After fifteen years in the golf industry it was time for a change. The way things were done had proven to be ineffective, too many students were lost, grinding on the ‘ideal positions’ of the golf swing with little improvement to show for their efforts. Countless hours spent perfecting a back swing what they really wanted was a better result. “I want to be more consistent.” is the battle cry of the common lesson taker, yet the guidance they receive is akin to some kind of dance routine, they attempt to contort their bodies into uncomfortable positions with little avail. All the while this might not lead to consistency increases for an entire season, if ever. The position is so foreign that it makes a solid strike nearly impossible. This isn’t the experience everywhere but it was becoming far too commonplace.

It was time for a change. 

Students want to pursue at a task that will show improvement yet most students have NO IDEA what that they need to do to improve. I’m coming over the top. I don’t keep my head down. I have a reverse pivot. Many of the reasons are either misunderstood, completely wrong, or wouldn’t help them get better anyway.

I need more distance. I need to hit more fairways and greens. Improve my short game. Avoid three putts. Course management. Stop making big numbers. Get up and down more often. All of these are great, they’re quite obvious to the individual, but they’re still woefully incomplete. Distance, for example, has variables; ball speed, spin rate, launch angle. And those variables have variables. So what do you need to do to increase your distance? Once you identify which variables you need to improve, how are you going to improve them? As you can see this can get very complicated, very quickly. 

The intention of Black Iron Golf is to simplify the improvement process.

Simplicity is the key to improving the specific flaws in your game. Simple does not mean easy. I’ll repeat that as it is very important. Simple does not mean easy. Improving through complexity isn’t any easier but it has a major flaw. When a solution requires many variables to be changed at once it may become impossible to know what change, in which variable, actually solved the problem. Problems in golf have a way of repeating themselves, wouldn’t it be useful to know the exact variable needed to change and in which way? With a complex solution there’s no way to know.

These changes will be straight forward skill building exercises. They will be difficult. We must pursue these simple, and difficult, solutions relentlessly. The solutions will always be clearly related directly to the skill you need to improve, this is vital. Relentless pursuit of the wrong goal, or an unclear goal will most likely result in frustration.

Success with  Black Iron Golf will require a Relentless Pursuit of Improvement.

The Relentless Pursuit of Improvement is a cornerstone of Black Iron Golf. This is a reasonably easy concept to understand, though it may be more difficult in practice. Let’s work it backwards. Improvement, for our purposes, is YOU versus YOU. In reality, that’s all improvement ever means but people have a difficult time not comparing themselves to others. Avoid comparing yourself to others in any situation, it’s not useful. Pursuit is the chase, it’s a single minded focus on a specific target. When you pursue the improvement of a skill, no other target exists. Finally, being Relentless means small setbacks or failures will not hinder the pursuit. A little better, every day.

Traditional lessons are seldom provided, instead, work is prescribed. The work is where many lesson programs fall short. Students visit their instructor once a week, or every two weeks, take a 30-60 minute lesson and are expected to ingrain the information by the next meeting. if the lesson isn’t learned by the time of the next meeting, one of two things can happen; the instructor repeats the lesson or, if he’s inexperienced, the instructor piles something new on top. Neither of these are optimal ways to improve.  

Black Iron Golf provides game planning with criteria for progressing through skill levels. Each program is designed to specifically improve a skill related to a performance variable.

It is always possible to be a little bit better. Strike the ball a little more cleanly a little more often, be a little stronger or a little faster. There is ALWAYS improvement worth pursuing.

When you begin, you will likely progress quite quickly. The programs are designed to become more difficult as you advance. With over 100 skills, each with a dozen levels and many more challenges, there is no finish line. There is always a way to be a little better.