If you can’t always get what you want, you might find you’re getting what you believe
Mired in mediocrity? If you feel stuck in your zeal to improve, why not start with looking at how the world occurs to you and your beliefs.
Tim O'Connor
Tim O'Connor is a golf coach, an award-winning writer, and speaker. Tim takes a holistic approach, coaching golfers in the physical and mental aspects of golf. He co-hosts the Swing Thoughts podcast, and is the author of The Feeling of Greatness: The Moe Norman Story and Getting Unstuck: Seven Transformational Practices for Golf Nerds. He plays bass in CID — a Guelph punk band!
It’s counterintuitive, but a coaching approach allows people to discover their own brilliance
My job is not to swoop in, save the day, and tell them what to do. My job is not to solve their issues with information. Rather, my job is to empower the student.
The paradoxical freeing power of commitment
Commitment displaces doubt, insecurity, tentativeness and overthinking. It prevents you from wriggling out of your commitment. Commitment is freeing.
Going live before you’re ready is deadly
Most golfers rarely spend the time to learn a new move or uncover a problem before they flit off to something new. And they don’t practice deliberately
Anger is an energy – scary to touch but with a gift to give
But as golfers, we’re not supposed to get mad. If you’re read one article in your life on the mental game, it likely said anger makes you play crappy.
I got mad, it felt bad, I was sad, but now I’m … well, less of a danger with anger
Getting angry and feeling disappointed about golf is absurd and irrational, but we do many absurd and irrational things anyway.
The elusive art of putting: giving up control to gain freedom
I’m telling myself what to do. “Don’t leave it short. What will go wrong.” I have so much noise in my head. I just want to learn how to quiet everything. And I want to putt better.
Why am I a wizard in practice but play like I’m possessed by evil spirits?
When I get on the course and I face that first chip of the day, my mouth tastes like metal, my heart tries to jump out of my chest and I’ll either chunk, skull, chilli-dip, or just about miss it.
A golf lesson in experiencing your own brilliance
An extraordinary golf coach, Fred Shoemaker sees golf in a far wider context than anyone that I’ve ever met before. He’s like a golf mystic.
