After watching yet another edition of the Malaysian Open fade away, with our Malaysian golfers further away from winning one, the only bright spot this week was that our great yellow hope, Danny Chia is going to St Andrews…again. I believe this is the third British Open for Mr Chia, and all I can say is: Please make the cut.
I mean, why is Malaysia so slow in producing champions? Look at India. You’ve got folks like Jyothi, Arjun, Jeev. Thailand, you’ve got so many world class golfers with unpronouncable names. We’ve got a Malaysian Open year in, year out and yet the best we can do is tied 60th, for US5k each. US5k! That’s like Tiger Woods spending on toilet paper every day!
Observing this phenomenon and through through study (consisting of lounging around the range drinking teh tarik and commenting about people’s swings), the conclusion is we probably lack good coaches. Serious. If you are a coach reading this, I’m sure you are a good one, but you’re likely the minority.
I remember my first coach, this dude in Bandar Utama driving range. I was just picking up golf then and I paid him like for 6 lessons or something…I think about RM500 or something. He was a pretty good sales guy, telling me I have a good swing, that I’ll be wasting my talent and the world will not see a greater champion than me…basically sold me out right away that if I didn’t dedicate myself to a lifelong pursuit of golf excellence, I am committing the gravest sin of all time and I should be fried alive on a stake.
So there’s the con. I paid him RM500 for 6 lessons.
Newbies: NEVER PAY ANYTHING TO ANYONE UNTIL YOU KNOW HE’S FOR REAL!
I.e do a POC (Proof of concept). Pay him for one lesson first, see if he can properly fix you up. If he doesn’t allow that, tell him to eat bananas (the chinese way of saying it sounds so much cruder) and take your business elsewhere. Any coach that doesn’t allow a one time tryout session is probably a coach with so low confidence in himself, he’s not worth your time. And they will try this trick: “Oh, I need 5 lessons with you before you see a difference.”
No, that’s because they suck and they want your money. If a coach can’t tell what’s your problem in the first hour and how to fix it and at least show he can fix it, he’s a twit.
So back to my BU range. I paid this dude off, and first lesson he was all very attentive. He thought me a few drills and I was reasonably happy with the results. Second lesson, he teaches me about the same thing, mutters about me needing to improve. Then leaves me for half the session for me to ‘test his new technique’. What?
Can you imagine paying for a doctor who charges you for consultation by the hour and ask you to take his medicine, and then waits for an hour for it to take effect? Who pays for that hour while he’s lounging around doing crap? So this golf coach, while I was ‘testing’ my new techniques, he goes off to teach another guy. WHAT? If you are one of these coaches, maybe you should look into enhancing your communication and teaching
skills.
Hey, fatso, I blocked you for an hour. You are mine. You don’t go whore yourself to another student and charge him for that same hour. That’s service fraud.
And that wasn’t the worse.
I skipped a couple of weeks due to traveling. I arranged my third lesson with him and when I arrived, guess what? He didn’t know who I was. He was like, “Who you?” I am like, “Your student, you pimp.” “Oh yeah….ok, umm, show me your swing.”
WHAT?!!?
I show him my swing, and he lets me do the same drill as I did in day ONE!!!!!! WHAT THE H*LL!!!!!!!!
I asked him, “Don’t you have any records of my improvement?”
He smiles and says he does, but that I was rusty. Well, jolly good, because you don’t even know who the heck I was, how can you tell that I am rusty?
I asked him to refund me, he says no. I told him to at least arrange me a free round at the nine hole golf course. He says he can’t. I asked him if I may stuff my 7 iron up his bunny hole and he stares at me, annoyed.
So thus ended my unfortunate encounter with my first golf coach. Subsequently I tied up with this Australian from Tropicana range and in the first lesson (free), he gave me a detailed computer analysis of my swing. Talk about ozzie service, mate. I took up one lesson (RM100) under him, started playing some of the best golf of my life, then went back to him for another lesson and fixed a few swing flaws and then tried to have another lesson and he was gone. Went back to Australia probably. He was a great coach.
I generally don’t like to blame people for playing sucky golf, but I really wish I did stuff my 7-iron up my first coach’s bunny hole. Dang him for producing my mutated golf swing!
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