Barkley and The Golf Channel

Professional Athletes take unconventional golf lessons.  How is it that skilled athletes - who possess natural athletic ability - are continually humbled by the game of golf?   It is because traditional golf instruction dismisses, for the most part, the athletes existing knowledge base and skill set of their sport to focus instead on the mechanics of the golf swing.  The result is little improvement ...much frustration. 

Skilled athletes are the most frustrated because they have difficulty understanding why their talent, athleticism, drive and focus in their sport is not playing out on the golf course.  An athletic person possess all the skills they need to improve, yet they’ll never reach their potential because no one is properly guiding them with the information framed in a common language that allows them to discover how well they can play while using what they already know on an athletic intuitive level.   

Concept: A professional athlete takes a golf lesson where I show them howtheir personal knowledge of their sport translates into golf basics.  We begin each show with the profile of the athlete, their experience as a golfer, and then what they think of golf compared to their sport. We show the emotion of their experience.  They talk about their “problems”.  They hit a couple shots to show where they  are in their experience as a golfer.  We all relate with their experience. We feel for them.. they can even play a few holes. Then I come in and just talk to them about what is similar from their sport in to golf.  Think of it as a kind of “The Dog Whisperer” for famous athletes and regular people having difficulty making the transition to “golf competence”. 

My name is Thomas Pranio and I am a Certified NeuroLinguistic Programming Practitioner ( NLP is the science of excellence).  I have worked with the likes of Otis Anderson (football), Jay Williams (basketball), Gary Gait (lacrosse), Jerry Cooney (boxing), and Carl Banks (football).  In describing my method of drawing out the athletes knowledge Otis Anderson said, “You teach golf like a football coach teaches football, you take what the person already has and improves on it.”   Gary Gait (considered the Michael Jordon of Lacrosse) said, “It was easy to understand and apply on the golf course.  The best part...it was so simple and fast.”  Boxing legend Jerry Cooney said, “If you were my size I’d knock you out!” 

I am the author of Golf for Baseball Players, Beyond the (Golf) Ball, and Virtual Golf.   You can see my books at: www.lulu.com/blacktailpress.  I am in the process of negotiating with New Chapter Press to author a seven book series of Golf for Athletes, which includes; Golf for...baseball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse, tennis, basketball, and football.  It is my goal to get any athlete to make the transition from their sport to “Golf Competence”.   

The name of the program can be something like: Golf for Professional Athletes, or The Golf Whisperer, or The Wow Experience!  Personally I like The Golf Whisperer. 

Enclosed is a video taken of a golf lesson with one of my baseball player/gofers.

I hope you find is as interesting to watch as it was to participate in...Dan is a complete beginner and in the time it would take to fly from New Jersey to Orlando he became a “Competent Golfer”.   He broke ninety his first time out!  

Understand that it wouldn’t make a difference which sport or activity the learner would come from because it is a matter of taking established information and translating it into a language they understand.  Baseball appears to be the obvious sport to make that transfer but some other sports which are just as easy:  Hockey, Soccer, Lacrosse, Soccer, Boxing and Cricket. 

How Does This Process Work?

By using the established knowledge and skills set the athlete golfer bypass having to learn something anew...

The way in which we normally learn a new skill set is by going through the four stages of  learning:

Unconscious Incompetence 

Conscious Incompetence

Conscious Competence 

Unconscious Competence 

By showing The Athlete how they work through their sport rather than teaching golf basics and mechanics from the beginning they are able to skip the first three stages of learning  and go straight to the fourth stage, Unconscious Competence. 

The theory behind this learning is... it is assumed the student already understands what they are doing, they already know how to hit a ball with a stick toward a target... they just have to be reminded of what they know, and remember.    Once the negative trance of miscommunication (verbal mechanical teachings) is taken away they realize they work just fine and that is when the fun begins.  By making the proper analogy appropriate to their awareness the athlete/golfer experiences immediate “Unconscious Golf Competence”.   It is what many have called a “WOW Experience!” 

*I suggest the first episode, i.e., if you can arrange it, to be with Charles Barkley.

You can say Charles Barkley is a bit of a fantasy lesson for me, it would be a kind of Holy Grail of golf lessons especially when I know it would take all of about one hour to straighten him out. 

Imagine for a moment Charles on a lesson tee with me...a bit of hard nosed, cranky golf pro/NLP Practitioner and I explain golf in a manner that makes sense to Sir Charles and he begins to strike the ball without a hitch.   The only person on the line here is me!   Actually, I am in a no lose situation.   He’s had several of the top 100 teaching professionals try and help him and they cannot because they are teaching him from a left-brain approach.   Charles Barkley is a right-brian kinesthetic and everyone teaching him is a left-brain visual, Faldo, Tiger, Butch, Hank...whomever.   

Not only aren’t they speaking his language in a very basic way they are teaching him the mechanics of the swing which will only harm his ability to get out of his way.  In a way these instructors are reinforcing his ineffective embarrassing behaviors.