seeing blindspots

Last weekend my wife Tania went to purchase golf clubs. We decided golf was going to be our new couple's activity this year. A four hour round of golf is good time spent together.

We decided to get fitted for clubs on the thought that if we were going to do something we were going to learn to do it well and do it with the best equipment.

It turns out that at five foot eleven, Tania needed a men's set with extra length. She had only ever played with rented ladies clubs and in effect had never played with clubs that fit her. Her swing was always hunched and cramped. With her new clubs she started hitting the ball much better, which makes the game that much more fun for me since she is likely to throw her clubs less often. (I'm married to a very passionate woman from Montreal.)

When it was my turn, the fitter gave me a driver to try. I teed up the ball, set up my stance with the ball precisely one third the way between my left and right foot and was about to hit when the guy said: "why are you putting the ball there?" I was not sure what he meant. I started playing golf at age seven and this was the way I always did it. He told me to put the ball in-line with my left heel, explaining that I was to hit the ball during the upswing of the club head. I tried it and the bulk of my drives were suddenly going straight and long down the centre.

This year marks a return to golf after having quit in my early twenties. I decided back then that I was not mature enough to play golf. The problem was this: I never made friends with my driver. My first shot almost always went bad. My second shot was almost always from a bad lie and the whole game got continually worse, interspersed with the occasional brilliant shot. Had I known that simple tip for changing my stance, my relationship with golf would have been much different as it has now become.

I've told this story to several of my coaching clients who golf, all of whom know where to stand during a drive. It seems I was the only person alive who did not know this obvious little piece of information. It was a blindspot that was easy for a coach to fix. Many blindspots in business and personal life are this inobvious to a client but this obvious to a well-trained coach.