Royal St. Patrick's Golf Links
in Wrightstown, Wisconsin
920-532-4300
Below are the "Links" to our most recent Newsletters that are emailed to our loyal listeners. If you think you may have missed one of our emails, or you remember it being so good you want to read it again...this is where you will find it. Enjoy!
A student who had just finished his lesson at the teaching academy was amazed by the direction the lesson took. He said Tom thinks my swing is in good working order, but my aim is horrible. We spent the whole lesson fine tuning the way I address the ball. My shots weren’t left because I had a bad swing, they were left because I can’t aim. To many of you, this is no great revelation, but you might be interested in this hypothesis. “Frequent players / practicers are more susceptible to bad habits than casual infrequent players.” This gentleman with bad aim was here every night practicing and played at least 3 times a week. You could say he lined up and hit the golf ball many times in the last couple weeks. Each time he did, he engrained this bad alignment. He repeated and repeated. Now let’s pretend this was an infrequent player. It might take infrequent player two months to replicate the amount of swings this gentleman generates in one week. Infrequent man rarely has time to create bad habits, and he has even less time to practice or engrain them. Maybe this is the reason tour pros all have coaches. Given the amount of repetitions they execute, it would be dangerous to their livlihood to get too far off. Doesn’t it seem like their coaches simply stand there and make sure things remain the same. Interesting???? If you are an avid practicer / player, you might think you are safe from bad habits, you are actually the most at risk. It is you who could benefit the most from a coach, and RSPGL has a great one in Tom Olson. Tell Tom, I don’t necessarily need a lesson, but I would simply like to buy some maintenance. Money well spent, and less time wasted battling bad habits.
As a foursome of elderly gentleman approached the following tee box, the experienced superintendant eased his foot from the pedal of his noisy chariot. All the men were walking with hand trolleys (pull carts) and one of them walked across the tee with his, and parked it on the far side. Before the last tee shot had hit the fairway, the superintendant’s cart throttle was down and it roared up along side of the gentleman exiting the top of the tee, pull cart in hand. “In the future, I would appreciate you not pulling your walking cart across the tee”. The man stopped, and said simply, “why?” The superintendant stammered slightly, “because the sign says, No Pull Carts on Tees”. The man acknowledged he had the seen the signs, but again, simply said, “why?”. The super quivered again, “well that is our policy”. Folding his arms across his chest, the old man said again, “that’s fine if that is your policy, but why is it a policy?” The superintendant would later admit he had nothing at this point. He attempted to pull out some compaction nonsense, but realized the cumulative weight of 4 pull carts might equal the gravitational force of one very small child. So what is the point of this story? Golf has a lot of stupid rules and even stupider policies. I challenge our employees every day…if we are going to have a rule, or we are going to enforce a policy, let’s make sure it makes sense and we can defend it. We lose credibility when we spend our time policing imaginary rules. When that old timer reached the next tee box, one only knows where he parked the pull cart.
August Edition
Why...
July 11, 2017
August 15, 2017
Tales From The Tall Grass
Articles From The
Wandering Mind of
Nick Stephens, PGA
August 8, 2017
Second Hand Hatred...
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I am around golf all day long. Most might see that as a blessing. It’s always difficult to combine your hobby with your job, and still find enjoyment in your hobby. For 99.9% of you, golf is a hobby. While you might “work on your golf game” it is not supposed to be work. The problem is, many of you who are merely supposed to be “playing” golf, think of golf as a job, not as something fun to engage in on a recreational basis. But let’s take that one step farther. Let’s say, you find golf fun. It is your recreation, it is your escape, your exercise, your time to appreciate. Let’s say you find golf totally enjoyable, YET when you get done playing golf, you hate the game. You, my friend, could be experiencing Second-Hand Hatred for golf. Take a look at the people you play golf with on a regular basis. What is their composition, their outlook on the game? Are they the kind of people who spend the round throwing temper tantrums? Do they gripe about everything on and off the course? Are they miserable people in general? No matter how much you love golf, and no matter how well you keep “things in perspective”, you realize spending four hours with these negative people is going to cause the game to consume you. Suddenly golf gets associated with everything else you dislike. You love golf, but thanks to Second Hand Hatred, you now start to drift from golf in search of a happier place. It doesn’t have to be that way. You just need new people to play with. At RSPGL we are trying to create a place where everyone who loves golf can come and love golf. Thanks to our conditions, hospitality and attention to detail, we think we eliminate a lot of negativity. If you are on property this summer, and you start hating golf, pause for a moment and ask, “is it me, is it this place, or is it these people?. You might be surprised.
Practice Shouldn't Hurt?...
July 25, 2017