#100 Web TV: How Irene Got Her Golf Handicap Under 30

Golf Handicap Under 30? How did she do it? Watch the interview below...

At the beginning of each month I will be actually interviewing a golfer, just like yourself, and we talk about their golf game.  We talk about how they got started in golf, the frustrations of golf, the highs, the lows, everything you want to know, what you have been experiencing, what they have been going through and how they have actually achieved the results they have achieved.  I think it is really important that I share this story with you because if you are getting really frustrated and then you hear someone else’s story you will go, yes, all I have to do is just to hang in there.

So today, I am interviewing one of my clients, Irene Newport, and she is going to be sharing with you how she was able to get from a forty-five handicap down to a twenty-eight handicap.

I look forward to sharing this interview with you and I hope you get a lot of value out of it.

See you in the interview.

Hey there, Tiffany Mika, The Lady Golf Teacher with you and I have the lovely Irene Newport here with me today.  I thought it would be great for Irene to come and have a chat, because she started as a beginner as will, she started with a handicap of forty-five and I think it is really important that you hear other people’s golf stories because we all go through the same stuff.  Don’t we?  “Absolutely”.

It’s really tough when we first start and we think that we will never get this game but Irene, here, is proof that you can get a hold of this game.

I’m just going to ask her a few questions on what she has found about golf and her journey with golf so that you can go ‘yes, I can hang in there and I can do some great things in my golf too, I just have to be patient’.

Tiff:       Irene, how long have you been actually playing golf?

Irene:     Tiffany, I have been playing for probably about eight years and I didn’t start at thirty-four like you, I started at fifty-two. Time gets away.

Tiff:       It does.

Irene:     I found that I was good at most other sports, very similar to your experience of ‘why can’t I get this golf?’ I can swim and ride a bike and run and walk for miles and miles, however, the golf experience was almost a fear of success and possibly thinking that I was just going to fail anyway. A very negative sort of experience but I loved it because I started for the company with other women and that was always terrific because it was really a kind of shared disaster. In a way.  You know of miss hits and just not getting good scores and maybe coming last on the leaderboard.  There was always other people there with you.

Tiff:       Did that bother you, coming last on the leaderboard?

Irene:     I think initially it did and then I just accepted it and didn’t worry about it because there was so many positive aspects to playing golf.  The fitness and the hope that I could continue into old age to be able to do something quite physical.

Tiff:       She’s not old anyway.

Irene:     No, but eighty is feasible and that fitness benefit and the company.  There is always other people around to share the whole four and a half hours or five hours with and then have lunch and coffee.  It wasn’t really until about five or six years ago, when I joined Bayview that I really started to think.  Then I met you, Tiffany, and felt that I could possibly improve, even I, could improve and learn a bit more about the game. So it has been a very long journey but I think a lot of improvement has been made.  With your help.

Tiff:       Yes, thanks. So, was the attraction to golf to learn the sport itself, or was it because of the friendships that you have made?

Irene:     Friendships and golf.

Tiff:       So, it has been the whole thing.

Irene:     The two main things were friendships and fitness and the pleasure now is becoming when I actually play a good shot and I think I can actually do that.  I can play like all those marvellous people I have been watching all these years.   The very good A grader, I can hit a shot as well as they can, not every time of course and not as good as they do but I am capable maybe.

Tiff:       Not maybe, she can.

Irene:     Maybe in time to come.

Tiff:       Yes, the progress that you have had, especially over the last four years has been remarkable.

Irene:     Yes, your clinics every week reinforcing the basic things.

Tiff:       Yes, we do drill a lot on the basics!

Tiff:       So you started on forty-five and you are down to a handicap of?

Irene:     I think the GA is probably around twenty-eight or that.

Tiff:       Yes, she finally broke thirty.  So how do you feel now if you look back from twenty- eight now to that journey of forty-five down to twenty-eight, what could you share with somebody that is behind that camera watching us?

Irene:     I actually say to the newcomers that you have to practice and you have to have instruction.  You can’t just expect for everything to transform without putting a bit of effort in.  I try and pass that message on because that is what has made a difference for me.  Plus, to be more focussed.  Take time and be focussed.  If I am talking to people that is exactly what I tell.  Improve your technique and then forget about success or failure, just play every shot.

Tiff:       So, you’re saying play one shot at a time like we have worked on?

Irene:     Yes, that idea.  Put everything into that one moment that you are actually performing.  Put everything that you’ve got into that and then you can relax after you have possibly played a good shot.

Tiff:       So, we have been working quite strategically on improving your golf in the sense of that one shot at a time and that has made a big difference.  It has made the difference, I mean, your handicap dropped quite quickly in a short period of time?

Irene:     Totally changed my ambition.  My aim.  It used to be that some nefarious idea that I was going to get better, but that never, ever happened until I thought that this is the shot I have to play and do it to the best of my ability.  So I was doing that one shot at a time thing, plus the routines and the focus, all those ideas have caused an improvement.

Tiff:       A good improvement by the way.

Tiff:       So that has kept you more consistent on the scorecard too hasn’t it? Not only the shots by playing one shot at a time, the scorecard is showing a much more consistent result isn’t it.

Irene:     Absolutely. There are still things to work on but it has really, really improved, especially now more often two putts rather than is used to be three putts. Mostly three putts now it’s two putts. So that is helping a lot. So that’s, what do you say, sixty-five percent of the game?

Tiff:       Forty-three.

Irene:     Forty-three, whatever it is.

Tiff:       Maybe her long game is really good.

Tiff:       So, you played match play last year for the first time too.  How was that for you?

Irene:     It took a lot of my energy and self-discipline because I wasn’t naturally, I mean I was too friendly on the very first match.  I was just too friendly telling the person where all the hazards were and it is just not in my nature to be tough and competitive. I never repeated that because the other person got an advantage by me being nice.

Tiff:       Niceness.

Irene:     Yes, exactly.  Then I just scraped to win.  Whereas really if I analysed it later I could have taken that.  But the outcome was that we won the competition anyway, we won the pennant so that didn’t matter in the long run.  But as time went on I developed a lot more serious intention about playing well.  Because I was playing for my club, it wasn’t just me, it was the team and the club, so I got very focussed.  I practiced twice on some golf courses that were new and really had a very serious mind about it.

Tiff:       It is quite interesting that you just said ‘because it was for my team and because it was for my club’ the focus was off you. You were focussed on supporting everyone around you? Did you find that helped too?

Irene:     Well, yes, I think it did because I lost a bit of the fear.  I thought about the failure of the team, not necessarily about myself, my fear of success or fear of failure whatever that thing is just sort of dissipated and I thought forget all that you have just got to do it right for the others.  That changed the focus altogether.

Tiff:       Yes.

Irene:     It did really make a difference, interestingly.

Tiff:       Yes, I think too that with that matchplay it ignited your game, more so.

Irene:     Possibly.  It made me more motivated to do better.  That’s for sure.

Tiff:       It helped with your focus too, didn’t it?

Irene:     Absolutely, absolutely.  I understood it was just one after another.  You know, just one step at a time sort of thing.

Tiff:       Yes, from that one shot at a time in matchplay you then took it back out onto all your stableford rounds and stroke rounds, whatever and applied the same thing.

Irene:     Exactly right. With the techniques you have given me, I just do that.

Tiff:       Yes.

Irene:     Repetition.

Tiff:       Fab. Fab. That’s awesome.  So what is your plan now?  Here we are at a handicap of twenty-eight, and it has actually happened a lot quicker.  Especially in the last six months, it has really turned around.  So what is your plan now?

Irene:     Just keep playing good shots. I really don’t have any other ambition because for me that is self-fulfilling.  You know, just to hit a good shot is very satisfying.  I want to try and do that as often as possible.

Tiff:       So, just playing one shot at a time?

Irene:     Yes. Just stay on that.

Tiff:       Keeping it simple?

Irene:     Yes, exactly.

Tiff:       The KIST principle.

Irene:     Yes, that’s right.

Tiff:       I had to throw that in there.

Irene:     I don’t have any other ambitions but that.  If I can continue to do that it will be great.

Tiff:       Yes, I think everything will take care of itself if you keep that same mindset that you have now.

Irene:     Yes, that’s right. Exactly.  To worry about prizes or winning or any other thing just won’t work for me. It puts me off. I just have to be very simple.  Just one bit at a time.  Maybe as time goes by things will change, but not at the moment.

Tiff:       I think that is a really good attitude actually.  If you have that attitude that you’ve got now, that one shot at a time and you take one match at a time you are getting a much more consistent result and all the other stuff around it will happen.

Irene:     I hope so.  We’ll see.

Tiff:       So, I’m actually going to say thank you to Irene.  I hope you enjoyed this interview.  I think it is really good that you get insights from other golfers of where they are at and you may be able to relate to where Irene is at now or where she has been.  It has been a journey for her.  I don’t think the journey ever ends though.

Irene:     I believe that. Thanks a lot Tiff.

Well, I hope you really enjoyed this interview.  It was great wasn’t it.  Irene really opened up and shared her golfing journey.  She has been playing for the last eight years, going from a handicap of forty-five to a handicap of twenty-eight and she has shared with you exactly how she has done it.  How great is that?

Hope that has inspired you, but what I would love you to do right now is to leave a comment and share with me the value you got out of today’s interview.  There will be plenty more coming in the future and I look forward to sharing them with you.

Have an absolutely awesome day, take care, and remember; tee it high and let it fly.