (sorry about the shutter speed)

No I am not tiger woods (yet) but I feel like him now after Chuck Quinton and all the fine members of Rotary Swing Golf forum saved my golfing life!

You see…I am you. If you are at this site than you love golf.  Whether you are a 30 handicap or a plus handicap I know you can relate to me and my story. I guess you can just call me JOE the Golfer!

So welcome to the Rotary Golf Instruction Blog. I am a student of Chuck’s and will be blogging about what I call “My Journey to Greatness”. It is my Journey to become the best golfer that I can be and to enjoy every pured shot and duff along the way. Prepare for an emotional journey! This blog will make you laugh, it will make you cry, heck it may even scare some of you when you see some swing sequences of mine but as we all struggle through the same ups and downs of this crazy game I just hope that through my journey to greatness I can maybe help to provide hope to some other poor fellow out there or just provide a good laugh to someone when they read my posts…and trust me some of my ramblings make me laugh!