The Secret to... Special Report by Darrell Klassen
This Month s Contents Trust me You don t want to be consistent. No You want to be? (read on) Learn the 7 components of being a truly better golfer (anyone can do it if you follow the plan) Your monthly practice plan.. Let s get started (do your homework and you will probably drop 5 shots off your score.) Plus a bit of Q&A from the members Special Issue Copyright 2008 by Darrell Klassen This information may not be copied physically, mechanically, or electronically for any purpose whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except small quotations for promotional purpose. Top o the morning to you, golfers around the world. That s correct. We are now reaching around the globe with the DARRELL KLASSEN INNER CIRCLE Newsletter. What a wonderful delight. First of all I want to make certain each and every one of you fully understand what you have just missed having done to your body. Last Thursday morning at 7:30 I was administered a spinal block, and at 9:00 AM they were closing the incisions whereby they had replaced my right hip. Because of the spinal, I was not completely out during the 90 minute procedure, and it felt quite strange hearing the surgeon hammering some of the new parts into my femur. The most important thing of which I was not fully apprised was the sensations I would have in my right thigh for the next three days. Everything else was a piece of cake, as far as I could and can tell. The hip itself is finally FREE FROM PAIN after eight miserable years. Well, I can easily see you do not want to know any more information about that, and I am quite glad you don t. I am finished with the subject, except to say I certainly hope the desire to play golf comes back to me as my healthy new joints do their thing for me. I did have the opportunity to play nine holes with my 83-year old uncle a couple of weeks back. Not physically feeling up to the largest of a challenges, we played the senior tees. They only tally up to a nine-hole course which measures 2800 yards. That is really short. Nonetheless, one must still make a lot of good shots in order to shoot a 28 on it. That is correct. I shot a smooth round of eight under par. It was exciting to play that well, but down inside the depths of my heart, I know it was not the same as shooting it on nine holes measuring 3400 yards. EIGHT UNDER is pretty good, though, anywhere. Congratulations are in order for Mister Trevor Immelman as he was able to overcome the hospital bed to win the green jacket and The Masters in Augusta this past weekend. What a thrilling story for him to have just had a tumor removed from his back three or four months ago, can t even make the cut last weekend, and now is The Masters Champion. Isn t this a wonderful game? As I deal with amateurs they CONSISTENTLY want to know how to become more consistent in their golf. I try my best to Page 1
talk them into taking a really intense look at the touring professionals you know, the guys who are supposed to be the best players on the face of the earth, The amateurs COMPLETELY MISS the fact that the touring professionals are JUST AS INCONSISTENT AS THEIR AMATEUR COUNTERPARTS. No one ever thinks that way, but it is definitely the truth. Every golfer in the world struggles with becoming consistent. HERE IS THE ANSWER TO THAT DILEMMA: Whatever you or everyone else thinks consistency is DOES NOT EXIST!!! There, I ve done it for sure. I ve totally blown your minds, and as well I ve made you think I am a crazy man. I did it. Didn t I? You can tell me the truth. Well, now that I have gone this far, I might as well finish the whole thing. IN ALL MY YEARS OF TEACHING, I HAVE COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT IT IS THE AVERAGE GOLFER S QUEST FOR WHAT HE or SHE BELIEVES TO BE CONSISTENCY WHICH IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF ALL OF THE PROBLEMS THAT GOLFER IS EXPERIENCING. You had better read that one over a bit until the light goes on. You see, it is the quest for this thing called consistency which is causing all of the problems in your golf game. It is doing the same thing for all of your friends. It is doing the same thing for every golfer in the world, and it is the thing which continues to give people like me the opportunity to make a good living. If any of you ever figure this out, all golf instructors are instantly out of business. The REAL crazy thing about all of this is that I keep on telling my golfers this, but they don t get it. Professionals are not consistent. They are GOOD. There is an advertisement which runs from time to time here in the US by the PGA, and it shows several shots being hit by the top tour players. Then at the end is merely says, These guys are GOOD. I thought about that for a long time. I played at that level for twenty-five years, and I truly am GOOD as striking a golf ball and making it do what I want it to do and go where I want it to go. This is what the average amateur calls CONSISTENCY. I hope you are getting the point this time, because I am in the process of helping you break 100, or 90, or 80, or even 70 in the very near future. You are going to be able to do that when you become a BETTER player, not when you become more consistent. I have been studying this for quite time, and I am convinced I am right on spot with this one. Amateurs are looking for MORE CONSISTENCY, but THEY BELIEVE IT IS A THING WITH A MAGIC SECRET CONNECTED TO IT. It s as if they are looking for that magic set of words which will suddenly cause them to become MORE CONSISTENT. That is truly a pipedream. It is not going to happen in that manner. The only thing which will cause golfers to become more consistent is for them to become 1) more knowledgeable about the Page 2
effects of spinning the golf ball in order to cause it do what you want it to do; and 2) then taking the time spending the time to become familiar with how to create the shots you wish, when you need them the most. I just finished saying spending the time because this is an investment. This is not something for nothing. Nothing in life is truly FREE, and neither is the ability to learn how to hit golf shots. I will guarantee you Tiger Woods has hit at least 5 million range balls, practice ball, or practice shots, in order to be able to do what he does. I have hit over 10 million of them. Granted this may include chips and putts, but if any one of you, or anyone else in the world, will take the time once again, INVEST THE TIME to do this, you will come out of it playing like me, or even better yet, like Tiger Woods. ANYONE CAN DO IT. HOWEVER, IT TAKES A LARGE INVESTMENT OF YOUR TIME, ENERGY, MONEY, AND A GREAT DEAL OF FOCUS AND ATTENTIVENESS. You do not merely go to the practice range and start hitting golf balls. You must sit and think for a bit and then make a determination where you would like to begin. Each one of us has a different personality, and therefore, each of us will have a different process, or path, we must travel in order to arrive at the desired destination. I am not writing this for the purpose of discouraging you from ever playing good golf. In fact, the exact opposite is the truth. IF YOU WILL FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTION DILLIGENTLY FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS, YOU WILL BE COMPLETELY AMAZED HOW FAR YOU CAN PROGRESS IN YOUR GOLF. I know you would like to merely take a little pill and wake up tomorrow morning as a great golfer. I have NEVER promised you such a thing, and I never will. HOWEVER, I will lead you right to the edge of the pool. All you have to do is to jump in and join me for a nice warm swim. In the process of becoming a truly better golfer there are several areas which will require our attention: 1) you must become a better driver of the golf ball notice I did not say you have to hit it long and straight; 2 and 3) you must learn how to strike solid golf shots from the fairway with both fairway woods and irons; 4) you must learn how to get your golf ball onto the putting surface EVERY TIME from within 50 yards of the green; 5 and 6) you must learn how to get out of the bunker on your first swing EVERY TIME this covers both fairway bunkers as well as greenside bunkers; and finally, 7) you must learn how to make more putts you should NEVER three-putt another green the rest of your life, and you should be able to make EVERY PUTT YOU EVER STRIKE FROM FOUR TO FIVE FEET. Now, it is time for you to LISTEN WITH ALL OF YOUR HEART AND SOUL. Out of kindness to you, I wrote the list in the REVERSE ORDER of Page 3
importance. That s correct. The actual order of importance starts with the putting and chipping, and the drives or the driver itself is the least important in playing great golf. Just take a look at the touring players. They will hit a three-wood, or even a 1 or 2-iron off the tee in order to position their golf ball for the way they feel most comfortable and confident playing the hole. I have said this on more than one occasion, but I want you to go slowly and pay close attention to what I am about to repeat to you. If you will practice your putting in the manner which I spell out in the putting DVD, you will become a marvelous putter. I have had too many success stories to ever think differently about it. On the other hand, I have students who will finally be honest with me and tell me they don t really like to practice their putting, so they only do these drills for a few minutes at a time, EVERY OTHER WEEK, OR SO. I ask them to tell me the real objective to playing the game of golf. In one manner or another, they tell me we must start our ball within the teeing area and proceed until we have holed the golf ball into the cup on the green. We would like to accomplish this task in as few of strokes as we possibly can, or in as few of strokes as we are capable of doing it. The definition is quite a common and good one. I then take the time to have them think a bit about the definition they have just given me. We are on a mission to get a little white ball into a gopher hole 400 yards away from the starting point. THEN, WHAT GOOD DOES IT DO US TO TRAVERSE THE ENTIRE 400 YARDS, IF WE CANNOT GET THE DUMB THING INTO THE HOLE? Our goal is to get the ball into the hole. Therefore, the first thing we should learn to do is EXACTLY THAT. What if you could somehow learn WITH AN INVESTMENT OF YOUR TIME to make EVERY putt out to five feet? Go back through your past several rounds, and in your imagination see every putt from five feet or less going into the cup. What did that just do to the scores for the last several rounds you have played? I will guarantee you it just subtracted at least five shots off of each of those rounds. FIVE SHOTS!!! Your handicap just went down by 5. If you were a 26, you are now a 21. If you are a15, you would now instantly become a 10. I used to practice my putting for two hours EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK, and I did it for over six years of my life. Would you call that an investment, or would you call that luck? Let s go back to the green for a bit more. If you could make EVERY putt out to five feet, that would make a TEN-FOOT CIRCLE AROUND THE HOLE into which you would need to learn putt or chip your ball into from somewhere else. If you had a forty-five foot putt, all you would have to do would be to roll your first putt into that ten-foot circle. When you did that, you would automatically have the ability to putt the next one into the cup EVERY TIME. You would NEVER threeputt again the rest of your life!!! Page 4
The next thing I would have you do would be to learn to chip the ball into that same ten-foot circle from just off the edge of the green. When you could do that, I would have you back up five yards and learn to get that shot into the ten-foot circle EVERY TIME. You have just now learned how to get your golf ball into the cup in two shots EVERY TIME from anywhere within five to eight yards off the green. Run that one through your imagination and memory book and see what that would have done for your last ten to fifteen rounds of golf. I promise you your scores would have been at least eight to ten shots less than what you actually shot. You 26handicap players just became sixteen handicappers, and you sixteen handicap players just learned how to play to a six. We haven t even addressed the driver or the fairway shots yet, and you are already playing ten strokes better than you ever have in your life!!! The program I will be leading you through is going to change your golfing life. I need you to be committed to it, though, and not become impatient with me or it. You have ALWAYS wanted to become a better player. Haven t you? You have looked everywhere for The Secret. However, you have never really found it, either. Everyone knows this, but THERE REALLY IS NO SECRET TO GOLF. If there were to be such a thing, it would only consist of study of the proper things, meditation upon those things in order to get them implanted deeply into your subconscious mind, and an investment of time to experiment with the concepts, until they become second nature to you. In short, I am going to make you into a good golfer. Remember, that is ONLY if you will dedicate yourself to the program I am going to show you. Let s Answer a Few Questions from Members... Now I would like to answer the last couple of questions from the phone call session. Erik Benikos writes to say that after watching the Cure Your Slice video he began to realize he was not getting the distance he desired because he was not turning his left shoulder quite far enough in the backswing. He says this gave him the distance which it will ALWAYS do and it smoothed out his golf swing. The only problem is that he now has a tendency to pull too many shots. Erik: thank you for your comments. The pull I see described in your comments is one from not being tilted slightly to the right at the address position as well as, through the impact area. By implementing a slight tile to the right with your spine, you will immediately notice you have the ability to feel as though you could hit the golf ball out to the right of your intended target a bit. This is the thing you must incorporate into your swing, now. When you turn that little extra bit in the backswing, then feel as though you are Page 5
going to hit the golf ball SLIGHTLY to the right of your target, and you will be right down the middle. Angus Lyall is 68 years of age and plays off an 8 12 handicap. He is a right-handed person who has played golf left-handed all of his life. A teaching professional once told him he would never be any good doing this. (Good thing the professional didn t tell Phil Mickelson the same thing, or we would have never had the pleasure of watching him swing the club and play the game.) Angus has tried from time to time to play right-handed, but it just feels absolutely foreign to him. He would appreciate any comments about all of this. Angus I really appreciate you taking to write and tell me about yourself. It appears to me you really do not have any real problems with your golf swing or game. You seem to have a lot of nay-sayers hanging around you, though. I was never one to allow anyone to tell me what they thought I could or couldn t do. When I first told my father I was going to become a golf professional, he was completely taken by it all. He posed the question to me, Why would you want to become a small fish in a big pond when I had been such a big fish in a small pond? That hit me right between the eyes as if he had just said, You have done quite well as an amateur in our small little area, and you are quite well known for your abilities and knowledge. Why would you want to ruin all of that and become a nobody in the professional ranks? I felt he had just told me I was never going to become a good professional. I loved my father, but this was not real fatherly encouragement at all. One of the problems in life is that people become jealous and do not want you to surpass them. This takes place in every walk of life. It takes place in families. We just have to grow up, get over it, and get through it. Somehow, I had the presence of mind to assuredly say to my father, Oh, I m not going to become a small fish in a big pond. I m going to become a big fish in a big pond. I have always had a desire to excel and to succeed. I am a very shy person, but down deep in my heart there is a burning to do everything I do to its dead level best. I know I am ranting about me, but I want to encourage you to continue doing what you have always done. Play from the left side. Play well from there, and do not let other people offer opinions which would have an effect on your ability to trust yourself and to play well. And do not listen to them about your driver, either. If you play the one you have well, why in the world would you even think about allowing others to influence you to get a firmer shaft? Here s Your Action Plan OK, I am going to get things started right here and now with our program for constant, steady growth in your golf game. The very first thing you must all do in order to a become better player is to stop three-putting greens. In order to eliminate this problem, you must be able to make EVERYTHING out to five feet from the cup. Page 6
You have seen this before, but I am going to give you some specific instruction and challenges in addition to the general information. I want each and every one of you to go to the golf course at least two times per week between now and the next Inner Circle and practice this putting drill. The time investment is the thing I want to see from you. Patience will also be of assistance if you really want to succeed. Taking six to eight golf balls, we are going to do the Line Drill. I want you to place a ball no more than three INCHES from the cup. Then place a golf ball about one foot behind that one. Now, continuing outward on that same line, I want you to place the rest of the balls approximately one foot behind or farther away from the cup than the previous ball. This will give you a line which should look something like this: The large X represents the cup, and the smaller o each represent a ball on the to make, not mine. I have already done all of this stuff, and I still do it when my putting needs a quick tune-up. Starting with the close ball, begin rolling the balls into the cup. DO NOT TAKE A LOT OF TIME ALIGNING YOUSELF OR YOUR PUTTER. Learn to relax and FEEL THE STROKE AND THE SUCCESS OF MAKING THE BALL ROLL INTO THE CUP WITHOUT SWEATING OVER IT. The idea of this drill is to become so confident in your putting you hardly even think about it. if you can feel how to set up and stroke the ball into the cup in a calm and relaxed manner, you will become a much better putter. If you think you have to settle into just the right stance and alignment over every putt, you will struggle with your putting forever. When you look at the simple little line of golf balls waiting to be tapped into the hole, you will wonder what good this could possibly do. For sure, this is not what Mr. Dave Peltz would have you X o o o o o o o Cup Ball 1 Ball 2 Ball 3 Ball 4 Ball 5 Ball 6 Ball 7 1-3 1 foot 1 foot 1 foot 1 foot 1 foot 1 foot The Putting Line Drill The large X represents the cup, and the smaller o each represent a ball on the green ready to be stroked into the cup. There s 7 balls in this example. Can you roll them all in? green ready to be stroked into the cup. There s seven balls in this example. I have shown this drill to a few touring professionals, and without fail they did not want to start just a few INCHES from the cup after all, they are professionals. I did not allow them to get away with that mind set. You have either come to learn and improve, or you really aren t all that interested or committed. It s your decision practice. He would like for you to place your golf balls in a three-foot circle around the cup and start knocking them into the cup. Then, when you miss one, you have to start all over. This is ONLY PRACTICING FEAR AND FAILURE. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SUCCESS. I am teaching you how to become SUCCESSFUL at your golf. I do not do Page 7
FAILURE. Failure is not allowed to live anywhere near me or my house, or my golf game. Period. Anyone could make the ball into the cup from three inches, and then when you add a foot to it, it s really not much of a putt at all. Is it? Then, we add one more foot, and then another, and the first thing you know, you are making everything out to five feet. DO NOT BE CONCERNED WHETHER OR NOT YOU MAKE MANY OF THE PUTTS. Just keep in stroking the putts. If you miss one of the balls, just leave it. Do not take the time to tap it in. Leave it alone. This is teaching your mind to DISREGARD your missed shots your failures. If you reach over to tap in your missed shots, your inner man sees failure in every missed shot. Forget it. Now, set the balls back up and do the drill again, only this time the balls will be going away from the cup on a different line. If the cup were the center of a clock face, then start your first line at 12 o clock. Make your next line at 1 o clock, and your next at 2 o clock, etc. Just keep on going at this. Do not stop just because you went around it once. You should do this drill for at least a couple of hours. You should really do this drill until you are BORED OUT OF YOUR MIND MAKING ALL OF YOUR PUTTS AND NEVER MISSING. That is your mission here. Do this until you become bored with the fact that this is all too easy BECAUSE YOU NEVER MISS. If you choose a hole where there is a nice little slope to it, you will be learning how to putt all of those little short curling putts which can drive us all nuts. If you will commit to doing this drill between now and the time you receive the next Inner Circle you will have become a much better putter than you are at present. What you will typically see in this drill is that you will make the first three or four balls nearly every time. Then, it will become hit and miss from there on out. However, as you continue, you will soon notice it is the first four or five you always make, and you start missing on the fifth or sixth ball. You ve guessed it. Soon it will be ball six or seven where you start to miss on occasion, but you will be making everything out to five or six feet. This is the progress I want to see, because this gives me a five to six foot circle in which to chip the ball or even to roll a fifty-footer into, knowing I am going to always make the five to six foot TAP-IN putt. Wouldn t that be a brand new feeling for you if you could call a four or five foot putt a tap-in? you have always thought of those putts as knee-knockers. Do you see the difference in how the mind begins to perceive the putt? If I have a five foot tap-in, it will always be a much simpler putt to make than a five foot knee-knocker. THEY ARE THE SAME EXACT PUTT. YOU HAVE MERELY COME TO A PLACE IN YOUR GOLF GAME WHERE IT LOOKS DIFFERENT TO YOU. Let s change that for you! I tell you all of the time this is a mental game. It really is. It s an easy game, too. See you next time. Darrell Klassen Page 8