Grips like a son-of-a-bitch

Hi Peeps, I’ve been away for a short while – work is manic at the moment. I’d like to think that I could do this sort of thing for a living, but unfortunately that’s not my current reality, so normal business is the order of the day at the moment.

I’ve been thinking lately about how golf grips you, like a bug, and you think about it all the time. This is even more true if you can’t get out and play and you are just dying to get a few holes in.

Chemical Golf

Is golf just a chemical reaction? It seems to me that golf can be very similar to falling in love. It perhaps doesn’t happen quite so strongly, but for sure there is a metaphysical thing going on that is hard to describe, just like love is.

We can all abstain for a short while, perhaps even a couple of months. But, like Popeye, you just need your fill of spinach at some point. Golf is like a drug, and like Spinach to Popeye, you just can’t give it up all together.

At the moment it is next to impossible for me to get out and play. This is compounded even more by the fact that the weather has been brilliant for golf since the early Spring. Like torture, but I guess that’s just life.

Make Mine A Six-Pack

For sure, and very soon, I’ll be tearing somewhere up, some Course that’s had it coming for while..

I’ll be smashing my way through a six-pack of Spinach, like Popeye, and then ravaging a few holes brutally. Probably my local course, I haven’t played there all year and I’ve heard that it’s coming on a treat. I don’t know if you’ve played Amington Golf Course, it’s a good test. Especially the back nine, very long.

Don’t Forget Me

So, this post is mostly a “please don’t forget about me” post. I haven’t forgotten about writing for golf, I’ve just seriously had no time to get to the keyboard and start making decent music. I wouldn’t want to start just spouting any old rubbish out, that wouldn’t be me. If a jobs worth doing and all that….

So seeing as I can’t get out much, how about you tell me what your golf adventures have been so far this year?

Let me know if you have achieved success, what your best round has been and any other stories that can lighten up my days.

Leave me a story in the comments below, you might even give me some inspiration for a new post.

If you noticed the new header to the site – it’s just for the World Cup in support of England – Come on the lads.. bring it home!!

It's OK kids, I've got it under control.. kind of.

Ever heard the saying: Wishful Thinking Haunts Empty Minds. Probably not, because I’ve just made it up..

However, this doesn’t mean that it is any less true. I’ve been in a mode of wishful thinking all too much this last two or three weeks, wishful in that I know I’ve got a competition coming up – tomorrow actually – and I just know that I am not as well prepared, in terms of practice, as I really wanted to be.

I certainly don’t want to crumple off the first tee, especially considering it’s a 27 holer tomorrow, a short 9 hole competition in the morning and followed by an 18 hole competition in the afternoon. Medal play too – which sucks – there’s just no forgiveness with medal play, stupid golf rules.

I was trundling along making some good progress in practice on the aspects of my game that I’m working on. No doubt I’m going to be a little stiffer than I preferred tomorrow, but a really good stint nice and early on the range will loosen some of that up.

There’s a Battle Starting at Dawn

I think tonight I’ll try to get my head into some sort of shape to deal with with the expected unexpected. Not to get myself too over zealous about getting a place in the top three, no wait a minute, that’s not me, I’d better damn well get in the top three tomorrow or the rabbit is going to get it.

I’ll take a third in the 9 hole competition, that would do, but I’ve got to try and get something. I promised myself earlier in the year that I’d try and get a place in this competition, even though it’s the event that I sponsor. There’s nothing like a bit of self-pressure, is there?

Oh, whilst I’m on the subject of that, all you golfers could follow @Tillymiss on Twitter, who kindly sorted us a generous bag of balls to play with. I really appreciate it, and on behalf of the whole Society, many thanks Tilly.

Tillymiss

Hey Tilly, I hope I don’t find myself in the Woof too often tomorrow – wishful thinking, again.

I did have a trip out the range this morning and practised some wedges, seemed to be ok. Crikey it was hot, I had to pack in after about 30 mins, just couldn’t cope with the humidity.

So, how am I going to play it tomorrow? I’m not sure myself yet, but I certainly know that I need to have some mental weapons on call to keep the savage golf demons at bay, bastards double bastards.

So, I think that tomorrow I’m going to just keep it long and down the middle off the tee, easy short iron into every green and then a couple of putts, barring the odd one-putt when I feel like it. What? Is that too much to ask? I’ll bet it’s only what you do when you turn up with your mates mid-week?

Keeping it Real

See this is where the situational thinking needs to kick-in. I know this, but even though I know it – I don’t want to admit it. What I don’t want to do is rally around everywhere in the morning and turn up just in time for a quick swing or two before teeing off.

I want to accept that I’m not quite as well prepared as I need to be, but I won’t. I want to accept that I’ve not played much in the last month, but I won’t. I want to accept that I can’t go at it 110%, drive 300+ yards off the tee, shoot for pins from the fairway, but – I won’t.

But, what I will do is keep it real. Keep my head strong so that my chin doesn’t collapse and start digging a groove round the golf course. That frame of mind is possible, I talked about it earlier in the year.

Same mental focus for tomorrow, I’m not going to try and play a game I can’t pull-off, but I am going to try and as best as I can within my ability, and if it doesn’t come off – i’ll just practice for the next competition then and there and beat my head in and kick the dog when I get home. (note to animal lovers: I haven’t got a dog..)

Yes, I just need to try and keep it real tomorrow, not put too much self-expectation into the equation and I’m sure it’ll be a good one.

Wish me luck!

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I try to keep this blog personal to me, and mostly around golf, but the more I get into the social sphere the more I like it.

So from time to time I’m going to add one or two posts about my observations – as a casual user – of Twitter, and perhaps some others in due course, Facebook etcetera.

I’m quite a pragmatic person, I don’t have much any time for idiots (just being frank), and I despise people that blow their own trumpet constantly (a bit is OK, nothing wrong with a bit of ego).

I like people that chat and move around, even not chatting for a while and then coming back occasionally for a natter – that’s kind of how I am in real-life.

Flitterers

I like people like this, people that don’t necessarily need to hang off your every word to feel there is a connection between you. People that occasionally retweet something that you link to or just a plain old tweet. These people like to talk to all kinds of other people, professionals, socialites, marketers, writers etcetera.

I find some of the best links come from these people, because they are so inter-connected across different demographics of other people.

They’re like that mate you have, you only talk on the phone once in a while, or they stop in for a cup of tea four times a year, but the time you spend together is just pure quality, every minute of it.

These are similar to some good friends that I have, lifers, that when we are together, perhaps out golfing, fishing or something like that, that we hardly speak at all but we just enjoy each other’s company without feeling the need to constantly babble. I also think that this is the mark of real true friends, when you spend several hours in an afternoon together but hardly talk, and most importantly, not feel uncomfortable with the silence.

This goes for golf also, sometimes it’s just the being with a friend, having a nice walk in beautiful surroundings and not needing to, or feeling pressured to, constantly rattle with small talk.

Flatterers

Now by this title Flatterers I don’t mean the people that sometimes, just occasionally, give some praise. No, I’m talking about the ones that seem to spend more than half their life shoulder deep in someone’s, several someone’s, back-end.

Oh fab this, great that, wonderful you, you’re brilliant, you’re awe inspiring – Oh get over yourself! (vomit vomit)

It may just be a misconception on my part, perhaps I only happen to see their adoration tweets,  but this just makes me want to grab these people and bitch-slap them. You see the same thing on some blogs too, especially the A-lister or really prominent blogs, but it’s also prevalent on normal wholesome decent blogs. Haven’t these people got anything better to do? Go and find a hard surface and bang your head violently against for about, oh let’s say, a decade.

Praise when it’s due, in your eyes, definitely — YES.

Constant rambling submissive facile choking praise at everything — definitely — NO.

Natterers

These are also good people, and are probably easily the biggest group of active people. But, they are the people that will keep you up past your bedtime, give you swollen ears Walt Disney eyes and blaze-a-trail to a haemorrhage in your head, just joking on the last one obviously..

In this group are also the people that share their knowledge with everyone, I like how some of the real professionals give out excellent information quite freely (whilst others take it and try to sell it). Some do this with a total absence of ego at all, some don’t, but are equally as interesting.

Natterers also engage with you quite easily, or they certainly seem to engage with a lot of people, at least. I think this is the difference between Flitterers and Natterers. The Flitterers are mostly off somewhere else, too diverted to engage in continuing dialogue, just like your mate that you go out for the night with, you start and end the night together, but the bit in between is a void or you are just on separate sides of the room, and it’s not a problem.

Flick the switch, when you’re ready

Twitter can be a little bit Always-on, can’t it? That kind of drives me crazy sometimes.

I’m a normal bloke, I love, no correction, I really love a beer and a chin-wag. I love having a chat with my wife and kids, I switch-off when it gets into gossip. I also enjoy solo-time, just me on my own, with my own thoughts, there’s something quite primal about that, I feel.

Orientation

So, as I said in a previous Twitter post, I met the social sphere with some trepidation – but now – I must admit I’m kind of thinking I was a little off track with that previous post. Not at the time that I wrote it, for it was a certain reflection of my attitude at the time that I penned it. It’s actually bizarre, because my opinion has changed quite quickly too, which is something else that I never do in real-life.

I’m quite new to all of this, but, gradually I believe your orientation of the social sphere gets more informed, you know instantly who is going to be a Tsunami spammer, you get to gauge who will be a good follow, or not. I don’t believe that you can follow everyone that follows you, not unless you are a business looking for every possible sales avenue, and even then, I would question how effective you can be with your whole audience.

I haven’t made mention of the scam-artists, spammers and all of the other pestilence because they are just not worth any writing time.

That’s my view of it all at the moment, no doubt my opinion will change again at some point, and probably soon. That’s OK, I’ll just write something else, then.

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You might be feeling formidable, but have you left the gates open?

It’s been a busy couple of weeks away from the blog, although I’ve managed to get a couple of posts out. I’ve been itching to get back into writing a bit more. It’s strange how taking a break or slowing down a bit can give you the impetus to start afresh. A kind of mind-clearing-abstention.

So, there we were at the bar the other night. Several of the guys had been out and played a round of golf, unfortunately I couldn’t make it due to work commitments.

One of the guys was talking about how to ruin a great round, and more to the point, how his ego had got in front of him and he couldn’t find the route back to sanity in the remaining duration of his round.

I found this a particularly interesting insight. I was compelled to question him why he thought it was that he’d got himself in a mess and apparently ruined what was looking like it was going to be his best round in a couple of years, resulting in an average round.

Here’s what we observed and argued, we might be way off the mark with this, but like I said, this is just our own conclusions – please feel free to comment yours below.

Self-propelled Golf

We all know how important it is to start off a round with the right mindset. It is typical that our best rounds always started off looking like they were going to be our best rounds, everything felt right from the first tee shot.

Good rounds don’t often creep up on you, for an amateur they normally start with that first smack down the middle, landing right where your mind’s eye was looking to land the ball.

From there it’s kind of into auto-pilot mode isn’t it? I have to say that when we were discussing this, that phrase jumped out at me, for me I found it so true. Things just go into auto-pilot like you’ve got the formula already cracked and you just get on with it. Hardly stopping to think about anything until a couple of things appear out of the blue.

Who left open the gates to Troy?

Formidable fortresses mould formidable adversaries. The mind can work like this too. You think you’ve got it all under control, like you’re the king on top of the hill. Then all of a sudden someone catapults a disease infested cow over the wall and panic breaks out.

Worse still you’ve unwittingly left open the gates to the fortress, and parked outside are a thousand evil emotions hiding in a massive wooden horse just begging for an opportunity to come and get at you.

Things looked all fine and dandy while the gates were still locked, you were happily going about your business and enjoying every swing with a spring in your step. I’ve always said that people on top of their game have an aura about them. You can sometimes tell who’s winning even when they are in another group, it’s that extra special quiet and attention they get, when everyone is keenly observing their every move.

But, in the same way, we’ve all seen the ramparts crumble and fall to earth from everyone we’ve watched. Just look at Tiger Woods recent performances, his completely lacklustre performance at Augusta this year was awful. He played like he just didn’t care at all, and I think that his problem there was exactly this problem here.

Expectation is the inertia of spectacular

I was beating my brain senseless trying to think of a phrase or word that describes this situation:

Why your head goes when your personal expectation gets in front of your capability. This could be called progressive ego, the better you play the more ambitious you get – then bang – you’re back down to earth.

Finally I conceded that I couldn’t get a word that fitted just nicely, so Expectacular seemed to fit what I was thinking about. Like Gez was saying to me at the bar, “I was trying to hit shots I haven’t got”.

Now why would someone do this, when they are probably hitting 90% plus effectiveness of their capable game and getting a result, why is it then we often swap this, in the middle of a round, for 10% effectiveness trying to hit shots we don’t have? I’m guilty of this too, but perhaps to a lesser extent than Gez who is just a basic golfer, but loves the game equally as much as the rest of us.

When we expect ourselves to a higher level of performance than we are capable of, which is common ambition and nothing wrong with that, we forget to take the parachute with us when we ascend to those dizzy heights. The parachute being the contingency plan, the fall-back plan, the emergency hand-book, you know what I’m talking about.

Don’t think about RED

When we are playing in auto-pilot mode, do we really think about what will happen if it goes wrong, if the wheels fall off the bus? I don’t think many of us do. After all, who wants to think about stuff going wrong when right now it’s all going so right? During the course of the conversation I think I came to understand that this is perhaps the difference between being an amateur, or an accomplished amateur and being a professional.

Active non-thinking I could maybe term this as. There might be a scientific name for it? An ability to have a plan in the back of the mind that you are not consciously thinking about but at the same time you are making consideration of it, albeit unconsciously. I know someone who will tell me if this is true, I’m not going to say who it is, nor to them, but when they tell me the answer I’ll post it in a footnote to this paragraph.

It’s terribly difficult to not think about something. If you look at the sub-heading to this paragraph, you can’t tell me that you didn’t actually think about Red, you did think about Red. So how do you not think about contingency plans in a negative frame of mind, do you frame them as positive plans? Maybe if you think about contingency just as an alternative plan, rather than being a plan for correcting something that went wrong, maybe?

So why does it go wrong when it was looking so right?

I think that as amateur golfers we tend to block out negativity completely until the point that it has washed over us like an unstoppable Tsunami, and we’ve lost all control and simply surrendered to it. When you are much more accomplished at golf, I believe that it is possible to have contingency plans and not to necessarily view contingency as negative.

It’s my belief, although I accept like I said in the beginning  that I could be way off with this one, that we don’t have a mental parachute to break the fall. Instead we think that nothing will go wrong, so we take the net away altogether and choose to smash into the ground if it actually does go wrong.

As amateurs we don’t have those Positive Negativity skills that means we can quickly recover and adjust our game plan on the fly to compensate those errors. Instead the errors just embellish in the mind, and just like a Tsunami, each after-shock brings fresh waves of disaster.

The safe option is to always try to play within your capability, enhance what you have already as a first choice. Then when you decide to acquire new golf skills, do it as a totally separate project, tell yourself and possibly everyone else that you are trying something different today when you turn up for a round.

I’m certainly going to think about how to have a fall-back plan in the future, this will be a new skill for me, a new addition to my growing collection of mental skills. I am certainly becoming more aware of how the subconscious mind is just as powerful as the conscious one, if not more so.

How do you cope when the disease infested cow comes over the wall? Let us know in the comments below.

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It's coming like it or not -- How you gonna cope with that then?

In life we practice one thing above all others on a daily basis: Coping.

The cycle of coping is a natural human process, how good you are at coping with anything/everything determines the kind of person you are.

At one end of the scale we have worriers, the people that can fall into a barrel of money and then worry about how they’ll find time to spend it. At the other end of the spectrum you have the horizontal people, the ones that wake up in a house fire and go to the cupboard for marshmallows to toast.

I’m sure the 80/20 rule applies here. 20% of people fall into the categories above whilst the rest of us are in the 80%. We tend to be a little more pragmatic about coping, we have a coping strategy, each of us has a different strategy and some us aren’t aware that we have one, but we do.

How do you cope with the emotional rollercoaster?

When we build a coping strategy, consciously or unconsciously, we all go through a process which has been described to me as the emotional-learning-curve.

This curve is an inverted bell shape, at the beginning we fall into the steep decline of the bell as we don’t cope, we scramble and search for a way to survive/cope. Eventually we reach rock-bottom, we stop digging a bigger hole and thought prevails which aids us in seeing a way forward – this inkling of  a way forward is the start of our coping strategy.

We then start to apply our coping strategy and eventually we work our way up the other side of the bell back to normality. Obviously this is a very cut-down version of the events, but you can research how well you cope by reading some other articles on the web. This article is a particular favourite of mine, which is an excellent article on coping.

I took most of this extract from Leadership studies that I have been involved with for a number of years now. I have seen so many comparisons to the way that leaders cope with groups in the same way that we try to cope with ourselves. Coping strategies are also often referred to as Emotional Intelligence, or more accurately I should say the way in which we develop them through self awareness.

I have come to firmly believe that it is not just raw talent and application to your remit that separates winners from participants, but an overarching and very significant aspect of being a winner is having brilliant coping strategies and also being able to cook-up new coping strategies on the fly.

Here comes the curve-ball

When your golf game throws you curve ball what do you do?

Do you see it coming and and nip-it-in-the-bud before it takes over. I could be referring to any mental or mechanical aspect of your game. However, notably, it is more often than not the case that you will tackle the mechanical aspects head-on. This is what I have always done myself, tackled the apparent and physical aspects and buried the subconscious.

I’ll bet that most of you take the same line. I’m not qualified to reason why this is, but clearly there is something in the human make-up that drives us to be more physically oriented, and less keen to tackle mental issues.

For me personally, I always subconsciously thought that having a mental problem was a real weakness, and that anything mechanical was just a temporary glitch that could be fixed. Mental things, oh no, you steered clear of those in case it made you realise you’re mad or have a cute feminine side, unless you are a lass with a mental problem then it might bring out your macho side – whatever.

This is a coping fail. It is the putting the problem under the rug, burying your head in the sand – you know all the sayings.

What winners do

Winners catch the curve the ball every time. They catch it with a full-on commitment, think about it for a moment and then launch it back from where it came, with venom.

When you don’t catch a curve ball, this is metaphor for a mental problem, then the ball just goes into orbit and eventually comes back round to you again. Only next time it’s gathered some more space-dust and more momentum, and the next time it passes your way it’s suddenly become bigger, meaner and a lot harder to catch.

The momentum of the ball is now so great that when you do eventually find a coping strategy and try to catch the ball it will likely take you back two or three steps, which then means that you need to make progress just to get back to your initial standing point.

Naturally, winners didn’t need to take those two or three backward steps and now they are three steps in front of you without anything more than mentally being tough enough to face that curve ball head-on the first time it came into their personal space.

Listen to yourself, observe yourself

You may need to have some spark of interest in philosophy, in any shape or form, to really be able to gain an understanding of yourself. Of course, I was as blind to self observation as the next man until during my reading travels I came across David Hume, several years ago now.

Even though his writings are several hundred years old now, he managed to captivate me with his experiments in self-awareness and self-observation, indeed he took this to a level perhaps too far and ended up having a breakdown because he could not break out of the loop of trying to observe himself, as a witness to his own life. Clearly none of us need to go anywhere near as far as that.

But, when you do take note of ways you tackled something with a strong mentality and it had a degree of success, you should make a positive log of this in your conscious mind. Don’t lose it to the fog of unconsciousness, be self observant and make mental markers of all positive things you have success with. Remember, mediocrity is the best friend of obscurity, so don’t obscure your successes.

You can call on this positive strand of strategy time and time again to tackle other problems, and use it to catch other curve balls. This is what a coping strategy is, it’s that solution to a problem that you have written and placed on a shelf in a known location of the mind, a location that you know, a location that you can simply reach out and grab the solution whilst the curve ball is still in the air and spinning its way toward you.

When you make the catch, you’ll already know where you are going to throw the ball back to, how hard and how high. You are now in front, watching others procrastinate, fumble and invite inertia behind you.

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Danger! - Men Playing Friendly Round

I’m only talking for us childish men today, I’m not sure if the ladies go about social golf in the same way that men do? I would certainly love to hear about it if you ladies know some good old tricks for winning against your friends. Do ladies play for bets against their friends during a social round of golf?

I know for sure that us men do, and it’s such a laugh at times and adds that extra bit of competition to the mix that us men need, to be able to polish our self esteem, buff our ego’s to a shine and let us fan our tail feathers out in the clubhouse bar – sound familiar? then read on…

How do you like to win?

Are you the kind of competitor that wants to win everything based on raw talent or are you content to win at any cost?

Here we’ll take a light-hearted look at ways to beat your mates when you’re playing for a few quid on your local course. If you’ve got a silent-assassin method of winning that you use then let us hear about it in the comments. If we’re lucky, we’ll end up with the amateur golfer’s back-catalogue of ways to beat anybody on the snide.

Moral competitors get the Murray Mint

If you’re looking to make a mint from your weekend bets between mates then you’ll want to make sure your mint can be spent at the bar at the end of the day, not sucked like a Murray Mint, which makes you a sucker, doesn’t it?

When you are playing for a bit of a laugh and a few quid, we all know that there really is no genuine laugh going on at all. If you are competitive, like me, then you’ll appreciate where I’m coming from. If you don’t get where I’m coming, what are you doing on Saturday morning? Bring your piggy-bank.

Split-personality competitors are winners

During a weekend quid-in round of golf I’m a totally different competitor to the other me that enters into our Society competitions.

When I’m playing for real jingles then the gloves are off. It’s also a good excercise in ways to play with people’s heads. You would not believe how easy that can be sometimes, just the quietest of comments made at the right time with no drama can stick like jam to army blanket.

Now I’m not saying throw out the rule book of etiquette - I’m just saying throw 90% 50% of it out.

Maybe you’re the full-on hypnotist type who likes to put his mates into a trance before going out for a few holes? If you’ve got a good tactic for winning then tell us all here.

So how can you do it, how do you win dirty?

Let me say firstly that if your mates are anything like mine, then there’s no love lost as soon as a coin or a note enters the fray. It’s at that precise point, that little moment, when someone says “are we having a quid on it?” that you get the real enjoyment of a few hours between men at war, in a jovial way of course (yeah right!).

To win the head games you’ve got to be strong minded yourself. I like to throw in a few negative food for thought comments in the carpark or in the changing rooms as we’re getting ready. Maybe even over a cup of coffee and a bacon sarnie before we go out to the tee. You’ve got to start early with negative seeds to give them a chance to grow before the tee.

Little innocent comments that you put across as totally genuine in normal discussion. Like: “I noticed you pushing a few more off the tee than you usually do last week, have you been up the range during the week to work on it?” Some of your mates will come back with something profane but the poddlers won’t, you can take advantage of that. Isn’t friendship wonderful heh heh!

On the practice green, little comments about the speed of their putts, or a classic one I love to use is “I noticed you’ve changed your putting grip, is it working for you?” When I know damn well they haven’t changed anything at all – it just gets the mind engine chugging. You can repeat this out on the course later, when you say “I wouldn’t change my putting grip during a bet, you want to stick to your normal grip..”

The Politicians have got nothing on us, here is your list of evil spells:

Oh I love all of these, there are so many that I think I might struggle to get them all in here, so I’ll throw a few out in a list below.

• I used to have a pair of those golf shoes but I noticed they rubbed my ankles a bit, especially when I turned through the ball – have you noticed it yourself (point to an area where your shoes would rub, and say “just here”). I guarantee they’ll think about it on the next shot.
• If someone asks you for a yardage when you’re playing for money, then you can be economical with the truth. If you’re 120 yards out from the green, say “about a hundred yards” – when they fly over the green, you say, “I said hundred yards from that tree” (or whatever landmark is twenty yards in front).
• If one of your mates uses the same ball as you, and you don’t mind using another ball for the round, then you can say before you start “changed my ball, I just couldn’t get consistent yardage or putting with those “[whatever your ball was]“. And make sure you say how much better your new balls are.
• If someone is wearing a pullover, it’s good to ask them: “Doesn’t that jumper get in your way when you’re swinging? It looks like it doesn’t fit you too well.. Great mind tactic, and especially when they’ve pulled a shanker out of nowhere.
• “Have you brought everything you own today?, that bag looks very heavy..”
• Constantly talk about the fact you need to go pee, even when you don’t need to. If your opponent does need a pee – keep a bottle of water in your hand until they’ve been.
• Think ahead and make mention of a particularly bad shot your opponent played on the upcoming hole while your walking the hole you’re on. Something like “remember when you nearly killed that bloke off the next tee a few weeks ago”, or anything that gets them thinking about the next hole before you’ve finished this one. This one works a treat when it’s actually not the next hole but the one after – and they’ll tell you back “no it was the one after” – then you’ve got ‘em.
• Make sure you’ve got plenty of zips on your bag, there’s nothing like a zip going up and down to put someone off.
• Talk about the golf on TV, but talk about the shots that went wrong, as in, did you see [whoever] keep doing [whatever].
• If someone lands in the bunker, then you say “I think it’s plugged, I can’t see it” it doesn’t matter if it hasn’t in reality, it’s just good to get the emotional roller-coaster zipping up and down.
• Before and during your game, continually use the word “three” in combination with “green” and “putting”. It gets the mind secretly thinking about three putts.
• You shouldn’t really mention the “Yips” unless you’re feeling particularly evil on the day, or losing badly.
• Keep telling your opponent how tired they look, keep asking them: Do you feel ok? You look a bit peeky.
• Of course you can’t beat the constant sarcasm and childish barracking that only fully grown men are capable of. You can insert your own big list in here, but tell us what you say in the comments below.

Yes, this list could go on and on, and on and on and on, but you’ve probably got a zillion more than this that you can tell us all about. Afterall, I’m not going to give away the kitchen sink, I might end up playing you one day!

If you are prepared to take on your evil twin’s persona for a few hours, taking money off your friends playing golf is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Try it and see, but don’t forget to come back and report your experiences to us all here.

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Brilliant Joker, are you? Time to get out of character..

Sometimes you just can’t I just can’t help myself but make comparisons that don’t necessarily ride with the crowd.

I don’t know about you, but for some reason peculiar things often jump into my head and I try to make sense of them by using comparisons to every day things, and more often than not with my golf game.

In fact the more I read other blogs, which is fast becoming an obsession, the more I contextualise some of the thoughts that I have. I used to think that there was a fine line between sanity & madness, but now I realise that there’s a fine line between everything & madness – go figure.

Which brings me quite nicely to the meat of this article..

You must be mad to keep on playing golf

There’s nothing quite like a subtitle that you can read in a dozen different ways, is there? I’m not going to explain this title, you can read it however suits you best.

Everyone has to start at the bottom, Jack Nicholson was no exception to this. I’m a huge fan of Jack, his films and his personality. It was actually reading the Wikipedia bio about Jack that sparked this article, when I read that he began life as a Gofer in the film industry.

We golfers all recognise Gophers, the best golf comedy of all time, in my opinion, had a Gopher as one of the main characters. I’ll be doing  a post on that in the future also.

What I love about Jack in particular is that you never really know who the real Jack is. He’s got this magnetic persona about him that just keeps making you come back again and again, a bit like golf itself.

His dark side is also so appealing, and all amateur golfers can appreciate the dark side, when you loathe the main character in the film but deep down you love him really, and you can appreciate the talent even if it isn’t really apparent at any particular point in time.

Sound familiar? It should be, you are the main character in your movie (your golf round) and not only are you watching every scene unfold as you move from hole to hole, but, everyone else is watching you too.

Oh yes, the true critics are the observers that are outside of your glass-bomb-shelter, the one that you lock yourself up in and beat yourself senseless not realising that, because it’s a glass shelter, everyone can see you beating yourself up too. Takes a while to realise that building that glass bomb shelter was kind of pointless in the first place, because the most destructive force you know is locked-up in there with you, but you don’t often get that at first.

Critics are helpful, Self-critics are painful

Do you think that Jack listens to his own criticism and beats himself up to the point of self-destruction. No he doesn’t, what Jack does is he comes back with a sequel that shuts the mouth of every critic. Then he revels in the glory that others throw upon him because they admire the way he shrugged off the bad and worked his magic into producing something simply spectacular when the chips were down.

You can do this yourself, as an amateur golfer you are going to make your very own Mars Attacks, then you might make your own As Good As It Gets (which actually didn’t!). But, you persist, you commit and apply yourself, put the work in and possibly even take some time out.

Then, you come back with your very own Something’s Gotta Give. By the time you’ve got to that stage, naturally, something had to give but not because of fate, because of damn hard work, application and an instinctive sense of self-preservation of your esteem.

Real critics can be inspirational, often times you won’t see that and you’ll think they are bullies but they’re not. Most times they are your friends or family, guaranteed, you will be unique in what/who you perceive as a critic.

Listening to the real critics is key, you have to also listen with an open mind and an open heart. Feedback can so easily transform into savage masochistic-destruction, but the critic didn’t do that, your own internal alchemy transformed the feedback into chemical warfare.

Feedback is feedback, failure to listen and respond appropriately leads to masochistic tendencies, and I personally know this chemical formula better than most people on the planet. Nobody can beat on me the way I can myself, does this sound like you too?

Get out of the Cuckoo’s Nest

Heeeere's Johnny!

Jack’s career has spanned his entire life, he’s always worked hard being the best he can be while at the very same time remaining quite definitively Jack. This is a crucial lesson to amateur golfers too, whilst you will certainly fall in and out of love with yourself a number of times over the course of your golf adventures, you should always try to maintain that thing that makes you you.

You’ll also play many characters during the life of your game, you won’t keep any of them, and at some point you must give up playing a character and be yourself again. You’ll realise that it’s no good turning up week in and week out shouting “Heeeere’s Johnny”, when really it’s just good old Eric Smith 18 Handicapper, Wife, 2 Kids and a Mortgage.

What you then need to think about is making your own Sequel: You2.

Firestorm into Glory

When you realise that you need to get things out of your head, but into your mind, you’ll make a number of potential Oscar winners throughout your career, as an amateur. Why do you think that great leaders try to win hearts and minds, because that’s where you find the true you.

Hearts and heads is an entirely different proposition altogether. Heads are chemical laboratories where your destructive alchemy reigns supreme – Get out of your head and into your mind to make your own A Few Good Men. Be an Easy Rider,  and you can if you take your real critics along for the ride.

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Some comparisons serve to knit, rather than, contrast things

Looked at in the whole, golf is a lifestyle as much as it ever is a sport, the same goes for blogging. Blogs/Blogosphere are to Writers what Golf Clubs/Country Clubs are to Golfers, just places to hang out, socialise and show-off how well they use the respective tools of their trade. There are a lot of other comparisons too, enough comparisons to make them similar?? You choose, but in the meantime this is my assessment.

There are some basic similes that you can draw, golfers will perhaps appreciate these comparisons more than bloggers will, since it is my own estimate that more golfers are into blogs than vice versa, maybe I’m wrong on that? Personally, I’m mega into both.

Basic like-for-likenesses

• Handicap at golf = Fledgling blogger trying to get a better audience.
• Social media is a wrapper to bloggers in the same way that the clubhouse is for golfers, it’s an arena where you can self-promote and show-off, a place to get noticed.
• There is a pecking order in golf, certainly in the clubhouse, and there is certainly a pecking order in blogging.
• Golf pro’s = A list bloggers that try to help the minions get better at their game.
• Playing pro’s = A list blogger/marketers, both make money from their game, both have sponsors, etcetera.

You can draw your own comparisons furthermore.

Can a small Golf business can learn from A List Bloggers?

I wonder if those people with fringe golf businesses take cues from A list bloggers and make similar emulations for success in their own businesses? I think they certainly can do this, I am also sure that this works for a multitude of other sport-to-business comparisons too.

It is even possible to pare this down to unique areas of recoginition, in the same way that businesses have unique selling points, fringe golf businesses could also build their business strategy by looking through the smoke at what the A listers are doing in terms of sales and marketing.

There are some similarities in professionals of both camps, each professional golfer has a particular area of their game that they are well known for, whether it is good at scrambling pars, short game, fairways in regulation, greens in regulation and so on. Big name bloggers are also known for things like, relationship building, copy writing, social media expertise, marketing. If you extrapolate these enough, you can see how closely linked they are. (yes I know it could be said for lots of other things also..)

Fringe golf businesses clearly have the added benefit that they can exist in both spheres. Undoubtedly, their captive audience is the golf clubhouse but there is a huge potential in using internet marketing, I’m sure there is a compelling idea that can stitch the two together? I don’t know that idea is, but I have a good gut for this kind of thing, and it definitely exists.

Regular Amateurs Can Also Draw Likenesses

If I had to choose a place to connect with other people it would always be in the Country Club as my first choice. Clearly, I very much enjoy both spheres, but talking hypothetically, if I had to make a choice it would be in the clubhouse, I am sure that most bloggers would perhaps choose online as that’s where their heart lies.

I would bet my house that many prominent bloggers meet up and chat about their business on the golf course, whereas amateur golfers chat about their game in blogs. I would also say that perhaps the average blogger is more blessed than an amateur golfer as they can access their world anywhere and at any time. Clearly, golfers can’t do that,  so comparisons are not totally universal.

Both spheres also have prolific amateur and professional sides to them. I think this a strong likeness, most professionals in golf come through the amateur ranks, in much the same way as professional writers come from their respective amateur ranks.

Is It Like Comparing Apples with Cheese?

It might be, I think that ultimately you can find comparisons anywhere, and any time, you look at two things – if you can abstract things enough. For me personally I feel like I’m in kind of a lucky situation, in that, I really do have the best of both worlds, and in all honesty I wouldn’t want to compare Apples with Cheese as they are a great combination together.. Anyone for a Ploughmans?

Another micro-post to see us into the weekend. This one is about golf, but perhaps not what you were expecting. I’ve just cooked up a short video with YouTube/Google’s new Search Stories Creator (see below). You’ve got to go and make one for yourself, it’s an absolute blast and takes less than 5 minutes.

If you are smart you’ll type in exact key phrases that you know your site will be somewhere near the top of the SERPS for, and even better still if you have 3 or 4 top ranking phrases. If not then you’d better blog something very abstract (or even a few titles) that you can make a story out of in 5 steps, if you’re like us Google normally crawls us every day, so by tomorrow you could have a great little storyline for your own Search Story.

Wicked fun! Hope you like it!

Was that 5 feedbacks without change, or 6, Punk?

In Britain it’s just not the done thing, well not by general consensus at least. No doubt there are a few good complainers in the realm, but they really are the exception, not the rule. This post was promised back when I wrote the Golf Course Bullies article. It’s not just for golf, it is universal.

I’ve been in sombre mood this week, so perhaps best to get all of these types of posts out in one fell swoop, so that I can efficiently repel all of my readership in one go (..just kidding).

This is quite a long post, but I feel it’s necessary because I want to convey all the information in one place without making a series out of the topic. So I’ll eat humble-pie for that now, but I’ll also watch you eat it later when you start getting results from your complaints…

I’ve spent a good deal of my working life in positions where negotiation was essential. If there is one key skill I would modestly say I possess, it would be good negotiation skills. I have negotiated almost every kind of trade bargain you can imagine, from exchanges of information to contracts worth literally hundreds of millions of pounds. In that time I have observed that negotiation is the key skill needed in complaining too. I believe that it is this missing ingredient in the British culture that makes us, as a nation that is, generally poor or reluctant complainers.

Before we begin

Just so I’m clear, I don’t believe in complaining for complaining’s sake, I also disapprove of habitual complainers – you know the ones, the grumpy people, the cantankerous types. I also prefer to tackle someone head-on about problems, but I further believe that when you don’t get a result that it is important not to just lie down and accept it. There, now that’s cleared up…

I don’t know why many people feel the need to keep accepting poor behaviour, or goods, or services et al that are below par – I mean not up to scratch – Oh, you can’t get away from golf phrases even when you try.. I mean sub-standard, unacceptable or poor value.

For clarity, I am referring to instances when you need to make a genuine complaint because you experienced something that was substandard. Generally this implies that most people in your situation would also agree with you, without hesitation, that the problem is a real one. This is in contrast to something that was ok but you just disliked it, this is not where I am coming from here.

For absolute clarity, if you are thinking of writing a letter to Richard Branson because the design of the Virgin Atlantic Cabin Crew Uniform doesn’t do it for you, then this is what I mean when I say this post isn’t for you. However, if you ordered Pizza last night at 6pm and it arrived at 9pm stone cold and all soggy – then this post might be for you.

One last point, often you will be looking for nothing more than some action from another person based on your complaint, but other times you could be looking for tangible compensation. This post doesn’t focus on either one specifically, although you may read into each of the scenarios below however suits the complaint you are thinking of making. This is because the complaint process itself is essentially the same in both cases.

Complaining changes everything

Let’s try and look at this from a logical viewpoint. I’ve often wondered why selling the argument to make a complaint is considerably more challenging than actually making the complaint itself. Complaining is clearly a cultural thing, in that the culture in which you live will shape your position on complaining, and also your propensity to do it.

It is so ingrained in the psyche of Brit’s not to complain, to the point that when you know you must complain – it feels totally unnatural.

You need to look at the problem in reverse sometimes. Look at the probability that by not complaining you are effectively giving positive feedback, even when you literally gave no feedback at all.

Why? because everybody operates according to a set of standards, whether these are written standards or just personal standards. People need a reason to change their standards, this applies to either kind, written or otherwise.

If you don’t give feedback then that process which requires someone to step back and take a look at their standards never gets triggered. Therefore, even though you said nothing, you actually gave feedback that their standards are acceptable.

What triggers a complaint

Let’s try and make a likeness to your golf game. When you know that something isn’t quite good enough you take yourself off to the course, or the driving range or even your Golf Pro and you try to enhance that thing that isn’t quite making the mark.

Something triggered you to go off and make an improvement. Sometimes you do this absolutely begrudgingly, because it means that you need to work on an aspect of your game that you don’t particularly enjoy, for me this would be bunker shots. Essentially it is the same thing as a complaint, complaints are just triggers that mobilise people into making a change for the better and you are just the trigger-puller.

Always have mutual respect

I think that a lot of people believe the only way to complain is to stand and bawl at someone. Well, in fact that is the best way to not invoke any change at all, because it’s the fastest way to lose the argument. Sure you get noticed, but you don’t get respected, and that’s a big part of effective complaining – observing mutual respect.

Mutual respect during a complaint is the difference that makes someone either change for the better, or simply offer you compensation and then carry on as normal. The same reason that when people who don’t voluntarily make a change based on regular feedback that that feedback then evolves into complaints. The unfortunate thing is that too many people would rather continue compensating than making changes.. go figure.

When respect is not mutual

Now, having said that, if you’ve taken the respectful line and made a complaint more than once without any change, then it probably is time to up the ante.

But, this still doesn’t mean shouting and screaming. That doesn’t get anybody anywhere quick. Yes it will work, and most often times probably effectively too, but it can’t last, because you become known as the person that is never satisfied at any cost, at which point you are not just making a complaint, you are becoming the problem yourself.

When you become the problem, people switch off to your needs, and sometimes quite rightly. Never make yourself bigger than the problem you are trying to address because this just gives others ammunition. You are giving people open rights to come back with that phrase: ‘Yes, but’.

Using elevation

When you don’t get a response after having taken the respectful line then it’s perhaps time to use elevation.

Elevation is a process that you use all the time but perhaps not consciously, kids are particularly good at using elevation. It is the process of going over someone’s head, taking the problem to a higher authority, not lying down … is it sinking in?

Elevation bodies exist all over the place to a greater or lesser degree, some examples are:

• Watchdog, the TV program that elevates consumer complaints on a public platform
• The Grievance procedure in your workplace is an elevation process
• Newspapers to a certain extent are used as elevators

This list could be endless, but I’m sure that you get the point. These are mediums that people employ when they don’t get the result that they were looking for during the normal process. Ultimately, the pinnacle of elevation is a Court of Law.

The best example of elevation that I have seen in recent years was when Jamie Oliver (the Chef) went all the way to 10 Downing Street and Tony Blair to pursue a change in the School Meals program. The man went through all the levels of local and national government to pursue his belief that kids were being given food that was grossly below par, and it was.

Understand the landscape

When you need to make a complaint, before you actually put anything into practice, before you’ve uttered a word or written a sentence, research the hierarchy of who you are complaining to. This is also important in terms of knowing who the decision makers are, it is no good complaining to a mannequin, you must complain to the Taylor.

Knowing this will give you a far better chance of success at the ground level at the first attempt. Your complaint should include this knowledge to demonstrate to the person/organisation that you are, firstly, aware of the structure, but more importantly to indicate to them where you will be going next if you don’t get the result you are seeking. You are not being aggressive, you are being factual.

By openly stating your elevation process up front you will significantly increase your chances of success.

Clearly you can apply this whole philosophy to many other scenarios in life, not just limiting it to Golf and Country Clubs. You could use it to complain to a restaurant, a bank, a shoe shop, a department store… this list is endless.

When you state your elevation intentions it is the the single most important piece of feedback you can give, and before you have even started to verbalise your actual complaint.

What would it sound like in reality? Probably something like this:

Verbal complaint

• “Before I speak with the Manager I wish to…”
• “Before I write to Head Office I want to…”
• “I am prepared to approach the Authorities with this, but first I would like to give you the opportunity…”

Written complaint

• Failure to address my issues in full will lead to me writing to the following Authorites: {list the authorities, the department and their addresses}. Dear Sir or Madam, — then start writing the letter. See an example complaint letter in this style.
• Carbon Copy this letter (today’s date): The Club Secretary | Carbon Copy the next letter (the date in 3-5 days time): The Club Secretary, The Chairman, The Representative of the Shareholders. Dear Sir, — write your letter. See an example complaint letter in this style.
• At the time of opening this letter I have a number of other letters awaiting despatch to the following people/organisations: {list the people/organisations}. I would like you to respond to concerns by {give a date}, after which I will despatch the aforementioned other letters on {give a date} if the problem is not resolved to my satisfaction. See an example complaint letter in this style.

I have purposely chosen quite strong scenarios with these examples, but you can back them off for certain situations, you want to aim at being firm rather than aggressive.

Also, don’t make your elevator statement sound like bribery, this is a fatal mistake. Unless you have a very specific requirement from the resolution you are looking for, then always allow the other party to make the proposals. When framing a complaint always remember that proposals beat arguments/demands all ways down. You will often find that you will be offered more than than you originally wanted by allowing others some rope.

Making demands can work against you, sometimes

When you make a well framed complaint, you often do not need to make demands. People that make demands do so because they have not given good enough feedback in the first instance, or maybe they cannot properly articulate their needs, and so it’s their way upping the ante. This is often not effective because the compensator will comply directly with your request or maybe will try and negotiate your demands, whereas conversely they will often go far in excess of your unstated demands if left to their own devices.

Remember, you can go back and continue the complaint process if you are not satisfied. I have always believed that good conversations start with the word ‘No’, and also that ‘Yes’ is often the end of a conversation. By stating your demands too specifically, you are signalling what it will take to make you say ‘Yes’. As I said earlier, if your needs are very specific then this is fine, but normally you should let others make the proposals.

Allowing others to make proposals also encourages communication, if they really care about your concerns and your needs they will try to get you to deeply convey the full problem and engage you in a solution. Wouldn’t that really make you feel more satisfied? I know it would for me.

See through the barriers

When companies that have very stringent complaint processes offer you to go through a fixed process you have three choices.

• Comply
• Deny
• Elevate

Let me expand these choices:

• Comply – You can be compliant if you wish, if the company has its own elevation process contained within their complaints procedure then maybe it will work out. Personally, I never go this route.
• Deny – You can state that you do not recognise the complaint process, but often you will need to show you were willing to at least try your hand. You can deprive yourself of credibility by not following process to a certain extent, however, this doesn’t mean that you cannot later elevate, you must elevate if you don’t get the result you wanted.
• Elevate – Offer to go through the process conditionally. Here is where you go through their process on your terms. This is critical. Nobody has the right to tell you HOW and TO WHO you can complain nor when a complaint is finished. The complaint is finished WHEN YOU DECIDE.

Big companies often put up huge barriers, passing you from pillar to post before you get the right person. Bad companies do this by design, this is a perfect example of when you should use elevation.

However, some good companies have been forced to introduce these procedures because inevitably some consumers/customers just take liberties, that’s just life, so accept it – big company barriers are here to stay.

I often see this front end barrier being a direct result of poor policy. I used to work at Sainsbury’s when I was at College, many many years ago, and they used to have a policy that: ‘The customer is always right’.

Now, 99.99% of people that came into the store never took advantage of this policy, but 0.01% did, and they suddenly setup a ‘Customer Service Desk’ just for those 0.01% of people so that the headline makers were kept away from the rest of the normal customers – I suppose so that it didn’t rub off. Imagine all that waste in resources just to keep 0.01% of customers happy. Nowadays you see Customer Help Desks everywhere, it’s become the norm, and perhaps for different reasons today. It grieves me to see waste on that scale but I also accept that in modern life it is necessary, not least for brand protection.

You see, you have to sometimes look at things from both sides, which brings me to the next section..

Compromise, on your terms

When you make a sensible complaint, you should expect a sensible resolution.

This also means that you should sometimes look at your complaint from the other side, that is just part of being reasonable. It doesn’t mean you have to accept what is being offered as a resolution, but outright stubbornness is rarely a good quality, although sometimes necessary.

If someone asks you to compromise then do so on your terms, not theirs. If you compromise and getting nothing in return then you sold yourself too cheap. Compromise is tangible, therefore you should expect something tangible in return. This is the point when you are entering into negotiation, but you should also bear in mind that the other party are, by this stage, acutely aware of your needs and wishes.

Remember that framing your whole complaint is on the basis of being firm and factual, not unreasonable. You can test yourself by asking which of these phrases sums up what you are actually saying to the party you are complaining to:

• “If you, then I”
• “Do this or else” – this is a threat, not a complaint.

A lot of people struggle to grasp the difference, but there is a stark difference in these two approaches. Whenever anyone asks you to compromise or negotiate anything, you should always start your answer with “If you {something}, then I {something else}” this is a fundamental, no, it is the fundamental thing to do when anyone asks you to compromise, this is your counter-proposal, and it is on your terms.

It makes it absolutely conditional when you say “If you” first. Never start a response with “I will if” because this signals that you are prepared to compromise before making any conditions and there is a big psychological difference in these two small statements.

It is also the reason that you should consider what it really is that you want from the complaint process. If you don’t know this yourself then how can you convey it to others? Tip: Write it down at the beginning.

Example

As a far fetched example, your broadband supplier left you without a service for a week because the router malfunctioned. You contacted them within an hour of it breaking down and was then left for a week with no internet access. They then apologise, offer to send you a new router and assure you of their best attention at all times.

The offering their “best attention at all times” is them really asking you not to ask for a refund for the downtime you incurred, they are asking you to compromise. This is the time to get your “If you, then I” out and use it.

I would reply thus:

Thank you for your proposal to send me a new router. I can now offer you my response.  If you send to me a new router by first class courier priority mail, and reimburse me for the duration of downtime and include a one month trial of your super-fast broadband at no additional cost. Then I will consider this matter closed and will have no hesitation in continuing with you as my service provider, I understand that my contract is due for renewal soon.

I am signalling something of value to them, my renewal, but it is clearly conditional on them giving me something first. It must always always always be this way around – If you, then I. I am also not being over the top with my counter-proposal. Giving me a month of high speed broadband doesn’t really cost them anything and there’s a chance I could sign-up for it.

Don’t forget that this is a very over-simplified example just to try and make the point…

You may say that there is a demand in the reply, and it’s true there is, but this was in response to their original proposal which did not meet my needs.

If you found this post useful, I am thinking of writing a companion post which would be more focussed on negotiation. This is something that I have a lot of experience with on many levels. If you would like to see that post then let me know.

I hope this works for you, and please try to complain when you need to. Remember, you are really only pulling the trigger of change.