@36aday is pleased to introduce interviews with leaders in the game of golf in Canada. Nine questions are presented to probe important issues of the game, personal experiences, stories and insight. Just like 9 holes of golf, I hope you find this enjoyable and that it leaves you wanting more.
A Quick 9 With Sean Casey, Director of Instruction at The Glen Abbey Golf Academy and Head Coach for the Canadian Junior Golf Association National Teams.
7. @36aday – People seem comfortable paying $400 or more on a new driver each year but may be reluctant or unwilling to get instruction. From your experience why is this and what do you see as benefits for an instructional plan?
SC – First of all it’s not surprising. There’s a lot, I mean a very high percentage of people who are not comfortable with change. Being habitual beings we have systems that make our day to day lives easier. We’re so habitual and that is a good thing in many ways. We don’t have to learn to tie our shoes every morning or learn how to grab something with a fork and put it in our mouth. As the years go by we’re on autopilot and getting better at something means changing some of those habits to get a different outcome. It’s not easy. It isn’t easy but it’s also very simple. So the one’s that make change, I don’t want to say it’s this difficult process. It’s awareness and a realization that I need to change my habit. It’s a commitment and you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And the people that buy drivers as opposed to trying to change habits are people, from a personality standpoint at some level lack in my world what would be considered blue energy. They’re not planning; they’re not knowledge seeking people. They’re not process people; they’re looking for quick fixes. They’re looking for the easy route, and why not. I mean who knows, maybe there are diet pills that can help you lose weight but I know that knowledge seeking people that want to do it right would dig through all the information and want to learn if there was a side effect to such a pill. There are opportunities to get ahead quickly, and maybe a new driver will help you get a few extra yards but maybe it will just help you hit it further into the woods. Who knows? But its personality based. When my students purchase drivers, they go through a fitting process where they learn about the new technology and do a comparison of their old driver to the potential new one. From there they can make a decision whether the spend is worth the yardage they’re about to gain.
The people that take lessons and stick to the process, those are the organized people and they realize that you need a plan. Those are the people coming in and out of our door each day. The people looking for a quick fix probably signed up for a few lessons and never took them all; they found it too hard or they weren’t comfortable with the change. They likely took three of ten lessons. The next year they show up, because they had a terrible round of golf and they have some lessons in the bank so they take lesson 4 of 10. They can stretch their ten lessons over 10 years. Each time they come for a lesson they’re looking for a quick fix. Compare that to a guy who comes in and says, ‘walk me through a process here, I’m in, I’m committed, I know it’s going to be uncomfortable but I’m going to come out of this a better, more aware golfer’. It is a completely different attitude and mind set.
Fortunately there are enough of these people that that are committed to the process to keep myself and our team of coaches busy.
Tomorrow – Part 8 – Instructional Support at Glen Abbey
