The Lifelong Secret
Day 6 reading "Teeing Off" by Ken Bowden
He took more golf lessons than anyone.
Ken writes, “Tiger’s multiplicity of instructors clearly has done him more good than harm.”
Tiger won 8 majors with his coach, Butch Harmon. So the media questioned Tiger’s sanity when he switched to Hank Haney—until he won 6 more majors.
“On the other hand,” Ken writes, “Jack Nicklaus got most of what he learned from a single teacher named Jack Grout.”
What about the rest of us, Ken wonders—we mortals on the fairways?
Well, remember Jack’s friend Pandel Savic? Ken writes, “Savic fought with distinction as a Marine in World War II and quarterbacked Ohio State to a Rose Bowl victory.”
That’s impressive, but on the golf course, your resume is your handicap.
To his friends, Savic’s most remarkable achievement was much simpler: they believed he had taken more lessons than any golfer in the game’s 600-year history.
“Too much instruction is better than not enough.”
Ken tells a story to support such a bold statement.
One bright morning, Savic had a lesson with the club’s teaching professional. Then he went out and played 18. Unsatisfied with his score, Savic had lunch and mentally walked through his round.
A famous PGA instructor happened to be visiting the club. So Savic signed up for a lengthy lesson.
Then he went to the driving range and hit a bucket. Unsatisfied, he mentally walked through the lesson and the results.
Then he tracked down Gardner Dickinson, a former tour pro. Dickinson gave Savic another lesson.
Tiger may have switched coaches four times in ten years. But Savic went through three coaches in 8 hours. Each identified different problems and offered different solutions.
Jack Nicklaus enjoyed giving his friend a hard time, the way we all do on the golf course. Ken writes, “Jack would explain that the search had led Savic to not really play the game of Golf, but rather a game called the Golf Swing.”
This might sound like just a funny story, one we can all relate to as we stumble through our golf journey. But Ken disagrees.
He writes, “The real moral of this story is that Savic played to a low single-figure handicap for more than 50 years, and was still doing so in his 90s. Indicating that too much instruction is better than not enough.”
Henry Ford said, “Anyone who stops learning is old. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”
The mind, like the body, needs exercise. Research shows that the best way to stay mentally fit is to constantly learn new things. That applies to golf as well—and that’s exactly what Savic set out to do. He took some good-hearted jokes from his friends but he got them back on the golf course. Because as his learning increased, his handicap decreased. When we become lifelong learners, we improve steadily and consistently. We’ll not only enjoy the game more, but enjoy it for a longer period of time—hopefully, like Savic, into our 90s and beyond.
That’s all for now. Until next time, keep imagining what’s possible.