CrossGolfPros: Modern Golf

The Case For Club Fitting

2012-02-29T07:07:00.000-08:00

"The Case For Club Fitting"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/29/12

Before getting to business, HAPPY LEAP DAY! Although as Jay Leno said, adding another day to February is just god's way of punishing the human race with more Republican Primary coverage, but alas we'll soldier on.

Working at the practice facility I see all sorts of different types of gear. Some of it high end, PGA Tour priced stuff and literally some things that have been pulled out of the attic. One thing I get asked quite often is why my driver goes straight up in the air and spins. Well being that I made this same mistake and had to go through two drivers to fix it, here goes: YOU NEED TO GET FITTED WHEN BUYING GOLF CLUBS! OK there I said it.

In the United States, we have an attitude of never blaming anyone but ourselves for the mistakes we make. The reality is we tend to find blame in just about everything, especially golf but in this case we rarely think about our clubs as being a flaw in our games. A while back I wrote about my struggles finding the right driver for me, I related this story to a couple golfers at our range who asked me how to flatten their drives out and get some roll. Both golfers had swing speeds in excess of 100 mph but were using 10.5 degree lofted drivers and both had R-Flex shafts. Essentially, they were 20 somethings swinging clubs designed for people who have much slower swings and need more carry on their shots. I had both golfers use my driver which has a 8.5 degree loft and a tour XS shaft. Both golfers straightened their shots out and hit low, wind piercing bullet-like shots.

Please, please, please.....PLEASE! If you are thinking about getting a new club or clubs...get fitted. I am never going to tell you to use one brand over another, it's really personal preference, but go through the steps of getting fitted.

NASCAR vs. Golf Incidents

2012-02-28T11:55:00.002-08:00

"NASCAR vs. Golf Incidents "
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/28/12

After seeing the jet dryer incident during the delayed Daytona 500, I went to find some statistics on golf course accidents. Pretty crazy stuff but definitely worth reading. One of the things that isn't discussed often is safety on the golf course. Here's a link I found from 2008 at the Bureau of Labor Statistics Department on golf course fatalities

2008 Report

Avoiding Slicing & Dicing

2012-02-28T09:15:00.002-08:00

"Avoiding Slicing & Dicing"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/28/12

For high handicappers and weekend warrior golfers, the most dreaded shot is by far the slice. At my range when I provide video analysis, this is the most talked about shot. In fact, if the devil appeared in front of most golfers, they would sell their souls to rid themselves of a slice. Remember Coach Fruisen's (http://coachofgolf.com/) ball flight law chart? Let's revisit that for a moment.

We know the golf ball has no idea where it's going until struck by the club face and the club face's path and face angle will ultimately decide the golf ball's fate. If we have a path that's straight but with an open club face, well the ball will peel off to our right (for righties). If the club face is square but cuts across the ball from out to in, that will spin the ball clockwise and to our right. My experience looking at swings at my facility has shown me that many slices are caused first by set up and second by an over the top swing with an open face.

In this swing, we notice a rolling of the right shoulder into the swing and an extreme cut across the ball. What we want is to first make sure our set up is at the target lining up our shoulders with our foot line. A great way to check is to either lay a club down at the target and line up next to it or to lay the club at your feet before swinging to check yourself. Next, when you take your swing back, try to feel like your upper and lower halves are working separately. Hold off with your upper half until you have made your trigger move with your knees, legs and hips. When Phil did this, he did fade the ball, but the shot starts at the target and then fades which is far easier to deal with.

Remember, if you know the ball flight laws, this is a major step to understanding many of the errors caused when hitting the golf ball. If we know our face is open or our path is cutting across the ball, we can make the adjustments, it's just having the knowledge to fix the problem.

Weight Positioning In The Golf Swing

2012-02-27T08:03:00.001-08:00

"Weight Positioning In The Golf Swing"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/27/12

When I work the range and watch golfers take their full swings, one of the trends I notice most frequently is the tendency to have a ton of off balance swings. Most of the time the down swing is made off the back foot. This would be like our quarterback throwing off his back foot, we tend to get passes that are higher with less velocity as well as less accuracy. There are some basic drills you can employ to ensure your weight distribution and transfer is more efficient in the swing. First thing you should do before going to the range and trying this is to have a pair of alignment sticks. You can buy these at a golf store or even at Home Depot for a few dollars.

Before hitting balls, take the sticks and put them just wider than your stance placing the sticks just behind your feet.

Next, I like to put about 55% of my weight on the front side and 45% on the back side. Find a ratio that works best for you, but avoid putting a vast majority of your weight on either side. As I rotate my shoulders back, I attempt to keep my lower half still and thus prevent this type of sliding back:

Notice if we get our weight too far back, our bodies have to compensate to get the extra weight back through the shot and onto our front side. Here's how we want to be balanced:

From this position we can easily get the weight transfer going forward and through the ball. The sticks help us develop a feeling of not only proper weight distribution at address, but also dynamic balance going back and through the ball. If we are going too far back, we will run into the stick, if it's too far forward the same will happen. Finally, using this drill can help eliminate reverse pivots which produce disastrous results in our golf swing.

Commentary: Golf's Supply & Demand

2012-02-25T19:15:00.000-08:00

"Commentary: Golf's Supply & Demand"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/25/12

Special Thanks to the Golf Gal Blog

For this edition of the CrossGolfPros Blog we're going to bring out the economics...don't worry I'll keep it interesting, just want to feel like this B-School investment can come out and play sometimes. This morning, my wife and I were discussing a blog entry on the Golf Gal Blog, which is listed above. In this article is a discussion about golf's ever decreasing sales of rounds and increasing of receivership worldwide. Why is this happening, well it's a simple matter of the age old economics law of supply and demand.

Think about this comment from the Daytona Beach News-Journal, "From 2000 through 2010, the supply of golf courses nationally increased by 492, but the number of golfers declined by 1.7 million." During the Tiger Years if you will, the golf course industry delivered to us hundreds of new courses and in return, the market delivered, well nothing. Why is this? Demand for playing golf has decreased and it has to do largely with the industry simply ignoring what the consumer has been complaining about for years. Golf is too slow, too hard and too expensive. In return, as mentioned in GolfGal's blog some courses have raised rates and KPMG reported that half of golf courses spend no money in enhanced marketing. I know this to be true because I was an assistant GM at a course for one of the biggest management companies in the country and we spent not a dime on advertising. Zero, nada, ghost. So back to supply and demand.

If there is an abundance of supply and no demand, how do we change this? What will prompt golfers to come back. Well go back to the great triad of complaints...too slow, too hard, too expensive. Well, we have to let our egos go and lock them away for a while. As a teacher, I often hear colleagues talk about what they are worth. I'm worth $125 an hour or $200 an hour. Problem is if you are only teaching a few lessons a week, very few people agree with you. I charge $40 an hour...I know way too cheap right? Problem is that I believe our goal is to make golf accessible not feel like you have to climb over barbed wire to get quality instruction. The next closest rate is $60 per hour. In reality, there's a great supply of golf teachers, but not much demand of their services and therefore, we made the decision to keep the rates down. Say what you want, but people feel like improving their game is doable.

I don't believe the game itself is flawed or terrible, in fact it's a tremendous experience and everyone should have a chance at it. It's up to us in the golf industry to try and help. Earlier I mentioned that I worked at a golf course, well one month we went rogue while the boss was away. I changed afternoon rack rates for weekends where we had almost zero demand to $26 including a cart. The result, those zeros on the tee sheet turned into an extra $5,000 in revenue. Revenue gained through creating demand for something that was in great supply. I got yelled at, written up and threatened with termination, but we made an extra $5,000. Trust me, I didn't lose sleep over it.

Match Play Magic

2012-02-24T12:52:00.001-08:00

"Match Play Magic"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/24/12

A month ago I wrote about the PGA Tour's need for creating rivalries beyond the every other year match up between the US and Europe. This week's event is the Accenture Match Play where the top players from all over the world play each other head to head. During the commentary I've heard commentators like Sir Nick Faldo talk about "looking into your opponent's eyes" and so on. This is what can make golf so exciting to watch. Being that our game is so extremely mental or makes you extremely mental, having to actually think about what your opponent is doing makes a huge difference in the theater we as views get to watch.

While I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination on how the tour can set up more events like the Accenture event, but I would be willing to be that interest in the tour would increase. Here in the Bay Area, golf is rarely spoken about except for this week. Every day the talk show hosts are talking about the Matt Kuchars and Rory McIlroys. Most of the time it's talk about the NFL, MLB and NBA and golf is something they joke about.

I would love to hear your thoughts about the prospect of bringing match play into more tournaments and majors.

Match Play Bracket

How To Align Your Putts

2012-02-24T08:01:00.002-08:00

"How To Align Your Putts"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/24/12

Like your full shots, many putts are lost on the green not by speed alone but where and how we aim our shots. Inevitably, we have had days where the ball came off the putter face perfectly only to be off a inch or two here or there. While there's always a great deal of emphasis on speed, in fact I heard one teacher say the five keys to putting is speed, speed, speed, speed, and line. Well I would respectfully disagree, if your speed is perfect and the line is off, you still missed. Here's a way to help you line up the putts:

What we have here is two alignment sticks, the same ones we used in some of our other drills. First begin by hitting some short putts, no longer than three feet. If you are right handed, line the first stick up against the left side of the hole, then take the other stick and lay it parallel to the first stick. What this does is makes you line up your face first towards the hole and use it as an anchor, then line up your feet along the second stick. Real key step comes next. Take each ball and line up the logo with the hole, as you take the putter face back, feel like you're releasing the club with your right palm (or left palm for lefties). Watch how the ball rolls towards the hole. We want the logo on the ball to roll end over end towards the hole.

As you get comfortable, test yourself, take one of the sticks away and check your line or your putter face alignment. Then start backing away from the hole and practice longer putts. Of course speed matters, but in my humble opinion, I don't think one weighs more than the other, because if one is off, you still get the same result.

Stop Coming Over The Top In Swing

2012-02-23T08:32:00.001-08:00

"Stop Coming Over The Top In Swing"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/23/12

One of the biggest problem many high handicappers have with their swings is coming over the top. This is where the downswing is initiated by our shoulders or casting the club with our hands, the club face shuts and the ball goes to our left for righties and right for lefties. Before making any adjustments to your swing, try checking your set up and alignment first. Check out this set up position I have taken:

You can see that my foot line and shoulders are pointed to the right, however, the target which is just to the right of my chin is left of my set up. If I am to hit the target, my body and swing has to make some sort of compensation and pull the ball to the left. Conversely, if I take a swing that is compatible with my set up, I am going to miss way to the right or I have to hit a huge draw. When I hit this shot, I am going at the flag and my right shoulder rolls over the top of the swing and pulls the ball far to the left. Here's a set up that worked and the ball flew right at the flag:

While you can't see the flag here, my set up is more to the left than the previous picture and the swing can continue towards the target without compensation. So before making any draconian swing changes, make sure you're lined up correctly.

Quick Alignment Tip

2012-02-22T13:52:00.001-08:00

"Quick Alignment Tip"
By Sean Mysel
2/22/12

Just worked with a great teaching pro in San Ramon, CA by the name of Denise Philbrick. When you're lining up shots on the range, take one club and have it point at your target. Then as you step up to the ball and get set, put the club down along your foot line and see if it runs parallel to your target. If it doesn't, try again, if it does pick up the club and DO NOT change your stance.

Thanks Denise for the quick tip and we'll have more soon!

5 Things To Not Care About: On The Course

2012-02-22T07:47:00.002-08:00

"5 Things To Not Care About: On The Course"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/22/12

One of our favorite websites is called "Marc & Angel Hack Life" which is a site that opines on living life. They give you plenty of topics to think about so today we wanted to write about how people behave on the golf course, especially when things go awry. Golf instructors, including myself spend countless hours teaching and studying mechanics and rightly so. But honestly, most rounds, shots and scores are won or lost in our minds. So in honor of the works put out by Marc & Angel, here is our 5 Things To Not Care About: On The Course.

1. Don't Worry About What Other Players Think - Does it really matter? Who are you trying to impress? It's nearly impossible to pretend that you are the only one in your group, but at the same time you are the only one that can hit the ball. Everyone hits bad shots, even the tour players.

2. Stop Caring About Who You Play With - So the starter puts you with a couple of beginners? What if it's a group of women? Who cares! You paid good money to play so try to enjoy the people you're with. Living in a new area, I know only a few people most of whom don't play golf. I look at playing golf with strangers as an opportunity to make friends and to do business.

3. Stop Worrying About Bad Shots - You hit one in the water? Well that's over with and now it's time to hit another shot. One of my favorite examples is a recent tournament Rickie Fowler played. Fowler was on a par 5, hit his second shot into the water and holed out the next shot for a birdie. Granted this won't happen often, but it shows you can let a bad one go.

4. Forget The Number On Your Card - One of the best ways to score is to forget the score. I am a numbers guy when it comes to sports. Some of the stats and numbers are fascinating, but at the same time on the course it's an anchor around my game. It's better for me and you I would bet to write down the number and put the card away...good or bad. Focus on making your shot, finishing your round and looking at the card later.

5. Stop Caring How Good Everyone Else Is - In the teaching profession, one of the unfortunate things I have seen both as a student and teacher is how other teachers, not all, but some seem to think their way is the best. "Well my way is the only way!" "Your ideas about the swing are all wrong!" There's only one absolute in golf...what does the ball do when the club face hits it. This is true in teaching and in playing. Worrying about the person's ability next to you is fool's gold. If they are good, strike up a conversation and see what you can learn. Other than that, it's best to concentrate on what you do well and find ways to improve the things you don't do well.

Lord Of The Swings

2012-02-21T12:06:00.001-08:00

Lord Of The Swings
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/21/12

One of the things we love doing at the range is checking out people's swings and putting them on video. It gives us a chance to mingle with golfers and service the golfing community. We'd like to extent that same service to readers of this blog. Send us your swings on video by uploading them to YouTube, and send them to info@crossgolfpros.com. We will break them down and give you feed back, also we send the videos to you to keep.

Top Ten Ways Golf Pros Can Grow Business: #1

2012-02-21T08:35:00.000-08:00

"Top Ten Ways Golf Pros Can Grow Business: #1"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/21/12

Here we are, the top of the mountain and you can just about see your business grow. To conclude our Top Ten Ways Golf Pros Can Grow Business, we are going to look at relationships. In all the sports related businesses I've worked in, nothing counted more than my relationship with the clients, fans, and organization. Short of an ESPN type debacle that we saw with Jeremy Lin, maintaining relationships with those around you can increase any business large or small and overcome nearly any mistake. Relationships typically depend on a mutual trust and respect. Sometimes this is can be easy or hard to establish depending on the person or people you're dealing with. So let's audit our relationships that we have now:

1) So you either teach at a golf course or a practice facility. What are the interactions like with the management and staff there? Is it friendly or cold?

2) How are the interactions with the regulars that come to your property?

3) How are the interactions with your students?

Understanding how strong these bonds are will help you with the next step which is establishing a relationship with whomever you please. When I worked as a contractor with the New Jersey Devils, they had a reputation for not trusting anyone or liking anyone for that matter. If you went out of your way to do something, very few of them would acknowledge it, especially at the upper levels. Instead of fighting this, what I realized is you can establish a relationship by being seen at your workplace grinding out sales, work, etc and constantly staying positive. Naturally, people are attracted to people who are happy. Over time, I got to know the upper management there and still talk to them and have them as Facebook friends to this day.

If the interactions are cold or perhaps you got off to a rough start, be the person who extends the olive branch. Ask them out for lunch (on you of course!) or a drink. Anything to get a conversation started. Sometimes the act of reaching out to people can open up all types of doors for you and get your business supercharged. Now there are some people that don't want to have anything to do with you. That's fine, since these are people who are probably not happy in their own lives and won't do much for you anyway. Just avoid them.

Perhaps the best benefit of this piece of advice is relationships create relationships. If someone really likes you and thinks you're a great teacher, well guess what? They will show you around and introduce you to friends. Voila! We have just engineered word of mouth marketing which is by far the best type of marketing.

Well that's our Top 10 and I think by implementing these steps slowly and at a pace you're comfortable with. You will definitely see a jump in business. It just takes time.

Bill Haas - A Portrait In Course Management

2012-02-20T12:18:00.000-08:00

"Bill Haas - A Portrait In Course Management"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/20/12

OK so here's the situation: you're in a playoff for a million dollar purse and you and your competitors all hit tee shots that end up in sticky situations. Your ball is in the deep rough hitting into a landing area the size of your golf towel. What do you do?

This was the situation Bill Haas found himself in this past weekend at the Northern Trust Open at Riviera. Haas knew that the odds of any of the three players making birdie wasn't exceptional, but still possible. It could have been easy for Haas to muster all the gumption he had and flop a ball onto the green and stick it next to the pin, but alas, he pitched the ball away from the flag and left himself about 40 feet away. Mickelson decided to play his famous flop over the bunker and because he was in deep rough, the ball knuckled out of the rough and roll right into another bunker. Keegan Bradley played a brilliant shot that nestled onto the fringe.

Each player had a decision to make, go for broke or play the percentages and the golfer who played the percentages won. Now let's back up one moment though, Haas couldn't not of dreamed of draining a 40 foot putt in that situation, but that doesn't matter. The point was he had one likely scenario which was to get down in two and play another hole, it just happened to work out that he made the putt, Mickleson and Bradley parred.

Next time you play, think about an old line you have heard in several movies, but it's something about being a hero. Sometimes being the anti-hero has big dividends in the end, just ask Bill Haas. But if you ever need a reminder, just ask these two how being a hero worked out:

Top Ten Ways Golf Pros Can Grow Business: #2

2012-02-20T08:01:00.000-08:00

"Top Ten Ways Golf Pros Can Grow Business: #2"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/20/12

Organizational skills....some people seem to have their lives automated and some, well like me it's more of a challenge. Before I started managing baseball stadiums and sports arenas, I kept my entire work and life schedule in my head. For me it worked, well most of the time and sometimes I would completely gloss over some big event, hell I even forgot my own birthday one year because I was so busy. Yet, organizational skills in terms of teaching lessons can work wonders for your business. Here's how.

First, as a student there's nothing more frustrating than working with a pro that seems to have no way of tracking where your game is. For instance, say you see a pro and you tell him you want to work on your tee shots, because those are the worst, hitting greens and then putting. OK so you set up the lesson dates, meet up and your pro talks to you about chipping, completely forgetting anything you talked about. What I've learned to do is to write everything down. In the sports arena business, you have so many things flying at you all at the same time it's just a necessity. The benefit of writing details down is I could then take a break, put all my notes on paper and then make a more informed decision on what needed to be done for the Taylor Swift concert the next night. Here's how I set up lessons with students:

1) Get them to talk about their games. What's your handicap? Where do you want to be within xx amount of time? Where do you miss your shots? How often do you play? Do you have any injuries you're dealing with?

The more information you can draw out of your student, the more effective you can be in helping them improve.

2) Put your lessons down on paper. Write or type down what you are going to do in terms of getting your student to improve. If lesson one is about taking a proper stance and creating better posture, write it down as well as what happened when you taught the lesson. We can use this as a tool to review the prior lesson with our student, revisit it if he or she tells you it's been a continuing issue and make adjustments.

3) Keep files. This serves two purposes: 1) You can always review your notes if a problem comes up with your student whether it's with their game, payments, or any other detail that can better your situation. Second, if your student decides to go elsewhere, it's always helpful to check back in with them. You never know, maybe they just needed a break from the game or another teacher didn't work out. In either event, you have a good reason to reach out to them and perhaps bring them back into the fold.

One of most common themes I see with golf pros, and this is coming from a student's perspective is a general lack of record keeping. You have to keep records of the income you've made for tax purposes, if you run a course there's your tee and time sheets so why not keep records of your students? Every other business keeps records of their transactions and business duties on daily basis, why not us?

The Slow Play Chronicles: Episode II

2012-02-19T11:54:00.000-08:00

"The Slow Play Chronicles: Episode II"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/19/12

4:09 pm Roddy Ranch GC, 7th Hole Par 3 205 yards

Slow Play Chronicles Episode II has been filmed on location with the men and women who have to wait for knuckleheads who don't know where to park their golf carts. All suspects are presumed innocent until they are caught on camera doing something to slow everyone down.

We're calling in a 5150 on drivers located near the 7th green at the golf course. They're parked in a no parking area on the collar of the green. May need back up on this one. They're walking up the hill to the back of the green to putt and then back down the hill to get their carts. Verifying there's a sign in EACH CART THAT SAYS TO STAY ON CART PATH. Sign verified...going to make an arrest.

Top Ten Ways Golf Pros Can Grow Business: #3

2012-02-19T06:53:00.000-08:00

"Top Ten Ways Golf Pros Can Grow Business: #3 Add Value"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/19/12

During this series where we discuss ways where golf teachers can grow their business, a variety of topics have been discussed from being different, networking and even doing some free work. Now I want to talk about how to add value to your lesson packages. Anything we buy we place some sort of value to that purchase. If you are car shopping, you value things like the look of the car, the brand (which we will talk about tomorrow), and the creature comforts in the car. When students look for lessons, consciously or not, they look for certain traits or values. For instance, when I was looking for lessons to prepare for tournament play, I wanted someone who played on tour. In my mind, that teacher could provide value to the lessons she teaches me through the experiences she had on the LPGA tour. Value can come from tangible objects and services as well.

John Graham of The John Graham Golf Blog teaches lessons through an amazing system called AimPoint which is a computer system that helps you read greens and determine your aiming point when rolling putts. Now imagine that, not only do you get high quality instruction, but you get the benefit of learning how to read greens and make more putts. You become a sort of "Terminator" of putting by making nearly everything! With CrossGolfPros Lessons, you get the benefit of learning new warm up techniques and seeing yourself on camera with a full breakdown of your ball speed, club head speed and videos of your swing you can recall anytime. That's value! It's giving the student a feeling of greater buying power even if the product is more expensive. Here's an exercise you can run through:

You have two cars:

Car A has these features: A/C, auto transmission, CD Player and cloth seats which runs for $20,000

Car B has these features: A/C, auto transmission, full stereo system with IPod link, leather seats, all wheel drive, tinted windows, back up camera and runs for $35,000

Which one has more value? Of course it depends on the person, but the second car even though it's more expensive has more stuff and feels like a "cooler" car. When you build out your lesson packages, think about the value of the lessons you give. It's not just what a person learns and enjoys the game, but what do they take with them? More importantly, what do they tell other people?

The Slow Play Chronicles: Episode I With Music!

2012-02-18T17:36:00.000-08:00

"The Slow Play Chronicles: Episode I"
Sean & Stef Mysel
2/18/12

2:30pm Pacific Standard Time - Diablo Hills GC On a hole far, far, far, really far away.......
4th Hole

Hello everyone and welcome to CrossGolfPros first edition of The Slow Play Chronicles. Slow play is often mentioned as one of the key killers in terms of golf's declining popularity among Americans. Due to this fact, we have decided to chronicle instances of slow play that can be avoided. Enjoy!

Just finished making an in-and-out birdie putt on the par 3 third hole when we came up to the twosome in front us. The second player had just finished his swing and chunked the ball. In fact it looked like a cat had jumped out of the ground with the amount of turf that was consumed on the swing. Then the golfer proceeded to lay down another ball and put one on Ygnacio Blvd which runs parallel with the golf course. As we pulled the cart up to the tee box, they had played four golf balls even though we were pushing them and we had two groups behind us who were playing fast. On the short par 4 7th hole, the two some placed one ball in a retiree's living room, another played Santa Claus down another person's chimney and the other two were OB. The hole measured less than 260 yards.

Ultimately this saga turned a 9-hole round on a pitch and putt on steroids into a 3 and a half hour shankfest. I would like to thank the staff at the course for reminding these golfers that when you have people playing close behind you, just play the first ball you hit and avoid tagging some dude's house with your shots.

The End

Top Ten Ways Golf Pros Can Grow Business: #4

2012-02-18T07:11:00.001-08:00

"Top Ten Ways Golf Pros Can Grow Business: #4 Networking"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/18/12

Remember the really popular kid in high school you just loved to hate. You know which one I'm talking about, the kid who got the free lunches, all the best looking girls phone numbers and got the hot car once he got his license. Yeah that one! Everyone knew this kid, liked this kid and he seemed to get into whatever parties he wanted to. We all loved to hate that kid but at the same time wanted to have the same things. With your teaching business, it should be the same way. Instead we grown up now call it networking.

Here's how powerful it can be for you. When I was finishing up my Master's at Columbia, I did not have the greatest looking job prospects and was running out of time to make something happen. At that point, I was managing a minor league ball park, but wanted something bigger. So my crew and I collaborated on a project to have a fundraising event for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. It was a big hit, raised a nice sum of money and the gentleman whose son we ran the event for introduced me to people who got me my first real job in sports. Now, the same thing is happening here with my teaching business. I researched some women's golf groups, got to speak with the lady who runs one of them locally and we're setting up lessons and clinics for the members. Here's how to make it work:

1) Do Your Homework - whoever it is you're trying to reach out to, make sure you know something about them. If it's a particular person, know what they do and why they do it. You don't need to use flattery, just make sure you know where they're coming from.

2) Reaching Out - when you're ready to approach them, be the person that can help solve a problem or add to what they are doing. In the case of the women's golf group, they don't feel as if teachers are interested in them, I am so I therefore fill a need.

3) Follow Up - send out a friendly email, but if you really want to blow them away send a hand written letter. This always gets opened and read which gives you a chance to pitch your teaching practice.

Why is all this stuff important? It's important because you want to grow the game, grow your business and enjoy a larger income. Here's just one way to make it happen and it's a tremendous amount of fun learning about new people.

Nine Disturbing Effects of Soda - Emily Mann

2012-02-17T10:00:00.000-08:00

"Nine Disturbing Effects of Soda - Emily Mann"
Comments by Sean Mysel
2/17/12

This article from Emily Mann at Rodale.com is shocking and common sense at the same time. Most people know that soda is horribly bad for your health, but some of the ramifications are jaw dropping. I am going to admit that I used to drink my fair share of soda, mostly diet but every once in a while I'd cheat and grab a Big Gulp of Cherry Coke. For some reason, I just dropped it and stuck to water, coffee and juice. In fact my mixture of choice is water and cranberry juice which I used when I played ice hockey.

What a difference! I feel radically better almost like I have a second life. For instance, when I would practice I could down about three large buckets of balls, now I can easily pound out six and play 18 holes. Playing tennis I would be shot after three sets, now I can play five with a tiebreak and still have some gas in the tank. I'm not in terrific shape by any stretch, but I've always had a high energy level. Check this article out, it's definitely worth a look.

Five Ways To Strengthen The Mental Game

2012-02-17T09:04:00.000-08:00

"Five Ways To Strengthen The Mental Game"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/17/12

Golf unlike any sport in the world relies more heavily on the space between your ears than it does any physical talent. In this game, you can take someone who couldn't make the high school football or baseball team but they can still star on the course and make some big time dollars. How? Mentally LPGA and PGA Touring pros know how to handle adversity and success all at the same time. How do they do it? Here's some thoughts:

1) Becoming Brain Dead During Swing - Remember when Tiger Woods began to struggle and mentioned that he had "mechanical" thoughts? Well I would be willing to bet that instead of being mechanical and just hitting the ball, he tried to think his shot down the fairway or into the cup. It's best to do all of our thinking before the shot and let it go when we set up. After that, we just let our animal or as I love to call it beast mode come out.

2) Staying In The Moment - This one is tough but with some mental training it's possible. Ok so here's the scenario: you just hit your approach to within five feet of the cup, looks like a total gimme birdie. As you roll up to the green, you start thinking about how good carding a three on this hole is and as you putt the ball, it lips out and you're wondering what in the world just happened. Nothing is more important than the shot in front of me. Repeat with me...nothing...is....more...important...than...the...shot...in...front....of....me. There, just keep this in mind, you hit a great shot..awesome, now concentrate on the next one.

3) Pre-Shot Routine - Yes, this is important. Why? What this does is gets you into a robotic like state where you analyze your shot, make a decision and let it fly. It doesn't matter what you do or what order you do it, just that you have one that makes sense in your brain and you can repeat it time and again. After a while, it becomes an automatic response to hitting a golf ball.

4) Pushing Yourself In Practice - Please, please when you practice, and we've talked about this ad naseum, make it meaningful. Besides when you do it's far more enjoyable. How do you make this happen? Well, first always have a target your aiming at. Flag stick, mound, hole, golf cart picking ball...anything. Now add another dimension. Imagine hitting different types of shots into different targets. Perhaps flying the ball over a water hazard or bunker or maybe shaping shots around obstacles. The more you practice this, the less difficult it becomes on the golf course.

5) Letting Go - Yesterday we had a posting about 30 Things Not To Do To Yourself. One of them was not punishing yourself for mistakes. Same thing applies on the golf course. You can accumulate enough baggage to fill an airport if only you allow this to happen. Once that shot flies off the club face, it's over and that's it.

Top Ten Ways Golf Pros Can Grow Business: #5

2012-02-17T07:46:00.000-08:00

"Top Ten Ways Golf Pros Can Grow Business: #5"
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/17/12

Ok, so far we have discussed five ways where teaching pros can grow their business and more importantly the game of golf. We have looked at customer service, being different and more. Now that we are in the top five, let's get down to the nitty gritty. One of the things that I taking a student's point of view rarely see is actual advertising by teaching pros. Typically, you find some tri-folds in the pro shop, maybe a flyer pinned to a cork board but never real advertising. What I mean is an ad in the paper or its digital counter part, how about a road side sign, hell anything is better than nothing.

Interestingly enough, the attitude I have come across almost projects a feeling that golf instructors believe that students should seek them out and not vice versa. One gentleman I debated with in a golf forum (yes I know someone was wrong on the internet) believed that it wasn't worth his time. But you're a golf instructor, isn't that what you do with your time is teach golf for money? Ok, so how do we get this rolling? Pretty simple actually. Here are the steps:

1) Determine your budget, this doesn't take a ton of cash, but it does take some. You can put an ad easily in your local paper's website for less than $100 a month or on a pay per click basis. See what it's going to take to break even.

2) Find your platform, again for us its putting ads in an online newpaper

3) Track your advertising's progress. Tell them to give you a code when they sign up, this is especially helpful if you run multiple campaigns. Running something like this is almost worthless if you can't track the results.

4) Finally, as students come in, ask them what prompted to call or contact you. The more information you can gather, the better.

Be active in your business. Waiting around for business doesn't work but for a few choice entities like Apple or Microsoft. Even then, they flood our lives with advertisements because they know sitting on their heels leads to doom. If you have more questions or comments, feel free to email us at info@crossgolfpros.com.

Send Us Your Swings!

2012-02-16T12:45:00.000-08:00

"Send Us Your Swings!"
By Sean Mysel
2/16/12

Hey CrossGolfPros readers! First thanks for continuously stopping in and checking us out. We believe in always trying to give the site value and thus, give value to the readers. A few days ago I picked up some great golf software which I believe does some pretty fantastic things. So help me help you out!

Send us your swings, just load them up on YouTube, email us the link at info@crossgolfpros.com and we'll break them down for you. Just do us a favor, tell us the problem you're having in your swing so we can focus on the problems. If it's a variety of issues, just let us know and we'll attack them one by one.

No gimmicks, no games, no cost...just good ol' fashioned community service to golfers.

Thanks!

Sean

30 Things To Stop Doing To Yourself - By Marc

2012-02-16T10:24:00.000-08:00

30 Things To Stop Doing To Yourself - By Marc
From Marc & Angel Hack Life

Read this based on a Twitter feed from world famous Apple Evangelist Guy Kawasaki. This was way to great to pass up and many thanks to Marc & Angel for writing such a thoughtful and inspiring piece. You can also find inspirations like this by reading Dale Carnegie who is a personal favorite of yours truly.

Enjoy!

Link

So A Left Handed Woman Enters A Golf Store...

2012-02-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

"So A Left Handed Woman Enters A Golf Store..."
By Sean & Stef Mysel
2/16/12

Maybe you haven't heard that joke before, but that's what seems to happen when I take my wife to any given golf store and try to find equipment. What is the deal? Let me back up a little and tell you a very brief story on how my wife started playing golf. To be totally honest, I stopped playing golf about a decade ago. Completely worn out by the over priced rounds, lack of access to good teaching and friends who lost interest I stopped playing. We were living in New Jersey when my wife and I wanted to go out and do something. So I suggested we mess around at this little pitch and putt course, rented some clubs and hit the range. After knocking some rust off, I was striping the ball and my wife hit one amazing shot and was hooked.

She insistently told me she wanted to learn the game and I was to teach her. The caveat I told her was I wanted decent clubs. Club shopping it was! We went to a major golf retailer and told them that my wife wanted clubs, one catch....she's LEFT HANDED! What I am going to tell you is no exaggeration. Our salesperson threw his hands up in the air in his dry New Jersey drawl and stated, "we don't cater to left handed women." Another young sales clerk offered to help and eventually got my wife into some Callaway X-22s which she still uses and is happy with. But this isn't the only time we've struggled with this. Finding gloves, woods, the right ball, you name it, it's been an issue.

So what makes this so difficult?

Two possible reasons: 1) The training that some of the clerks receive is inadequate. I've been fitted for regular flex shafts when I have a swing speed in excess of 100mph. 2) Golf just doesn't cater to women the way it can and should and doesn't invest time or money in making sure their staff can work with their needs.

I would be willing to bet that the golf equipment retailer that caters to women first, will capture an amazing amount of market share. It's a bottom line business no?

Top Ten Ways Pros Can Grow Business: #6

2012-02-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

"Top Ten Ways Pros Can Grow Business: #6 Improve Customer Service"
By Sean Mysel
2/16/12

This is going to sound ridiculously obvious, but you'll be surprised how common this is. Recently I was looking for a new swing coach for myself to help get ready for tournament play. I looked up golf teachers who had experience playing in tournaments or played on a recognizable tour (LPGA, PGA, etc). After determining my search parameters, I dialed up a list of 20 teaching pros who I believed could help me lower my 5 handicap down to scratch. Price wasn't an issue nor was distance, just wanted to see how many responses I would get. Out of the 20 inquiries I sent out, two...count them, one....two got back to me. Let me repeat, that's one less than three and two more than zero.

After getting only two responses, my wife and I began asking the question: if business is supposedly so bad, why wouldn't people jump on the chance to add more revenue? One thing was certain, if you are going to be in business for yourself, YOU HAVE TO RETURN CUSTOMER INQUIRIES. This is a basic element of good customer service. Most the time, business people have to go out and hunt new business or find new business out of existing customers. Customers will not and should not chase us for business. How do we leverage our time to return customer inquiries, it's actually fairly simple:

1) Technology - get an email address if you don't have one and get a smartphone. Those pagers from the 90's...they don't work anymore you need something that carries the ability to deliver email wirelessly.

2) Make time to return calls and emails. Business can be hard enough to get, why miss out on the low hanging fruit?

3) If you are super busy and cannot return calls in a prompt manner, you can hire answering services for a marginal fee that will manage your calendar and messages.

I know that many of you are busy with running a course and a lesson calendar so please don't take this as being harsh. A little customer service can take your business miles ahead of the competition. I've worked in customer service for 10 years and making it efficient just takes practice and some training, believe me people come to appreciate a little attention.

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