Maximum Golf Potential

[bjwestner]

Golf is unlike most sports in my opinion, in that with football for example, if you are not over 6 feet with a great arm, great decision making, ballerina like footwork, with mental toughness, you are not going to be an NFL quarterback (for the most part).  Thus if you do not play high school or college football, and you lack the physical/mental traits, you know you definitely are not going to play in the NFL anytime in the future.

With golf, it's so different.  I was watching an interview on GC with Lee Westwood and his father at Pebble Beach.  They are going to play together in the pro-am.  Lee and his father started golf at the same time together and in just 6 years, he went from never hitting a golf ball in his life to being a pro golfer on the European Tour.  Lee is built solidly  and is right around 6 feet.  Aside from that though there is nothing that jumps out at you that tells one that the potential is there for him to be the number 1 golfer in the world.

How can you get an estimation on what your maximum golf potential is?  Why do I ask?  To me it's important for me to know because if I know that I've "over-acheived" if I get my hc down to 5 for example, that's critical to know.  Just like most of you out there if you were to find out that you had the potential to be a scratch golfer or better, chances are that would be something that you would not only want to know but also use to motivate yourself to practice and work on your game even more!

I understand that there is no magic forumula that tells you what each persons ultimate best handicap is or anything like that, but there has to be a way to estimate maximum potential with a certain degree of confidence instead of randomly guessing.

For example, I ran cross-country and indoor/outdoor track in college on scholarship at a D-1 NCAA school.  After my dreams of being quarterback for the New York Giants were shattered (I realized when I was 15 or 16 that it was not going to happen, also because I did not even play football anymore), I dreamed of competing in the 1500 meters in the Olympics for the USA.  By the end of my college career, I had posted some pretty good times, but, I knew that being a professional or even running in the Olympics was not going to happen.  I had not even broken 4 minutes in the mile and my 400m speed (used as a good rule of thumb or indicator of what your fastest 1500m or mile time would be) was not even close.  That is when I figured that I had reached my maximum potential in track and since that was the case, I stopped running after college.

So that's what I am looking for.....how do I know how to figure out how good at golf I can be?

[LuciusWooding]

Originally Posted by bjwestner

Golf is unlike most sports in my opinion, in that with football for example, if you are not over 6 feet with a great arm, great decision making, ballerina like footwork, with mental toughness, you are not going to be an NFL quarterback (for the most part).

I'd say in response to this, that you just have to call yourself a "running QB" and you can get away with murder stat wise.

Your potential in golf is largely determined by your mental ability, as well as your age. Of all the different levels of athleticisms, ages and builds in the professional tours, they have one thing almost universally in common: they started to play seriously before high school. Most of the best players flat out played since they were 2 or 3. There are very few people who managed to learn the game as adults at that level. I feel that missing high school golf and having no way of getting college golf experience makes it impossible for me to play for a living in the future. I missed out on access to practice and coaching, years of comp experience and rivalries to build my game. Not only that, but golf will never be something that's second nature to me, it's always going to require commitment and work. All the pros swing differently and have many styles of play, but almost all of them have played for many years.

I feel you have a better chance of learning the game from hitting hundreds of thousands of shots over the course of years and feeling totally at home on the course than from being a great athlete or golf genius. Mediocre technique that repeats flawlessly is formidable, more so than perfect technique that does not. Plus, by the time your swing and your entire game has had time to develop, your putting and short game are built up, and you enter your physical prime and improve further. On the other hand, as a hobby for adults you spend years learning more slowly with less time to commit to it, and only lose your physical ability as you age. By the time you peak, you already need a job and are too old to have a full playing career. And the kids who started early stay ahead even if you continually work hard.

Being a pathological competitor with intense focus and determination helps too, but it's not enough. Otherwise Michael Jordan, for example, who is still a fine athlete and as competitive as they come, would be better than a 1 index.

[Jspangler]

I think pro golfers are like all pro athletes, in that they all have something extra. Now I'm yet to find exactly what it is but it's there. I mean look at there are many scratch/+ hcp golfers out there that are great great golfers but could never make it on tour just like not every 7' man is going to make it to NBA. Idk if I answered your question but those are my thoughts.

[hendog]

Here's the problem with finding this out when you start as an adult.

When you are young playing a sport, that's all you do. Practice, workout, play, repeat. You compete against the best in your town, state etc and you get a feeling for where you are. If you're good you move on to college and practice double, workout triple and play year round. You compete against the best in the nation and you get a feel for where you are. All the while you have coaches and trainers and video equipment and practice facilities etc etc. Could be golf, football, whatever. By the time you are done with college you kinda know but even then you have a long way to go if you do go to the next level.

Starting golf as adult, if you are married with kids then you see the course a couple times a month. Practice a few times a week, maybe more, maybe less. If you are single maybe you get out 4-5 times a month and practice 3-4 times per week. You may even take lessons. None of this compares though to a full time golf life. As a result you get a lot of false positives and false negatives. Take a guy who plays 1-2 times per month but otherwise never practices and shoots 75 consistently. You might think WOW, if this guy wanted to he could be a pro. But who knows, maybe he's at his absolute max and more practice would just screw him up. Or how about a guy who plays 3-4 times per month and practices weekly, thinks about it, reads about it, studies it but still struggles to shoot low 80s. You might think WOW with all the time he works at it he's as good as he'll get. But who knows, with the right instructor and maybe a small change or two this guy's passion and dedication might help him go pro.

I guess the bottom line is, to TRULY know, you would have to quit your job, dedicate a year to workouts, practice, tournaments etc. and lay it all on the line. In lieu of that you just have to be honest with yourself. Think about a time when you were playing awesome golf. How far was that from par? Where did you lose shots? Can you reasonably expect to not only continue to play awesome but actually start picking up those strokes? I think the best route is to find your happy place and be content with it. That in of itself may make you better.

Mine is breaking 80 75% of the time. I am not there yet but I think its a reasonable goal. If I get there I will re-evaluate.

Just my 2 cents.