A Few Words
About Me
It all started with Frustration
“Arghh!!!! @#$%*&#!!”, as my golf club went sailing off into the distance. The volcano awoke in me and I had erupted. I wanted my club to feel the pain I was. It’s soooo frustrating.
I know I can hit a good ball. I do it all the time at the range. I come to the course and it all goes pear shaped. Every single @#$%*&%$ time. I want to break every club in my bag and throw them in the hole’s water hazard.
The interesting thing is that I am not an angry or aggressive person. I am calm under pressures and a good problem solver. I don’t get phased by much. But when things don’t work out on the course it’s like a switch gets flipped. I get so frustrated.
Especially when I know what I should be doing. I practice at the range. I watch heaps of tutorials and videos. I’ve read the books. Had great instruction…
But I struggle to translate that to the course. I’ve had some lessons and I completely understood what the instructor said and was able to comply most of the time. I’m a smart guy. I felt good. Ready to tackle the course. And then @#*&%$#, nowhere near the fairway. @#$%$#@ missed the green, and into the worst of the hazards.
All I want is to drop 5 to 10 shots off my game. Heck, I’ll take a couple of shots right now if its going to be a regular thing.
I just want to get better. That’s all most of us want. To take a few shots or so off our game. Surprise ourselves and our golf buddies once in a while. I just want to hit the ball further off the tee and keep it on the fairway. To get from tee to green without duffs and misses and OOB’s. Is that too much to ask?……
You know how something can be right under your nose and you still can’t see it? When you can’t see the wood because of the trees? Enter me.
Guess what I have done for a living for a large portion of my life? I’m an exercise physiologist and worked in sports rehab. I was working with a client who happened to be a golfer and wanted to get back to it after his injury.
I was mapping out a program for him and began demonstrating the range of movement he would need in a number of his joints to allow him to get back to his pre injury level.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t demonstrate the movement or the range he needed.
What the…. I couldn’t believe how restricted I was. In this instance it was my shoulder and I tried to show him simple external rotation. And I couldn’t. I almost had none.
I have no idea how it happened or how long I had been that way. It wasn’t painful and It wasn’t affecting me in anything I did that I had noticed.
How could I have missed it? No wonder my game hadn’t improved for some time….in fact I was playing worse.
I wondered if any other parts of my body were affecting my swing in some way, so I tested a few key areas. Especially the segments that are supposed to mobile in a golf swing.
I was surprised to find that not only were there other areas that were restricted in movement, but also a couple of key big muscles that were weak. My glutes being the main culprit.
Well, not really weak as I could move them against a decent amount of resistance. They were more coordinating poorly, and would fatigue quickly.
So, the light went on. I set about devising a program that would correct the things I had found. It took a couple of months to get back to full strength, control and mobility. There was a bit of self-experimentation going on throughout the process.
Not long after that I was out on the course with my buddies having a great time and feeling blessed – hey, I get to play golf on good courses, how can I not feel blessed.
A few holes in and I hadn’t lost my cool at all. No need to. I was 20 -50 yards further down the fairway, to the oohs and ahhs of my partners. Note too, the word fairway there. I was on it consistently, and pretty much where I wanted to be. I wasn’t blocking it to the right and slicing the daylights out of it.
A couple of holes further on and the questions came, “Brad, what on earth have you been doing since we last played? Your game is on fire.”
I told them what I’d discovered and admitted how I felt a bit foolish not realising this earlier. And how I wondered how many others had all the equipment, the instruction and the know how, but there bodies weren’t allowing them to produce their full potential.
One of my golfing buddies, Andy asked, “Brad, can I get you to check me out and see if I have any restrictions that might be effecting my game?”
Of course, I said yes. Like me Andy had a couple of issues that he wasn’t aware of and I had no doubt they were affecting his game. He, however, had better control of his emotions on the course than I did.
His issues were quite different from mine, yet they still interfered with his swing and its consistency, and yet in similar ways to mine.
However, I wanted to play a few more rounds before I fully assessed Andy and gave him a program, just too be sure in my own mind that I was on the right track and not being wishful.
Sure enough, I was consistently longer, straighter and more accurate. Better from tee to green. In, fact I shaved 5 shots off my game consistently.
I went through the process with Andy and knew he was diligent enough to put into practice what I recommended. I was able to streamline the process with Andy from what I had learned in my own journey.
A few months later we were back on the course and sure enough, Andy was bombing his drives down the middle 20 yards past me (he was always a better golfer than me).
His middle irons (hardly used) and short game looked effortless and you could hardly wipe the grin off his face. We had consistently shaved 3-4 shots off his game too (unfortunately for me as I was beginning to give him a run for his money).
It didn’t take long for our noteable improvements to spread through our golfing group. I got approached by so many of our golfing friends and aquaintances that I physically didn’t have the time (or the desire) to help all that asked.
In an effort to cull the numbers I told those that wanted my help that it would cost XXX amount of dollars and they’d have to make an appointment. To my amazement it didn’t cull the numbers at all. In fact I just got busier.
The upshot of this ‘bounty’ was me devising a way to give everyone an opportunity to assess their golf swing body segments and work on their own problems specific to their body and lifestyle circumstances.
So, now I have a program where I can assess someone’s body, and regardless of what your swing mechanics are, I can increase your smash factor and tell you if, and how many, shots I can shave off of your game.
To get a taste of what the program contains, click the‘play’ button below and do the introductory assessment. At the completion of the assessment follow the prompts to book a time to get your results, and I’ll tell you how many strokes I can take off your game.
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Assessments Done
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Happy Clients
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Body Faults Fixed
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Total Shots Shaved
Free online assessment
Shoulders
The first assessment is for shoulders. Reach one hand over your shoulder and one hand behind your back and try to touch your hands together like in the pictures below. How close can you get your hands together? Select the image that best matches what you can do. Select the image that best matches what you can do.
A long way off
Getting closer
Just touching
Touching easily
Ankle
For the last assessment you will need a standard wallet size card to measure your distance from the wall.
When you have measured the distance with the cards. Stand arms length from wall. Brace with your hands. Move one foot so your big toe is approximately 3 credit card widths from the wall. Lunge that knee toward the wall trying to touch it. You must not lift your heel from the floor. Keep moving your foot closer to the wall until you can touch it with your knee. Complete the assessment on both sides.
On your worst side, how close to the wall did your foot have to get before you could touch the wall with your knee?
3 cards
2 cards
1 card
0 cards/I couldn't do it at all