As a PGA golf professional of 40+ years, I am always asked the question, what is the most important thing that you need to do to play professional golf?
The difference between playing with your friends and professionally is the amount of pressure that is put on you physically rather than mentally. For example, you’re playing in your first LPGA event and you shoot 101. You go home and you assess your performance and you decide that the outcome was due to you choking or not being able to perform under pressure. And so why? Why did that happen? Why did you have a lapse of your ability in a high pressure situation?
My answer to you and anyone else that finds themselves in this predicament, is that it wasn’t your heart, it wasn’t your mental ability to think your way around a golf course in a tournament. What happened to you was that you were physically not able to play at the level to qualify for this event because your golf swing has a flaw. When you’re playing with your friends, there’s not enough pressure to bring that flaw into the light. In high pressure situations such as tournament play it will show up on the first tee, on the first drive that you pull into the woods and it will multiply until you are completely out of contention. If you want to play professional golf, then you have to make your swing pressure proof. Making your swing pressure proof eliminates all of the flaws that you have. To do this, you have to set up correctly, you have to have a proper grip, and most importantly, you have to be in the proper plane.
This can be attained through my program, the Blue Whale Exercise Program, because it trains your body to use the muscles in a repetitive and strong position. Once you train the correct muscles to perform, it doesn’t matter what the situation is. You can play under high pressure or no pressure, it doesn’t matter. But until you face up to the flaws that you have, it is not your heart that is subject here, it is your golf swing.
Ben Hogan had the worst golf swing known to any golf professional at any era. But what Ben Hogan did have was he had the heart of a champion and he had the golf swing of a 15 handicap. So for 9 years, he struggled on the PGA tour. Many times he wanted to quit because he didn’t understand that his problem wasn’t his championship heart which he saw in his later career, as he went on to win 9 majors and became one of the greatest ball strikers that world has ever known. When Hogan understood that it was his golf swing, not his heart, he went to the same teacher that taught me, Joe Norwood in California. Norwood knew the muscles that were needed for a repetitive golf swing and he developed exercises to make those muscles stronger and longer and thus override any of the bad muscles that will not hold up under pressure in tournament play.
So I say to you all, learn golf the right way. Put your swing in a position that allows your heart to grow into that of a champion and you will have a very long and successful golf career.
The Blue Whale Exercise Program 