The Old Dog Project: Reclamation of a golf game

(Dec. 12, 2010)
The disheartened, disenchanted golfer in the post below this one had had it. He was done.

 

He was off golf, through with it, ready to turn to more worthy endeavors – unless something radical were to happen. Did he have the time and the guts to do what it takes to make a real change in his golf game?

 

He’s about to find out.

 

Call it The Old Dog Project.

 

The golfer in question, if there was any doubt, is the name at the top of this blog. He never, in three years writing a golf column for a newspaper, wanted his (my) game to be the subject matter. There’s nothing very interesting about a golfer’s navel-gazing or, worse, trying to be funny about his own golf game.

 

Funny as it might be.

 

Lately, I haven’t wanted to take my game out in public.

 

The Old Dog Project grew out of an offer by Tom Staskus, a local PGA professional, accomplished player and dedicated teacher of golf, to work with me to rebuild a game – and chart the progress here.

 

“This is the hardest sport there is,” Staskus says, “no doubt about it.”

 

We met for our first session on Dec. 9, 2010. I’d been instructed to bring my golf bag, but we didn’t come close to using the whole of it. We started with the putter, because we’re working from the ground up, Staskus says – putting, then miniature swings, and only down the road longer swings.

 

The first thing Staskus did was look at my putter – to see if the instrument might be any impediment to the player being the best putter he can be.

 

We looked at my putting “routine,” which is distinguished by never looking the same way twice. We firmed up my setup, got me standing a little closer to the ball at address (which had the effect of making my putter flatter to the ground) and worked on stillness in my core over the ball, which is harder than it sounds.

 

Staskus likes it simple – good balance and a squared clubface through the ball. What works in putting works in chipping and works in driving the ball.

 

There are many paths to the plunk of the ball hitting the bottom of the hole. My teacher doesn’t plan to dictate to me all the hows and whys – however comfortable I was in my old ways, he wants me to get comfortable in new, better ways that work for me.

 

Staskus’ message, if I can extrapolate from one lesson, is uncluttered by too much golfish geek-speak.

"If I have to try to groove a lot of different moves," he says, "that's just too much thinking for me. I like something very simple."