This thought evolved over the last 24 hours, but the catalyst was from a Paul Chek video I was watching about abdominal training. The question posed to Paul was if you should train athletes and non-athletes differently. His answer made me pause the DVD and reflect. I’ll paraphrase what I took from it, but basically he said that we have evolved over the last 4 million years and all of us survived because we are athletic. Or the way I like to phrase it, all human beings are athletic until conditioned otherwise.

When interviewing clients I usually ask them if they were good at sports. Almost without fail, those that were good at sports played sports, and those who were not good at sports did other activities. Sticking with Paul’s thought, these people are unathletic because they did not play sports, they did not avoid sports because they were unathletic. This would be akin to taking a child who is struggling with reading and telling them just to focus on math.

So this brings me back to my original statement. Was Tiger Woods the one because he was destined, or was he perfectly bread and it was fated that he would change the way golf was played? I’m in the middle – sorry Paul. Tiger had some genetic advantages, (6′ whatever, lots of fast twitch muscle fibers, etc.) but he became Tiger through his conditioning. He got to watch his dad watch golf balls and was captivated. He was never forced to play golf, his dad basically made him beg to play. He was given instruction and time to practice at a young age and his instructor told him very little about the golf swing other than, “do this” and “hit it as far as you can”. He learned to meditate and focus at a very young age. He asked his dad to make him tough during a talk about how he could beat the older kids. His dad taught him the value of physical fitness and he made that his lifes mantra.

Now I’m confused. Let me try and work it out in my head.

Maybe some of it was genetic, or maybe a lot of it was learned. Good players know how to practice correctly, maybe that was passed down. Tiger’s mom knew how to meditate and focus, maybe that was passed down. His dad was a military guy with discipline and an understanding of physical fitness, maybe that was passed down. So Tiger had a good frame, but maybe Paul is on to something here. If you grew up and your parents weren’t active, then you didn’t learn an active lifestyle. It wasn’t genetic, it was learned. If you didn’t have someone to properly expose you, and you weren’t lucky enough to figure it out through exploration, then you probably missed out.

Here’s the good news, you can always work on it. Get with your golf fitness pro and lay out a plan for the winter to work on the things that you need to. Don’t accept not hitting the ball far enough or being a bad putter, and definitely don’t accept being out of shape because you have never done it before. It is in your DNA to love to move, don’t deny the athlete that you really are. Saying you are “not an athlete” is no longer an excuse that The Golf Fitness Guys will accept.

Good luck.

Those guys still amaze me at how they shoot those low scores and still hit the ball all over the place, miss some unbelievably short putts and yet they still average around 70% GIR and under 30 putts per round.

The first thing I ask a student when they come for a lesson is what are they looking for out of their game and they usually respond with more consistency. I guess what I should ask them, is shooting 63, 72, 62, 72 the type of consistency that they are looking for Or do they want to be the player of the year and holder of 2 majors, shooting 71, 74, 74, 68 = t24; 74, 73, 71 = miss cut and 72, 72 = miss cut(Padraig Harrington)? These guys are the best in the world and Phil played just like the average golfer this week and won a tournament.

Then you have Stricker who shoots 61, 62 and comes back with a 77 at the Hope. Then in this tournament coming down the stretch he has a chance to win AGAIN and leaves at least 3 putts short dead in the heart. Those are the ones I saw, but there could have been more. I wonder if these guys go back and watch themselves and learn from their mistakes. Maybe Phil has by hitting 3wd on 18 but sometimes I wonder.

Tiger is the only sure thing or maybe Danny Lee.

If Phil shot 72, 72 in the first 2 rounds he would have missed the cut. I guess it just shows that consistency doesn’t matter that much and it is all relative.

Trust the experts to help you figure out what you want out of your golf game this year. But if you want consistency, be careful what you wish for. Consistent golf is not as much fun as it might sound…

Oh, I think that consistent golf starts with a consistent body, so you might as well download our program 30 Yards in 30 Days and get a more consistent body to build your swing around.