[Richie3Jack]

Richie, I've been following your blog off and on and agree that its great to read about your development. Do you mind if I ask you to expand a little more on your background?

What age are you, do you work and is it your ambition to turn pro (now or at age 50)?

I'd love to know the answers to these questions.

Thanks.

Sure.

Started playing when I was 11 in Upstate NY and was pretty much self taught. Had a friend who was 6 years older than mean that played D-1 golf and some mini-tours and was considered a 'swing buff' and he would help me occasionally, but not much real instruction. I then went to play at Coastal Carolina and my swing really got screwed up and I couldn't correct it. Saw a bunch of teaching pros that taught 'position golf', 'learning mechanics from feel' and trying to create one swing for all the students. Really screwed me up. My friend suggested I see Tom Tomasello as he knew that he was a 'swing guru', but when I went to see Tom at Deer Track, he had unfortunately passed away. Met up with one of Tom's understudies, a GSED, and we worked on a 'swinging' pattern and he introduced me to TGM.

Tried to read TGM and understood about 4 pages of it, but I knew the concepts were pretty brilliant. Helped my game a bit too, but I was still a guy that basically had to really try and hit about 12 greens a round. Fortunately I had a fantastic short game, so if I hit 12 greens and stayed out of trouble, I could shoot under par easily. I played a few mini-tour events and I aspired to be a teaching pro. Really didn't want to be working at a club and be a glorified credit card swiper. I had a job lined up to develop into a teaching pro, but it fell thru the day before I was supposed to start. So after graduation, I just hung out in Myrtle Beach for about a year (I was dating a girl at the time that had another semester to graduate) and then I moved to Atlanta to get a 'real job.'

I was a bit burned out on golf at the time. Plus, at the time golf in Atlanta was pretty much unaffordable. It's affordable now because the club I'm a member at has a bit of a unique business model that makes golf affordable and I can play 23 different golf courses. But back then any decent golf course in Atlanta pretty much was unaffordable to 95% of the golfing public. What pretty much happened is many of those courses were going bankrupt and the club I belong to bought them up as distressed properties.

Anyway, I quit playing the game for 8 years. Mainly playing about 2-3 times a year, if that. In 2008 I started getting sick and found that I needed a kidney transplant. I had one back on October 29, 2009 and the one thing I vowed was to get back into the game of golf. I had become a bit disillusioned with the game at times in my life, but I realized that whether I like it or not I am a golfer and life is to short to avoid doing things that you love and are passionate about. I couldn't play golf until January.

I had become a bit disillusioned by the golf instruction process as well. I knew I was violating the #1 imperative of TGM, but couldn't figure out why. So in the meantime I made a goal for myself to finally understand TGM. I reasoned that the way my mind works is that I am better off understanding everything I can because if I don't, I get MORE CONFUSED and try to emulate successful golfer when their swing is not for me. So learn the components of say, Hogan's swing or Moe Norman's swing and why it works and then I can figure out what components I need to make an effective and consistent golf swing.

I also tried to do the comeback by myself and it was working pretty well at first, but by month 2 I really did not like my progress and I called up Ted after a horrible round of golf.

At the time I was playing to 4.5 handicap. Now, about 5 months later I am at +0.5 and there's been many other small successes. If there's one hugecredit I have to give to Ted, it's that he believes I have some talent to play this game and be successful on some levels in this game. He's also freely answered any questions I've had about the yellow book. Other instructors pretty much gave the vibe that I probably wasn't going to do much with my golfing career and sort of got sick of me coming to them when I had struggles or got really frustrated if I came back from a bad showing at a tournament. I had far, far more potential back then versus today and it's sad to look back and see the difference in those instructor's attitude towards me and the game versus Ted's attitude and interest towards my game.

Hey, you gotta know your stuff and know how to convey your point, but Ted reminds me of what Bill Parcells once said when asked why he always goes to teams that are miserable and why not take over a team that has a pretty good record and just needs a little nudge over the top, Parcells would reply 'where's the fun in that?'

My main ambition right now is to win my Club Championship which doesn't take place until October. I have no idea whether I can win or not, I just want to put in a solid effort and see where my score falls from there.

Then after that, I would love to qualify for the US Amateur. My biggest goal would be to qualify for the US Open, my favorite tournament ever, but that would be an extremely lofty goal to say the least.

Sadly, I doubt there will even be a Champions Tour around by the time I turn 50, so I don't imagine myself turning pro in the near future or in 18 years when I'm eligible for a Champions Tour.




3JACK