The story of my challenge including all the highs and lows and “head in the hands” moments is in final negotiation with two publishers at the moment and should be available for sale by Spring of next year.
To whet your appetite (hopefully!) I have produced the first three chapters below. Please leave me a comment if you enjoy them.
“Dream On”
The Challenge to Break Par in a Year
by
John Richardson
‘Dream on’ – Sam Torrance
‘Three years would be a realistic minimum’ – Darren Clarke
[80,208 words]
CONTENTS
Dream On
Chapter 2 – Procrastination
Chapter 3 – We’re off!
Chapter 4 – A taste of reality
Chapter 6 – The graft begins
Chapter 7 – Obsession and some harsh realities
Chapter 8 – Settling into a rhythm
Chapter 9 – “Dick”
Chapter 10 – The relentless march of technology and golf
Chapter 11 – Three control rounds to get my handicap
Chapter 12 – Taking stock
Chapter 13 – The mental game
Chapter 14 – Winter closes in
Chapter 15 – Christmas and the naysayers start ganging up on poor wee Johnnie
Chapter 16 – Breakthrough number two
Chapter 17 – Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals
Chapter 18 – The “Harrington” moment
Chapter 19 – A virtual boot up the arse
Chapter 20 – Martin Sheen and Guilt
Chapter 21 – Dreams have repercussions
Chapter 22 – The power of possibilities
Chapter 23 – Knights in shining armour
Chapter 24 – The week off work and some big decisions
Chapter 25 – The final stretch
Chapter 26 – Lobster and Champagne
Chapter 27 – What was it all about?
“Somehow I can’t believe there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C’s. They are Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, and Constancy and the greatest of these is Confidence. When you believe a thing, believe it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably.”
Walt Disney
Dream On
Stuart stood quietly and waited for his moment. It had been a long and exhilarating day. He had played a full round of golf at the legendary Royal County Down course, just outside Belfast, frequently voted one of the top five courses in the world. It was a corporate event and Stuart had been lucky enough to be paired with and entertained by local television presenter and golf enthusiast, Gerry Kelly. But that hadn’t been the main highlight. The big high point of the day had been the chance to play the par three tenth hole with Ryder Cup star and all round golfing hero, Sam Torrance. Sam had, needless to say, played the hole effortlessly but nerves had got the better of Stuart and he managed to embarrassingly “top” the ball down the fairway. Thankfully a great pitch and a long holed putt had saved par and he was left with some great but all too brief memories of playing with one of Scotland’s greatest golfers.
Back in the clubhouse his face was burning slightly from the sun and wind. The two pints of Guinness he had just consumed probably enhanced his glow. But he had to stay focused. He was on a mission. He needed to speak to Sam again but didn’t want to appear a pest. The speeches were over and Sam had entertained the audience with some brilliant and hilariously frank opinions on all things golfing. But now he was sitting at the bar. He probably just wanted to relax, but was surrounded by golfers eager for a chat. Stuart hovered, slightly nervous, aware that Sam was, in all likelihood, fed up being pestered. The last thing he probably wanted to do now was answer more questions, particularly somewhat ludicrous and hypothetical questions, like the one that Stuart was about to ask him.
Gradually the people who had been talking to Sam drifted off. Suddenly there he was, alone at the bar contentedly sipping his drink with the satisfaction of a day’s work well done. This was Stuart’s moment. He approached the bar with a certain sense of trepidation. Sam Torrance did not have a reputation for suffering fools gladly and at the back of Stuart’s mind he wondered if he was a fool for doing this.
“Sam, do you mind if I ask you a quick question?” he blurted out as calmly as possible.
Sam smiled enigmatically and replied “sure, fire away. How can I help you?”
“Well, it’s a slightly odd situation really. I have a friend, a guy called John, who is undertaking a golf challenge. He has a full time job and a wife and child and he’s trying to shoot a level par round or better within a year.”
Sam raised an eyebrow quizzically prompting Stuart to continue.
“The only thing is he’s really just a hacker now. When he started this challenge he couldn’t break 100. So he’s trying to take 33 strokes off his game in one year and he asked me to see what you opinion was.”
Sam laughed and slowly contemplated the question. “Well, you can tell him from me to ‘Dream On’.”
Stuart laughed. “Superb, I can’t say fairer than that. Can he quote you on that?”
“Oh yes, absolutely.”
“Thank you very much. I’ll not take up any more of your time.”
Stuart moved away and smiled as some other golfers started crowding round Sam again hoping for more tales of how we thrashed the Americans in the Ryder Cup. It was a perfect answer. If he was honest it was exactly how he had felt about this challenge to begin with. But he’d known John a long time and had witnessed a few of his ‘daft’ ideas before. Some of them had worked, and some hadn’t. He’d seen him start up businesses which had been extremely successful, but he’d also watched, bewildered, as his friend had created other enterprises that had been the equivalent of burning twenty pound notes.
This was different though. This was a sporting challenge and, as a keen golfer himself, Stuart wanted to go along for the ride. He’d watched John’s progress in the first few months and was starting to feel that, despite what Sam had just said, maybe, just maybe, with a following wind and every other available cliché acting in his favour, there might be a chance he would pull it off…
Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.
Goethe
Chapter 1
An idea and a dream
“Tony?”
“Yes, John.”
“How quickly did Mark McMurray get down to scratch?”
“Well, I think he had played a little before as a teenager but when he started again a couple of years ago his first handicap was 17. Within 18 months he had shot a 67 and was playing off 4.”
“Bloody Hell! That is totally unheard of, isn’t it? I mean how many other people have you seen do that type of thing?”
“Absolutely none. Not even close. But don’t forget, Mark was an exceptional basketball player. He could have gone to the States and played professionally. He understood the discipline required to get better and, probably more importantly, the psychology of sport. And he had a very obvious natural talent from day one.”
“Yeah – but it’s still a great story, isn’t it? It’s a great example of what can be done if you really work at it. It would be fascinating to see if you could take somebody else through a specific process and get that type of improvement. Take a complete beginner and from scratch turn them into a scratch player within a year. From scratch to scratch. Now that would be a great story.”
“Not possible. The way the handicap system works you just couldn’t do it in that time frame.”
“Okay. Well, how about this: a beginner golfer or at least a proper hacker, say a real 24 handicapper, turns into a golfer who can shoot par within a year. Ignore handicaps; he or she just has to shoot one par round within the year. Is that possible?”
“Well, it’s certainly an interesting idea. It would have to be somebody with time on their hands. Maybe somebody who doesn’t work and had excelled at some other sport beforehand. A trust fund guy would be good.”
“But that’s unrepresentative of most golfers. Ideally it would be somebody in the same position as a normal club golfer – you know, with a job and family.”
“Yeah sure, but that makes it a whole lot harder. They’d need to be really committed, as I reckon they would need to dedicate at least 15 hours a week to the project.”
“But there must be another Mark out there somewhere …”
And so it began. A simple conversation at work like so many simple conversations every day in so many offices, bars or coffee shops around the world. You could substitute almost any sport or hobby, but on that particular day it was about golf. Tony White was the golf professional at Blackwood Golf Centre just outside Bangor in County Down, and at that stage I had the catering franchise for the bar. We shared an office and this was just another random fantasy to avoid doing any work, sparked by the exceptional golfing prowess of Mark McMurray, our mutual friend. Mark had since gone on to achieve great success as an amateur golfer and held the course record at one local club.
At this stage I really had no interest in playing golf myself. I had played a lot as a teenager, but now, in my late twenties, I had very little spare time. I was heavily involved in a variety of food businesses, apart from the golf club bar, including a restaurant and a fish and chip shop. I was striving, with a fair amount of hiccups, to make my millions but was endlessly fascinated with challenges. Recently married to Lesley, who was in the process of setting up her own PR agency, we had no children as yet and a very busy social life. I still had an interest in the game, but it was something I imagined I would take up again some time in the future – when I was older and had my millions safely stashed away.
So, like many conversations of this type, the notion remained an idle fantasy. Then Tony emigrated to Australia and I soon forgot about it.
And yet … the concept kept drifting around at the back of my head. About five years later I brought it up again. This time I was having a chat with Debbie Hanna, the PGA pro who had replaced Tony at Blackwood. I asked her what she thought about the idea. She was cautiously positive. She too was interested in the notion of the “challenge”, and also felt it could be useful PR for the golf centre if we succeeded.
“I might just do it myself when I get older and have more time,” I joked.
It was a throwaway remark, but again the idea began to fester in my brain.
Until the age of sixteen I had grown up on the north coast of Northern Ireland in a little town called Portstewart. Portstewart has two golf courses and a strong golf culture for children. I’d got the “golfing bug” and even got my handicap down as low as 15 when I was fifteen (albeit based on playing a very easy par 64 course).
When I first started, playing golf was simply a way for my mum to get me and my brother out of the house during the summer and to stop us fighting. These days, we read amazing stories about Tiger’s dedication to practice and know how intensely he worked at his game when he was only ten or eleven. Messing about at golf for Tiger involved learning amazing golf tricks like how to keep the ball up using his sandwedge and hitting the ball like it was a baseball.
Messing about at golf for me and my friends at this age, however, was an altogether more juvenile pursuit. We would play the first 10 or so holes of the course and then jump off into one of the adjoining cow fields to play a game of “KooPaa”. “KooPaa” was not, in hindsight, my finest hour. It involved walking through the field with your friends looking for cow pats that were of a certain age and consistency. The perfect cow pat had a hard crusty skin that your shoe couldn’t break through (no golf shoes for us – that was for the dedicated kids) but was still nice and squishy inside.
When you found a good one, you’d jump in the air shouting “KooPaa” then land on the cowpat, hoping you wouldn’t get cowdung all up your legs. With a bit of luck, your chosen cow pat would then splurt out the gooey contents all over your friends. The only warning was the “KooPaa” shout, and if you heard that fateful word you’d have to run for your life so you wouldn’t get dunged! Obviously you didn’t always make it in time. Like I say, not my finest hour, and possibly a fairly good indication of the level of dedication I had to the sport at this stage.
But then, over two glorious summers when I was fifteen and sixteen, I suddenly “got” golf. One of the original “KooPaa” gang had moved away to the bright lights of Belfast and my brother Patrick, who is a year older than me, started to lose interest in the game. For the first time I had found a sport that I was better at than him, and he didn’t enjoy being beaten by me. In his defence, I probably enjoyed the thrill of beating him a bit too much, and inevitably he drifted away from golf. But thankfully two of my best school buddies, Robert Murphy and Roy Nichol, got into golf just at that time and together the three of us started to work pretty hard at the game.
Robert, Roy and I would meet every day on the “wee course” and play one, or sometimes two rounds. We’d sit in the little clubhouse afterwards with a can of Lilt and a packet of Peanut Treats and dream. This was the glory time of Seve Ballesteros (or Steve Ballesteros as he was rather hilariously initially called in America). Seve had already won his first British Open and was taking the golfing world by storm. Like Arnold Palmer before him and Tiger Woods today, Seve was changing the face of golf and creating a whole new wave of interest in the sport. We would sit around and dream about actually getting to see this demi-god play and ponder what it would take to make it as a professional golfer. I started to buy Golf World every month with my pocket money and would sit at home driving my family nuts with fantastical commentaries on my recent success in the British Open: “We meet John at home relaxing with his parents after his recent success. This young man came from nowhere to beat the greatest in the world and win the Open at St Andrews. Even the great Spaniard himself Severiano Ballesteros was humbled by John’s amazing control…”
I would also spend time out on the course on my own, pretending I was Seve and commentating on the round in his Spanish accent. I’d comment on each shot as if a TV camera was alongside me, covering the match just like the celebrity pro-ams they used to have on television: “I heet a very good drive down the fairway, just a leetle to the right. Now I need to heet it to the righ’ han’ side of the green and let it float down. I very confident in thees type of shot.”
I remember telling my parents, and anyone else who would listen, that I wanted to become a professional golfer when I left school. The simple fact was, however, I actually wasn’t good enough. I never got any better than a fifteen handicap and there were loads of folk my age who were playing off single figure handicaps. With hindsight it was a relatively ludicrous suggestion, and today’s mentality of encouraging your kids that they can be anything they want to be didn’t really exist then. My father had wanted to be a pilot since he was a small boy, for instance, but ultimately couldn’t fulfil his dream because his eyesight wasn’t good enough. It was a classic example of how you actually can’t always be anything you want to be, because sometimes there will be a physical barrier to it. He had gone on to have a successful career in the furniture trade but there’s no doubt that his heart was always in flying and in later years he bought a glider and still uses it every weekend. My parents certainly didn’t laugh at my dream, but it was made pretty clear that achieving it was highly unlikely.
Of course it didn’t help that I had a natural disposition to always try and find the easy way out. Most teenage kids have seminal moments where they suddenly realise the value of hard graft and finally start to grow up. This didn’t happen to me until much later in life. Instead I had a seminal moment from the opposite perspective while watching a brilliant old Terry Thomas movie from the late 1950s. It was called School for Scoundrels and was based on an old Stephen Potter book. It’s a story of how a relatively naïve guy who had been dumped was schooled in all sorts of ways to win back the girl without actually doing any real hard graft himself. To me that seemed like bliss. Drifting through life as a bit of a chancer without ever having to succumb to the tedium of work. Amazing! And if I could apply that principle to my golf, well, what a solution! A sort of Terry Thomas plays the PGA tour image. I spent more time imagining how this might happen than getting out on the course and properly practising my game. No big surprise then that I didn’t really improve.
One day an excitable Robert arrived at the course and wowed us all with a brilliant idea. It was the summer of 1983. Ballesteros was coming over to the Irish Open which was being held in Dublin, about 150 miles south of Portstewart, a few weeks later. It was a relatively simple train ride down and we could stay the night in a wee Bed and Breakfast. Why didn’t we go and see him?
I could hardly wait to get home and suggest it to my parents. We were only fifteen so there was an element of concern, but with a bit of persuading they agreed. So, on a bright sunny summer morning, the three amigos boarded The Enterprise, bound for Dublin’s Connolly Street Station. We spent the whole journey high on the freedom of our first real holiday adventure without parents and passed the two hours either discussing the undisputed delights of Victoria Principle or singing a strange folk song that Robert had heard somewhere or other. Over and over and over again. And then a few more. When I think about that day, the words of the song still run round my head:
“I jumped on a bus to Dun Laoghaire
Stopping off to pick up my guitar
A drunk on the bus told me how to get rich
I was glad we weren’t going that far.”
The sight of Seve in the flesh was amazing. He was playing with Bernhard Langer who was his great European rival in those days and we were all totally star struck, absolutely in awe of the gobsmacking presence that Seve projected when he walked onto the tee. I remember looking at the size of his forearms and then glancing down at my own weedy wee teenage ones and realising that I had a LOT of growing up to do. And Seve didn’t disappoint, conquering yet another title right there in front of us! Even now, twenty-five years later, I have never been in the presence of such a powerful personality. He literally oozed control, power and magnetic charisma.
It had been a magical trip, but needless to say we totally messed up the theoretically simple return journey! We arrived at Belfast’s Central station with one easy train change to make for the last sixty miles back home. It was a simple thing to do. Take the train to Portstewart. But never underestimate the stupidity of teenage boys with minds filled with Seve Ballesteros on one side and Victoria Principle on the other. So we got on the wrong train and ended up heading somewhere we shouldn’t have been going.
Once we realised our mistake we got off at the first stop available, and after a few frantic phone calls we ended up staying at Robert’s auntie’s house in Lisburn. But none of this mattered, at least to us, anyway. We had seen Seve in the flesh. We had left Portstewart as boys but returned with a wee tiny bit of man inside each of us. Maybe, just maybe some of that Seve magic would rub off on our own games.
I continued to dream my dream and vaguely suggest that I could be a professional golfer, but anyone I mentioned it to came out with the same line: “To be a professional you’d need to be playing off scratch already.” Of course they were correct, but deep down I knew that I did have some basic ability, and if I’d had any strong sense of what my mother terms “stick-at-it-ness”, I’d have done something to try and prove them wrong.
But the teenage years are an odd time. Your priorities become about fitting in. About not appearing foolish and about being accepted. It’s a rare teenager that has the ability or drive to comfortably make a fool out of themselves and keep pursuing a goal that everyone around them says is foolish. Sadly, I wasn’t that rare teenager.
And, in my defence, nobody ever sat me down and said: “John – becoming a golf professional is very difficult, but it certainly isn’t impossible. You have a long, long way to go though. What you need to do is rush home from school every day and do your homework as fast and as well as you can, then spend the rest of the night practising. You’ll need to forget about watching TV and you’ll need to forget about playing with your mates. You’ll need to practise, practise, practise, and then practise some more. So why don’t you try that for three months and see how you get on before you make the big decision.” If they had, well, I just might have taken their advice.
Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.
Napoleon Hill
Chapter 2
Procrastination
So instead of taking action, I just let the dream drift. I stopped talking about it for fear of making a fool out of myself and continued to play just for fun. Ultimately, however, I can’t blame anyone else but myself. I was the one who never actually got off my own fat backside and really practised. I did nothing myself to see it through other than dream a lot and occasionally commentate on my fictional success.
And then, when I was sixteen, we moved to Belfast. The dream of a golf career very quickly turned into the more immediate pleasures of beer and girls. My new friends didn’t really play golf and the club I joined was all about wearing jackets and ties and making business contacts. There was a certain young girl at the club called Debbie Hanna who was better than I could ever dream of being and she wasn’t even as old as me. She was winning tournaments left, right and centre, and had more golfing talent in her little finger than I had in my entire body. A girl! It was obvious she had raw talent, so what was the point of me making any effort when I would never be that good! Of course I didn’t bother to clock the fact that she would spend nine straight hours on the range practising … This all provided a convenient excuse to ignore my dream and put golf firmly on the back boiler.
And so the years drifted by, and I went for very long periods of time without hitting a ball at all. I went to University in England to do a business and marketing degree but more importantly to continue to explore the delights of girls, beer and sitting up to 5.00 a.m. talking rubbish and putting the world to rights. When I returned to Belfast in the early nineties I set up an incredibly successful sandwich business with a close friend. We were maverick entrepreneurs (who ultimately, in an act of stunning naivety, lost their shirts) and certainly had no time for golf or stuffy old golf clubs.
My ability to shoot in the 90s quickly drifted into an inability to break 100. I lost all contact with Robert, Roy and the golf scene in general and became a typical hacker. Even sharing an office with Tony didn’t inspire me to play better golf – or more often. Embarrassed every time there was any sort of business or social function where golf was played I would bash my way around, losing balls and generally becoming enormously frustrated. I would be elated at the odd straight drive or crisply struck iron but these were always mixed in with 90 odd shots of mediocrity and tedious thrashing around in the rough. I had played enough as a child to know that golf is a vastly more enjoyable game when you are playing well. It can still be maddening, but is much less frustrating than shooting nines and tens, swearing like Gordon Ramsay, and holding everybody else up.
By the summer of 2000 I had picked myself up from the collapse of our sandwich business and was running a couple of chip shops, had a small stake in a restaurant and still held the catering franchise for the golf club. The millions had yet to arrive and we now had a beautiful baby daughter, Aimee, who seemed to have an enormously poor grasp of the need for sleep. I was very busy and playing golf more sporadically than ever. During that summer, not one of my rounds broke 100. I was so mortified that I worked very hard on a couple of occasions to try and string together a decent round only to card a score closer to 110 than 100. It was deeply humiliating and hugely frustrating.
During 2001 and 2002 I began to think more and more about the ‘challenge’ Tony and I had discussed all those years ago – of becoming a scratch golfer within a year – and the reality of doing it myself. The circumstances were far from ideal with a very busy working life, still no millions in the bank and Lesley and Aimee to think of, but I felt as if I was just putting it off endlessly. Gradually I started to formulate a more coherent plan. I was convinced that, due to the horrible weather we have here in Northern Ireland, the time to start would be October. That would provide six winter months to concentrate on developing a swing and grooving it in on the range. It would also allow me time to read up on all the theory and investigate the whole mental side of the game, which I was convinced held much of the key to success.
On course play would be pretty much out of the question on a regular basis since during the winter most courses move to temporary tees and greens. I knew from running the bar that the course was even likely to be closed for days at a stretch if it rained too hard. It’s a pretty horrible business playing golf in Ireland during the winter.
After six months of theory and grooved in range practice, I would have six full months to put all this into action on the course. It all sounded like a great theory and logically seemed to work. I felt that keeping away from the course in the early days would actually be a bonus and remove the distraction and intimidation of play until I had a repeatable swing and decent ball striking ability.
I discussed the project with the management at the golf centre and they were generous in their support. I was still friendly with the general manager of the centre and he could see that there would be great media coverage if we succeeded. I could play the course free of charge and they would also allow me free use of the range. It all seemed to be falling into place. Debbie Hanna even volunteered to coach me.
Except, I did what most people do – I “circled”. I acted like a scared hyena waiting to get the remains of the lions kill. I didn’t act at all. September came and went and came and went again and I simply didn’t get started. “The time wasn’t right”, “my work situation wasn’t right”, “I wasn’t fit enough”. Excuse after excuse piled up and of course when I’d missed my deadline of September then there was no point in starting until the next year.
I had half-heartedly intended to start in September of 2003 and again just cruised past the deadline, but this time I was mentally much closer than I had been before. I bought a couple of golf magazines and marvelled at just how much the technology seemed to have moved on. Huge titanium driver heads, “easy to hit” cavity back irons and wonder balls that seemed to be capable of going huge distances. Lob wedges, gap wedges and hybrid clubs. It just seemed that the market had gone mad! But it was fascinating and I could feel my interest in golf starting to increase.
At this stage I also started to surf Amazon searching for books. I’m an avid reader and have always believed in the power of books when there has been any problem or challenge in my life. Generally somebody somewhere will have been through a similar problem and invariably will have written a book about it.
I suffer from arthritis in my hips and about six or seven years before this it had become really bad. I had reached a stage where I was in permanent pain and was starting to develop a noticeable limp. My father had recently had his hip replaced and since I was ten years younger than he was before he had any arthritic pain at all, I felt the future looked bleak. I certainly didn’t want to be looking at hip replacements before I was forty and that seemed to be the basis of conventional treatments. So out came the alternative medicine books. I probably read ten books on natural cures for arthritis and although I didn’t follow any of them to the letter I took the common strands between all of them and created a diet for myself that I’ve pretty much stuck to religiously ever since. My hip pain, although not a thing of the past by any means, has become controllable and when they do get sore it is usually my own fault, brought on by abusing my diet, putting on weight, not getting enough sleep or drinking too much wine.
As a result of this I now have extreme confidence that I will find the answer to life’s problems in books. I love the fact that for less than ten pounds you can read a true story or piece of research that may well have the solution to your challenge.
Initially I settled on a couple of books by Bob Rotella, who had become famous as probably the pre-eminent golf psychologist. At this stage I was more interested in what was possible rather than specifics of swings and his books fitted that bill exactly. Settling down to read these I discovered a mind-boggling statistic that became a recurring theme of many of the books that I subsequently read.
Forty years ago the average handicap was 17. Today the average handicap is … 17. The vast developments in golf club and ball technology had made not one jot of difference to the average golfer. All the increased understanding of sporting psychology hasn’t made a difference. Wall to wall, twenty-four hour TV coverage on the Golf Channel hasn’t made a single difference either. Tiger, Vijay and Phil may have brought the old courses of the world to their knees with the new technology and understanding of fitness and psychology but the average golfer still appeared to be getting more and more frustrated. They are playing as badly as ever but losing vastly more expensive balls and getting caught up in this utterly preposterous merry go round of buying £300 drivers practically every year.
Rotella’s books were inspirational and I quickly read every thing else he had written. The Golf of Your Dreams particularly fascinated me at this stage. In essence it was a book about becoming a lot better at golf with some focused action. There was even a small section about getting to a scratch handicap. He felt that it wasn’t possible to get to scratch in less than two years and only then with a huge amount of work. Here was a chink of light. I wasn’t actually trying to get to scratch. I simply wanted a single par round, which was a very different thing. I was also more than happy to put the work in – that was always the point of the project. He wasn’t saying it was possible, but in my own fertile imagination I had created a possibility out of what he was saying.
Bob is a very private man and enormously hard to get hold of but I managed to e-mail Robert Cullen, his co-writer, and presented my challenge to him. He wished me well but felt that it would be a minimum of eighteen months before I could achieve the round. Again that was enough of a chink of light for me. In my naïveté eighteen and twelve were interchangeable. I’d just work harder and smarter than they expected.
The momentum continued to build. I read Timothy Gallwey’s fascinating book The Inner Game of Golf. As a tennis coach he had created a seminal book called The Inner Game of Tennis which had wide-reaching implications within many sports. A friend of mine had even been told to read a copy of it to help him with his piano practice. Gallwey was also a mediocre but keen golfer who felt that by applying these techniques to his game he could break 80 within a year. The premise wasn’t exactly the same as mine, but it was a fascinating read and close enough to again reinforce the possibility in my head.
In between all this golf reading I also read an inspirational book called It’s a Long Way from Penny Apples by an Irish entrepreneur called Bill Cullen. Bill had grown up in crushing poverty with 12 brothers and sisters in the Dublin slums. He worked enormously hard to change his situation and is now one of the wealthiest men in Ireland. This was no ego driven “you can make a fortune” motivational book though. It was a beautifully written story of overcoming the odds and making something of your life. Most importantly, the huge level of effort and his amazing work ethic made my silly little quest to play a level par round look ludicrously simple in comparison. It really struck a chord in me.
These days we feel that so much of life is hard and difficult and yet it bears no resemblance to what our recent ancestors had to put up with. Here I was wondering if I could squeeze in a few hours a week to indulge myself with golf and thinking it might be tough! What I would glamorously like to think of as a Nike “Just do it” was, more realistically, evolving into a “Get off your fat arse” moment.
The main thing about Bill’s book and his obvious attitude that appealed to me was that it involved a true story of real action. The internet and the motivational market these days are filled with people living on the breadline purporting to tell you how to be rich or slim or more successful. I find it infuriating that so many people listen to motivational gurus who have actually achieved nothing in their lives other than success in telling others how to be successful. They sell a well-delivered dream, and because it seems so plausible in a book or seminar they can get away with it. Caught up in some Nuremberg style rally of motivation these gullible individuals truly believe their lives will change. This hype lasts for a few weeks until reality bites once again. Then the next guru comes along with another “I’ll sort your life out” solution. Yet again this is a simple regurgitation of old motivational theory, a slick suit and some excellent marketing.
The internet in particular is also awash with expensive e-books from golfers who claim to have found “the secret” which they will sell to you for $47. The bizarre fact is that these books actually do sell, and sell in very large numbers. Yet the authors have actually achieved nothing. They have made no documented breakthroughs themselves, played at no decent level professionally and their only proof comes from a few friends and family style “testimonials”. All they have done is regurgitated other books with some element of Hogan’s Five Lessons thrown in somewhere and wrapped the process up in some very slick marketing copy. Bill Cullen was an honest to goodness doer. He was a breath of fresh air in an overly hyped world and his story inspired me to get out there and “do” and avoid all the relentless hype.
I continued to read a few more golf books, flick through golf magazines and watched a couple of videos. Then suddenly something in me “clicked”. It became impossible for me not to start. I had tipped myself over a precipice and didn’t feel comfortable talking or reading about it any more – I had to “do”.
This is the way I always work and I believe it’s the same for many of us. You have to keep bombarding yourself with information and ideas about a project until all of a sudden you reach a stage where you have to act. You build a tide of momentum and you must jump on that wave and ride it. Suddenly the pain of not starting is greater than the pleasure of putting it off.
I knew that come September of that year I would definitely be able to get going. But in mid May 2004 I suddenly became frustrated. I had built up too much momentum too early. I needed to start, I couldn’t wait until September. The challenge was totally dominating my thoughts, the sun was starting to shine and I needed to go. The timing though, was about as wrong as it’s possible to be. Starting in May meant I would be learning during the summer and playing during the winter but I knew I just had to get going. All that mattered was to start.
I sat down with Lesley and explained that I was definitely going to give it a go. I promised that the time spent would be, as much as possible, just general evening television time – that I would do everything in my power to ensure that it wouldn’t impact on her and Aimee. She was very supportive but I could tell that she was nervous about just how much time it actually would take. She had witnessed me becoming obsessed about various business ventures before and could see the parallels.
Not only was the timing wrong in terms of the time of year, it also wasn’t ideal for my career. When I had made that glib remark to Debbie that “I might just do it myself when I get older and have more time” I had a vision of a future utopia where I would only be working thirty hours or so a week. This bore no relation to my current reality. I had long since stopped working at Blackwood and had moved on to become one of the directors and a shareholder of Northern Ireland’s fastest growing garden centre group. We had two sites, plans for three more and a total staff of 120. I was travelling 30,000 miles a year between the sites and working at least 50 hours a week. Add to the scenario a wife (Lesley), a seven-year-old daughter (Aimee) and a very active social life, it was evident there was little spare time for indulgent challenges like this. I joked that the challenge would only be deemed a success if I completed the level par round, remained married and kept my job. Naïvely, I just expected that it would all work out.
I phoned a bemused Debbie and talked it through.
“I’ve really got to start,” I blurted.
She paused. “Okay … You mean this September?”
“No, I kind of mean now. I’ve reached a peak of excitement and I have to get going.”
Another pause.
“But John, your timing is about as wrong as it can get! We’re going to end up doing all the learning during the summer and you’ll be trying to play during the winter. You’re going to make life extremely difficult for yourself.”
“I know, I know all that.” I was concerned that she thought it was utter madness, but I really had to convince her. “I just can’t wait though. I think the moment is right and I really need to get out there. I’ve been putting it off for far too long and at this rate I’m going to end up on my deathbed promising I’ll do it ‘next year’.”
Silence.
“So, can you come out and play soon and we’ll regard that as the first round? Help me put together a control round that we can use as the starting point?”
She laughed. “Okay, okay, I think you’re mad but let me check my diary.” I waited patiently and felt as excited as an eight year old before a school trip to the zoo. “How about next Wednesday, the 26th?”
“Perfect, I really appreciate it, Debbie. See you Wednesday.” I was beside myself with excitement.
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Walt Disney
Chapter 3
We’re off!
So, on Wednesday, 26 May 2004 I started. Standing on the first tee I was horribly nervous. Theoretically, I told myself, this round didn’t matter. It was just the “control” to see where I was but of course it wasn’t quite as simple as that. I still had to fully persuade Debbie that I had the potential to achieve the challenge. She needed to see something in my game that would convince her that it was worth coming along for the ride. After all she would be giving her time free of charge. If I played a round that was too bad she could easily decide that it just wasn’t going to be possible no matter how strong my own sense of belief in the project.
Debbie is a naturally positive, motivated and driven person who values achievement. She had played on the European LPGA tour for six years and saw first hand just what can be accomplished with hard work, practice and discipline. As a teacher she admires anyone who wants to improve their game. Unfortunately, however, she also sees hundreds of golfers every year with lofty improvement goals, very few of whom actually see them through. When the realisation strikes that hard work and lots of practice are essential, most tend to give up and go back to their old ways. I had to prove to her that, not only was I capable of sticking at it, but that I wasn’t totally devoid of talent and could provide her with a good basis to work from.
Unfortunately, an eight on the first hole hardly helped my case. It had been at least a year since I had last played and I really didn’t seem to be able to get it together at all. Nerves were obviously a factor but perhaps more importantly was the start of the notion that I had to “perform.” It suddenly struck me that I now had to play well for somebody other than myself. This is a problem that affects us all to varying levels out on the course and was to increasingly plague me throughout the year ahead.
A seven on the par five second followed and certainly didn’t help my cause.
We stood on the third tee and Debbie decided it was time for a chat.
“John, will you just relax please? A bad round at this stage doesn’t matter.”
“Errr, well, yes I know. I’m just anxious to show you that there is something here that you can work with.”
“There is, I’ve already seen that so please relax.” And then she added with a grin. “This is probably the only time in the year where your score won’t matter so I’d advise you to relax and enjoy it. You won’t have this luxury again for a long time.”
It was a very valid point and I slowly relaxed and gradually got it together. After all, I reasoned, I’d known Debbie for a long time since we grew up in a similar part of Belfast, she has a daughter Victoria who is a year younger than Aimee, so there should be no pressure. I took a four at the tough par three third and then parred the easy par four fourth. A seven at the next after four putts put any cockiness out of my mind but I came to the turn in fifty. To be honest, after I’d calmed down, I was actually very pleased with how I had played those nine holes. I seemed to be hitting the ball better than I had in a long time and most of my bad shots were nerve based.
The back nine was a similar, if slightly worse story. It’s a tougher nine holes than the front and mistakes are more fiercely punished. A whopping ten on the easy eleventh with two lost balls and a couple more lost balls on the thirteenth and fourteenth meant I came back in fifty three. Total score 103. Pretty woeful but actually quite a good round of golf for me at that stage. I hadn’t played a full round where every shot counts and there are no ‘mulligans’ and ‘gimmes’ for maybe twenty years, and I’d forgotten just how tough it really was to string together a decent stroke score.
So, in one way I was pleased with how I had played. I felt that I had demonstrated the basis of a decent swing and yet it did concern me that a “good” round in my eyes had produced a score of 103. I had played many, many rounds worse than that in the previous few years and if truth be told I would have probably estimated that it was a mid-nineties round if I hadn’t actually marked a card.
Debbie had deliberately not offered any advice – other than to try and calm me down during the round – as she wanted to see my game in its raw state. When we sat down in the bar afterwards with a cup of coffee to discuss the round, I rather smugly expected her to say that she thought I had a good basic swing. Needless to say she said nothing of the sort.
She calmly sat and wrote out a list on a piece of headed notepaper. The list went like this:
- Grip too “strong” with right hand
- Ball position too inconsistent
- Course management
- Ignoring the elements (wind etc.)
- Short game method and technique
- Putting technique
- Distance control
- Visualisation
And, at the bottom of the page – Friday, 28 May 12.00 p.m – the date of our first lesson.
We talked about the process and whether she felt I could do it. This was obviously a time for honesty. Debbie certainly had not witnessed anyone accomplish the sort of improvement I was talking about before, but she reiterated that she felt it was possible.
Looking me in the eye she said: “I know I could do it if I was presented with the challenge, so I do think it’s possible. You’re going to have to work extremely hard though, and it is not going to be easy.” She held my gaze trying to read my face as I tried to convince her that I would indeed work hard. I could sense there was still some level of doubt in her mind.
However, she knew me well enough to believe that I really was capable of seeing a project through from beginning to end. I have created and developed several very interesting and successful business ventures, some of which I sold off to pursue new opportunities. She was aware of my entrepreneurial streak and felt that I had proved in other arenas that I wasn’t afraid of a challenge, a quality which could only bode well for this one. By the end of the meeting I felt I had done enough to convince her that I was worth the effort and that I wasn’t too caught up in the excitement to be blind to the enormity of the challenge ahead. We were both 100 per cent committed.
There is an initial stage of euphoria at the start of any long promised challenge or goal like this one. It’s like reading a book by some brilliant motivational guru or listening to an inspirational speaker. It’s all pure possibility. You are filled with a “can do” attitude and the feeling that anything is possible. The feeling doesn’t last long, but it’s a wonderful high while it does. Just watch the heartfelt testimonials that people give after a motivational seminar. They are full of hype and positivity that their life can be so much better, but they have yet to physically do any of the hard graft that will actually make the change.
And that’s where I was. I’d started, the card was in my hand and I felt I’d actually played quite well. Perhaps more importantly I’d completed the first big hurdle, which was to convince Debbie that I could do it and that it was a challenge worth taking. It was a nice feeling. I had always felt that if I could see this through, it would change my life. I wasn’t quite sure how, but I knew that the challenging process of getting very good at something that people thought was impossible would change the way I thought. I felt that the enforced discipline of the project couldn’t fail to help other aspects of my life too. I was also convinced that it could only be a change for the better. I hadn’t changed the way I worked for nearly three years and I needed a new challenge. It was a great feeling to be at the start of something different, new and exciting.
The thought of a year ahead of me where I watched little or no television, was forced to get fit and would have to totally learn a new skill from scratch was exhilarating. Before you lift a finger and actually do anything about it there is a certain romance about really hard graft. Everyone who achieves something momentous will tell you about how low they once were and how relentless the graft was. As you comfortably sit on your overly padded backside drinking a glass of wine these stories are great to listen to. They represent the sort of things we promise ourselves we’ll do some day, like run a marathon, trek to Nepal or start a business. Maybe next year, as long as the conditions are right. Maybe the year after that. Maybe when we retire. Or win the lottery!
But we all get inspired by these tales of people who actually “do” and at this stage I was caught up in it. It’s impossible not to get a lift from those montage scenes in movies where the star gets fit and ready for action. The original Rocky movie is a classic example of this. It’s so easy to laugh at Sylvester Stallone and his acting ability but there is no doubt that the scene where he pounds the meat carcasses and runs up the steps in Philadelphia is brilliant cinema. It’s like the beach training scenes in Chariots of Fire with the Vangelis soundtrack or even Mr Incredible getting fit and becoming a “Super” again in The Incredibles. It shows just how compelling these scenes are to all ages and how effective they are in movie making. It’s hard not to be caught up in the romantic notion of “I could do that”. Except mostly you don’t. You just reach for the wine bottle and pour yourself another glass or watch another movie or eat another chocolate bar then go to bed briefly fulfilled and happy in the mists of possibility.
At this stage I was clearly caught up in the movie style romance of the project. In my mind I was playing little montages of the effort I’d have to go through. A brief clip of me lifting weights at the gym with a strained look on my face, a lonely session on the range with snow on the ground, perhaps a bit of running with a determined look on my face and of course the fist pumping as I finally hole the putt on the eighteenth. Ah, the joy of an overly fertile imagination.
Except – I hadn’t actually bothered to do a single thing yet. I’d read a few golf psychology books and some general books on the golf swing. Some of these books were extremely technical and went into huge detail about every conceivable stage of the swing. My Homer Simpson like brain had reached a stage where it was “full” and not able to accept any more information, and yet I hadn’t even started. This information overload caused me problems at more than one stage during the year as endlessly I searched for the “secret” and believed yet more overblown hype for another product, course or book.
The motivational guys rant on about how we use this tiny fraction of our brains at any time. I’m no neurologist but I have to say that this seemed like utter nonsense to me at this stage and indeed at many other times throughout the year. My head was like a large glass jar filled with information, as I poured more in one side exactly the same amount would fall out the other.
But all that mattered was that I’d begun. I’d made the decision and started to act. I was all “go”. I was off and running and it was exciting. Delusional, but exciting.
Dream on…
The full book will be available for print very soon. We are currently negotiating with a number of publishers. We will contact you as soon as you can buy it.
Within the next week you will be able to buy the BreakParBlueprint ebook which details all the techniques and tricks I learnt that helped me through the year. Have a look at www.breakparblueprint.com for further details.
Many thanks for reading and please look at my blog at:
http://www.scratchtoscratch.com/blog
Hi John,
I liked the passage, your first round of golf in the challenge pretty much sums up where I am with my golf now.
I don’t have your motivation and drive but will tag along and see where you take me.
I have made a pact with myself not to be buying any more golf clubs till I break 90 and I really do want to get some custom fitted ones.
Dream on 🙂
Look forward to reading how you progressed through your year long challenge when you get it published.
Regards
Ron
Hi John..
Great story so far. cant wait for the release of the book. Hope we will get it in South Africa. I have been hovering around the 80 mark and am desperate to shoot in the 70’s.
Hopefully will some inspiraion of teh book and tips from the Break Par Blueprint i can do it
Cheers
Shaun
Hi John,
Andy here, originally from Belfast. I run a business that everyone thinks will get credit crunched but not me. I know I’ll handle it. Just took up golf (bets round 100) and got inspiration from your stuff on web. If your ever in Edinburgh I’d love to grab a pint with you.
Andy
Hi John. Read an article about you in one of the golf mags and was fascinated, having just taken up the game and gone from zero to obssessed in a frighteningly short time. I’ve had my wife scouring the shops for it, and am now not sure how to tell her it’s not out yet! By text possibly. Was particularly interested in the ClearKey system and the 32 ball drill. I then heard Carey Mumford on the Golf Smarter podcast, and tracked down his book. I’ve used both with some success, and am interested in what you thought of it. Really looking forward to the book, is there any chance you could email me when it’s out?
Congratulations on both of your achievements, the par round and the book.
Allan
Great writing. I’m amazed that you have only received 4, now 5, comments on this. I am really looking forward to the release of your book. The first three chapters are a great read. Good luck!
When I took up golf 10 years ago I was told by a good golfing friend that ‘it would be a long apprenticeship’ – how true were those words proved to be! As a teacher of sports psychology I look forward to reading your book. Chronicling, what I see as true challenge in the field of sport, should be a fascinating read. I heard a commentater during the Open, possibly Sam Torrance, mention you had achieved your goal so well done. Let me know when it is published.
Phil
Hi John,
I heard Sam Torrance mention your book during the recent British Open broadcast and decided to buy it. Like others I found the book both entertaining and inspirational. A wee problem though – I thought I’d have a look at http://www.dreamongolf.com site which you refer to on the reverse of the book’s title page to get your tips on techniques, books, videos, etc. Despite several attempts to register (input email address and hit Free Instant Access button) I have had no success in getting access. Is there a problem with this site?
David
Hiya John!
congratualtions on your success! i read the article about you in Todays Golfer a while ago (cant remember when it was now!) and i didnt know you had a book! however i saw it on amazon at the beginning of the week and ordered it straight away, it arrived yeaterday and i have almost finished it already! i am a very keen golfer myself and i play off 10 and i am the junior girls captain at Fairhaven Golf Club and when i was reading your book it made me want to go and play straight away and shoot the best score of my life! so no i have set myself a challenge =) i want to go to the University of Birmingham to do their Applied Golg Management course however you have to have a 6 handicap to get in so i have set myself the challenge of getting down to 3 or better by next year becasue this way i would have a chance at winning a schollarship!
You have inspired me and now i believe i can do this more than ever!
Thank you
Coral
p.s i tried to sign up on your site http://www.dreamongolf.com and it has not sent me an email yet and itired it again like it says and it still didnt work so just wondering if you could help =]
Same for me I’m afraid. I’ve signed on at the website and so far nothing received.
Regards
Graham
I estimate this guy spent approximately £12.000 on golf range balls alone!
John,
Your story was inspiring and the book was a terrific read. Just finished it last night. All way through the book, particularly at the start of it, I kept thinking ‘this guy is a replica of me’! The way you always had a love for the game but never really played regularly in teenage years, the fact you read Bob Rotella (I too have all of them!) and Gallwey (my next book to read!)..even Lesley compares to my poor wife (celbrating 1st year marriage shortly and already she is a golf widow!! And the gas thing was is that I too have tried ‘tapping’!!! My wife has experimented in it and my brother in law (her brother) is studying it in a kinesiology course!!! Weird!!!
I used to play pitch and putt years and years ago joined a local course earlier this year and am working on the handicap. I started out at 18 and now 16.6. Going well. But I want to take handicaps out of the equation and score birdies and pars on my own merit. You proved it can be done and I hope to as well! My best round at the moment is 86 on par 72.
Would love it if you could give me some vital tips that clearly stick out in your mind as keys to your success. I think I have my mindset ok. Used to be a hot head and a ‘victim’ on the course when a bad bounce would result in disaster etc. But now I have things in check in that dept I think! Short game is coming along nicely and I know importance of it. But I seem to get praised for shooting in the 80’s. Folk think its brill etc. And the problem I have is that I get sucked into that comfort zone. When I say I can do better, people say I am a perfectionist, too hard on myself etc. But I just want to achieve scores in the 70’s if not a 70 or 71. Could you email me any advice on how you got over this? I assume you got praised for rounds in the 80’s a lot…
Would love to hear from you.
Rory
Hi John
Happened upon your book by accident.A truly inspiring read.I was very interested in particular by the mental side of the game,NLP,Bob Rotella,and my personal favourite Tim Gallwey.Something in The Inner Game Of Tennis that reminded me of your imaginary friend Mr Ballesteros.Gallwey talks about role playing to increase our potential where he encourages you to act like a professional player,and that the camera will be on you,so no worrying about where the ball goes,just hit it with extreme self assurance.
I must admit that I have begun to try to be Seve as he was the golfer of my childhood too.I have a mental weakness when it comes to chipping and while practising I started to commentate like I was Seve.Having learnt Spanish for a couple of years,I can mimic an accent quite well,this has freed my mind a bit.Can I do this during a round is the next question?I like the idea of stepping into Seve’s body for short game shots.
I would just like to thank you for the candid way you wrote about the failures as well as the success,because I learned just as much from the things that didn’t work for you, and routines that I could put into my own game,that can improve my own progression
Dear John,
I recently lost my grandfather and he is the reason i got into golf. My teacher we had to read a book of our choosing and i walked into Barnes and Noble looking around for a book i could read and also have my grandpa in mind. I saw your book in the golf section because that was one of the things my grandpa and i loved to do play golf. I read the comments and inside cover and said this the book i have to read. I am only about 60 pages in but your book has inspired me to play golf again and given me a much better out look on life. I thought the world was over when my grandfather passed away but your book has shown me that inorder to keep him with me is to stay with golf and in fact i beat my father for the first time this year just last weekend after using some of your head game tips and just remembering its all for fun.
Thanks again,
Willie Deck
Reply from John
Hi Willie – what a wonderful story. I’m incredibly grateful that you took the time to tell me about it.
Cheers
John
Magnificent web site. Plenty of helpful info here. I am sending it to several buddies ans additionally sharing in delicious. And obviously, thank you in your effort!
John
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