Doug Lawrie is the owner of Focus Golf Group, a golf academy in Burlington, Ontario that specializes in teaching junior golfers. Doug has won many awards over the course of his teaching career, including the 2022 PGA of Canada Coach of the Year, and is a U.S. Kids top 50 Master Teacher.
Doug explained that golfers and various environments are like wild tigers and zoo tigers. Zoo tigers are fed on a schedule. Wild tigers have to hunt to kill. If you put a wild tiger in a zoo, it’s the spa. It will get to eat and get fat. If you put a zoo tiger in the wild, it will die because it doesn’t know anything but being served. Same thing can apply to golfers. If you’re in an environment where everything is perfect like a country club, it can be really easy to get used to being pampered and to struggle when put in tougher environments. The key takeaway is to not get too cozy if everything is perfect, and to be prepared for less than perfect environments.
Doug also emphasized the important difference between teaching and coaching. Teaching is an academic exercise and does not involve the course. If you want to be a coach, you have to get on the course and you have to see your players play tournaments, because that is where golf is played.
For more information, listen to the episode here https://rss.com/podcasts/thetournamentcode/