The real difference between us and Tiger

Hi Todd,

I agree with most of what you said except for the last part of your last paragraph.

You wrote:>>But no way do I believe that anyone who sets their mind to it can be great, or even good, in golf....

I think if Ben Hogan were still alive he would disagree with you too. Hogan had athletic abiltiy I'm sure, but when he started out he had a horrendous hook. It's my understanding that he left the tour for two years because his hook was so bad. It wasn't his talent that corrected his hook it was his mind set and sheer determination to overcome his hook. Hogan was on a mission to fix his problem. All the talent in the world wouldn't help him. Hogan had to find out why he was having the problem and than find a way to correct it. I'm sure he spent countless hours working on his hook problem. It was his will and hard work that made him the "best" golfer who ever lived, not his talent. IMHO

You also wrote:>>Just as I don't believe that the desire to be a musician and the willingness to put in the practice time can make someone a good musician. It can't. You have to have the talent, and not everyone does.<<

Our youngest son would disagree with you on that one. He taught himself how to play the guitar when he was in his early twentys. He never had the desire or talent to become a musician when he was a child. He now owns and plays six different kinds of guitar. He also wrote and sang a song that is on a CD. He is a good musician now because he had the desire and was willing to put the time in. He's not good because he had the talent, he's good because he worked at it.

Having talent won't make you the best golfer in the world. Hard work and having a burning desire to be the best will overcome talent most the time.

God bless,

Tom

"The kind of people who arnt any good at sport are the people with parents who are very strict on education."

WTF????? Ricky that might be the worst thing that i've seen you post so far. I take all of the posts about "my distances are terrible, if i could hit the ball farther i could be pro" with a grain of salt, but this shows your ignorance. Take a look at many top pros in any sport, guess what they don't tend to be dumb. What does the effect of having strict parents have to do with anything? If someone has talent then they will no doubt be good at a sport, regardless if their parents place a high importance on education and studying. This is the nature vs. nurture debate, talent is something a person is born with, if a persons parents would like their child to get a quality education, it does not mean that they will suck at sports. They may not be as developed due to lack of practice, but natural talent will still shine through.
After you write that comment you come back saying that talent is something you are born with, contradicting yourself. Who told you that someone that is smart in school can't be good at sports? Or is this your way of proclaiming that you were born with natural golf talent, because your grammar is terrible. If i were you I would spend a little less time on the range and read some books, once you can type a reply without writing "aint" let me know.

I'd just like to say that being a successful musician has NOTHING to do with talent whatsoever. I also play guitar and if you knew anything about the music industry you'd know this. Many of the greatest musicians on the planet are unknowns to the general public and many of the so called greats are far from elite.

As for golf, I believe that 80+% of human beings could become scratch golfers if they started before the age of 10 and had coaching/lessons and practiced alot. But only those with talent can make it to the elite standard of tour pro's. This is because the golf swing could be done by a robot but a robot wouldn't have the talent to play a feel shot or work the ball in a different way to straight for instance. Anybody could learn to hit a ball in a straight line at a fair distance. Choosing the right club, choking down, fading, drawing, punching, chipping, flopping etc.. those are the shots that you need talent to execute and also to know when and how to use.

Whenever I chip I always use the bump and run shot. But if I need to go over trees or anything I still setup exactly the same as when I just want to knock it a couple of feet into the air and I consciously play it the same. The only difference is that I want to hit it high and it just happens. The body and brain do it for me without me having to worry about what the mechanics should be. Without sounding like a bragger I think that is an example of natural talent that you either have or don't. Whereas the normal bump and run chip can be learnt by anybody and it's just a matter of practice as much as you like for as good as you want to be at it.

Just been on phone and forgot what this post was going to be about so...

I guess we can all agree that talent is a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition for success at the top levels of golf, music, or most things.

We should also agree that talent comes in degrees. It's not all or nothing.

Maybe we could also agree that having talent doesn't mean never having problems, like Hogan's hook, or Vijay's bad putting days.

I also think that anyone who can teach himself guitar has talent and always had it, even if he didn't do anything with it until he was 20.

Those of us, like myself, who completely lack athletic ability can still aspire to improve within our limits, and there's satisfaction in that. I think most people in my situation would've given up golf already, but to me the key is to enjoy the aspects of the game that I can enjoy and not worry about the rest. Golf is played outdoors, usually in fine weather and beautiful surroundings, and with good friends. I can't see letting a little thing like having no talent get in the way of enjoying all that.

__________________
Todd
Philadelphia, PA
USA

The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing. ~Phyllis Diller

That's a great way of looking at it and once I've had a really bad hole and realise I can't beat my best score that's how I start to think. But one of the things that comes with having athletic (dunno if this is the right word we're using here) ability is a huge amount of competitiveness. Or maybe it's actually the other way around; maybe the competitive drive is what makes some better than others when they had the same natural talent. I know when I'm playing footy (soccer) I'm a hell of a lot better when I'm playing competitively. It's what drives you to succeed. If you don't really care that much you want get far. One of the things about Tiger is his competitiveness, he says he's really enjoying himself when he doesn't smile and looks pissed but that's just coz he's super focussed. One of the reasons other players with the ability can't beat him is that they don't have that edge.

Hi Rick,

I'm not about to get into a war of words with you. I'm 57 years old and have three sons older than you. I will give you a little advice though. Go to college, get a degree in something. Play golf while you are in college and at the same time get a good education. You won't regret it.

Now for the cold hard facts. There are thousands of Ricky Harris' out there. They are just as good as you at playing golf and also believe that someday they will be a pro. Well the truth is very few will make it. Tiger Woods went to college, it didn't hurt him any.

Not trying to be mean here but I really have a hard time trying to understand what you post. You said something about only playing for two years and had a round of 96. As I said I'm 57 years old and have been playing for five months. I shot a 94 on Thursday. You said you were -2 after 14 holes and you ended up with a 96. Rick, go to college.

Tom

Greg agree that practice time makes a huge difference. Could you comment on the percentage of time you feel you should devote to putting, short game and long game. Pelz feels most should be on short game, then putting then long game.

Also, there is a huge difference between competitive golf and recreational golf. Tiger's mental toughness and ability to perform under that type of pressure in competitive plays is unreal.

Ya, this thread has spun out of control, no question. What was a simple abservation and a guess has turned this into some kind of who is right and who is wrong...

This was not meant to be a discussion about how to get to be a pro, but to show the differences (as the article started to show), and all I really wanted to show and demonstrate that practice and play are dealt with differently by pros vs. ams (guessing at 5 to 1).

So to answer your question (in my opinion) for amatures, is that practice is closly mixed with play. Where the short game gets a lot of activity, so this is in it's self "practice". The more an AM plays the better their short game and putting. So it is not that bad of an idea to put more time into the long game on the practice tee.

For AMs that do not play a lot, you do need to mix up the practice to include the short game. I like to see it mixed up, trying to keep everything equally distributed over about a month or so.

Trying to put a blanket "this is the way to do it", really is not the right answer. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Keep your strengths tuned so you have that goto shot, but then always working on the weaknesses to get better.

__________________
I'm a golfaholic, no question about that. Counseling wouldn't help me. They'd have to put me in prison, and then I'd talk the warden into building a hole or two and teach him how to play. ~Lee Trevino

Hi Greg,

You are correct, this thread has spun out of control. If I was a part of that I apologize.

I think we all can agree that pros put more time into their game than ams do. To be successful at anything in life you have to put the time in.

Tom

I agree with Dave Pelz. Once you get to a point where mishits mean catching the ball a little thin, or a little fat, making up shots around the green become of the utmost importance. IMO, being able to get up and down will help ANY player lower their scores. Imagine if you could eliminate your three putts, because once you're on the green, you're close enough to one putt more than half the time. That would shave an avalanche of strokes off just about anyones' score.

And the way to do that is work on your short game. Pitches, chips, and putts.

__________________
True Length Technology Fitter - www.truelengthtechnology.com
It's live! - www.ShipShapeClubs.com
PCS Class 'A' Clubfitter

A new highlight: Golfing the home course on Christmas Day.

I say it too often: If it's golf club shaped, you can play with it.

For the record, I'm a club doctor, not a swing doctor.

One more question then Rick, if you are destined to be on all these "mini tours," and have a great coach, why do you constantly come on here asking "I need help quick, i need to find out how to gain distance or im screwed!" If you've got the talent then you most definately will have the distance, they go hand in hand. A little advice, these golf schools are a business, just like any college, if you couldn't fork up the dough they would just move on to the next candidate, a dime a dozen at that age. I've had plenty of rounds where I should have been under par but finished poorly, they happen to everybody and there is no reason to brag about them to us.

What in the world are you talking about?

That is the difference... PRACTICE.

During so many casual rounds my playing partners show up just in time to rush to the first tee, stretch for all of 30 seconds then hit the first ball.

Then they wonder why they shot 88 or 90.

After the round practice? Are you kidding me? No sir! Its time to hoist a few beers.

These guys wonder why I am a little better than them -cause I take some time to practice... it takes only a few minutes to work on important skills such as chipping, wedge play which would lower their scores the most. No, too boring- if there is practice, hit the driver as far and hard as they can.

Another thing: Practice has to be done right to do any good. Going out and banging a bucket of balls is not practice. One must have a clear-cut object as to what to work on.

Talent/physical ability has more to do with success at a professional level than anything else. Look at the "body" style of most pro golfers. Tall & lanky. You have few exceptions like Daly, Stadler, etc. but day in and day out the correct height to weight ratio is extremely important in golf.

Physical ability, look at Jack and Arnold if you don't think physical ability has much to do with success.

Hours of daily practice will get us fanatics down to a 6 or 7 handicap. Unless you have been there, you don't realize how difficult it is to get from that 6 handicap down to a 2. There is very little room for the double bogey for a two handicap.

Natural ability has more to do with professional success than anything else in my opinion.

__________________
Imagine how boring golf would be if every shot resulted in a hole in one. Perfection is over rated.