A golf story of FAST LARRY GUNINGER

A golf story of FAST LARRY GUNINGER, in Kansas City, Missouri.

I began study of Zen mental techniques in the mid 1960’s. They came from my training in Japanes Karate working with the top belt in the country, who was direct from Japan. When I took up golf I was a weekend player and got down to playing in the low 90’s but hit the barrier, I could not shoot in the 80’s. I could shoot a 90, but could not find a way to bring home an 89. Every time out I would come in with a 92.

I grew up as a caddy at the Blue Hills country club. I would loop a double round in the morning, shag balls, and then loop another 18 in the afternoon. I carried the bags and clubbed some of the clubs best golfers and areas finest amateurs. This was the top club in town and every year the tour came in. I got to carry the bag of a pro and watch the best players then perform, Hogan, Sneed and other legends. I carried Palmers bag when he was the amateur champion and not yet a pro. I had grown up seeing only great golf at the highest level being played. All of those shots were in my cpu. I had the perfect mental image of what the perfect golf swing was. What I did not know at the time was, all I had to do, was drop all mental thought and control, and simply follow that image and feel.

Being a boy from a poor working class family I never tried to play golf. Golf was a job for me. Poor kids back then did not play Golf, rich kids played golf. Kids like me hung out in pool halls. Most poor kids who became pros came out of the caddy ranks. I worked for golfers and soon became a top caddy. I was clubbing the best and had never hit a ball with a club. I soon learned what it took to be a great caddy. Their egos were all enlarged. They all thought they were better than they really were. They all thought they could get home with the same club the pros could.

Reality was few had any real ability and they hit most irons fat and on the toe, when in an era you have to hit them back of center. I made a deal with my loop, I would hand him the club, he could never look at it, see what it was, and he would hit it trusting me. If his score improved, I would get a big tip for clubbing him and he would ask for me again. I would just over club them by 2 on every hole. It’s 150, he wants a 7, I hand him a 5. Bada Bing, he is on the green. He soon loves me.

The other one was learning how to cheat. I would have a hole in my pocket and when he lost a ball, I would just drop a new one through the hole down my pants leg on the inside saying, I found it. He would never lose a ball which was worth about 6 strokes a round. I would find his opponents ball and stand on it, which gave him another 2 or 3 strokes a round. Soon all the top doctors and mostly the crooked lawyers were asking for me.

Golf was a way to make some money, to get into a good pool game that night, buy some coors and LSMFT's.

In my mind was imprinted a perfect swing and a perfect shot and I knew exactly what club produced that. My caddy days ended and I later graduated from High School then College. I was too busy for Golf.

When I had a good job and a wife and family and kids, I decided to take up the game I knew so well but had never played. I expected it to be easy. I was shocked to find out I would not play it a lick. I expected to begin play in the 70’s. I began playing in the 120’s. When I broke 100 I began to take lessons and their results got me down to a flat 90 and there I seemed to stall. I had spent a couple of years learning how to play the game and was still a hacker. I had been taught the 7 things to do, that JB later showed me when you did them, you would never play well. They had me totally tied up in paralysis by analyis.

I could not see any reason why I could not play the game exactly the same as the many fine players I used to caddy for. I hung up my clubs and told my group I was taking 2 weekends off and I would see them in 3 weeks. I decided to wipe my mind clean, and forget everything I had been taught and was trying to do. I spent two weeks playing Golf only in my mind, swinging with full force in my back yard at a ball that was imaginary and watching it fly down the fairway 300 yards nice and straight.

It was now simple to let the club rip through the air at an amazing speed at a ball that was only a make believe image sitting on top of me tee in the ground. I worked on only lightly clipping the tee barely when the club passed leaving it sitting in the ground. I spent hours hitting perfect shot after perfect shot seeing each ball fly off in the air perfect. There just was no ball. I was practicing perfect mental visualization hitting my fathom ball only I could see. I soon began to time the grip it and rip it move and it was feeling nice, very powerful.

I would go to bed at night and play the same perfect round in my mind before I went to sleep. Every shot down the pipe, a frozen rope 300 yards long. Every shot from the fairway was on the green stiff, every hole I made a birdie on. This was the method Hogan used. That is where I learned it. I programmed my mind with pure Zen techniques and learned to go deep into the Zone. I began to program my mind with Self Hypnosis telling myself how to play perfect.

I hit my driver short then and only about 200 yards. My brother in law could hit his 5 iron that far. I felt I was a wimp with no power. I had the power all along, it was my mind that had turned me into a wimp and robbed me of all power. I was taking lessons and they had me all screwed up thinking about this and that. All my pals were giving me lousy advice. I was thinking of too many things, cock the wrists, keep the left arm stiff, don’t move the head, drop the club, pronate the wrist, no wonder I could not hit it 200 with all that crap going on in my head. They had me in paralysis by analysis. A 300 yard drive was then beyond my comprehension.

I just forgot all of that crap and cleared my mind. I was swinging the club at about 90 mph. For weeks I kept swinging the club in my backyard over and over, hour after hour as hard as I possibly could see how fast I could move the club head. Soon I was up to 125 mph. That was easy to do, because there was no ball, nothing to aim at or hit, just let her rip through the air.

I went out to play golf with my weekend group and went deep into the Zone I had been practicing on. I put my new swing into play and on the first tee I drove the green of a par 4. Jaws dropped all over the tee. I drove the greens of 3 par fours and putted for eagles on all 3 of them. We were on a Kansas 6300 yard short municipal course, so not many bunkers and no bunkers in front of the par 4’s I drove. Most of the par 4’s I hit was 315 to 330 yards long. The fairways were hard and the grass very short. I did not make any eagles on the par 4’s I drove, but was picking up birdies. I had never putted for eagle before, or drove a par 4, or hit a 300-yard plus drive. I hit 2 par 5’s in two for the first time ever and scored my first eagle, I had never had a birdie before.

It was like a dream that was not happening. How could this be occurring, this is impossible, but it was unfolding right before my eyes. It was like some biblical miracle occuring with my body. I did not say a word the entire round and none of my playing partners said a word to me; they were simply astounded by what was unfolding before them. I was deep in the zone and was not saying a word or showing any emotion, I had become a golf robot. They were frankly speechless seeing a perfect round unfold in front of them by a 90’s hacker. None of this, could be possible, but it was unfolding before them.

On the 17the tee my pal talked to me for the first time saying do you realize you can par in for a 65. I came out of the deep zone and just stared at him, and then it hit me. 65, Holy fookin she-yit, I have never shot an 89 before, I can’t shoot a 65, and mentally I went ape she-yit. Panic set in, fear over took me, and it was a rush of emotions as my mind ripped free of the Zone. I began to sweat, lit up a LSMFT.

Yes I hit ground balls up both fairways and double bogeyed the final two holes. I had played perfect all day playing every hole at par or better. I was in a perfect Zen state deep into the zone in perfect calm and in perfect relaxation. The minute I was pulled out of it and began to think, fear and emotions were allowed back in, I became the 30 handicapper at once I was and played home as a 40 handicapper loppin the heads off gophers and knocking low flyin quail out of the air. I was sweating like a pig coming off of the last green.

I had been cool as a cucumber for 16 holes before then. When I made that putt for the 69, they almost had to carry me into the clubhouse I was such a physical wreck, I was shaking all over and covered with sweat. When they told the story at the bar, of course, nobody believe that bull she-yit.

You saw Greg Norman do that same thing at the Masters blowing a 6 shot lead, Ap did the same thing at the Open losing to Casper. The mind can let you play perfect, and it can then literally cripple you.

That is what the mind can offer you or do for you or do to you. It can allow you to play at the highest level possible, or the worst. Even with that total collapse I still shot a 69, which is an amazing story, and few I have ever told it to believe it. That's OK, don't belive it, like I give a flyin fook. I skipped the 80’s and the 70’s and went right into the 60’s. From that point on I was a 70’s player and soon went down to scratch. I stayed for years between a plus one and a 2 handicap. I would visit the 60’s now and then.

The other amazing part of this story is the other 3 guys in my group who were all like me; none of them had every shot in the 80’s either. Two of them did that day and one shot a 79. They were so caught up in what I was doing, they absorbed my rhythm and they all went along for the ride. Two of them went 10 strokes below their best round ever; the 3rd guy went 12 strokes under his best score that is how powerful this mental stuff can be. I went 21 strokes under my best round. It looked so easy; they began to do it as well.

I went on to do other amazing things in later years in Golf. I drove the green on the par four 485-yard hole in Nebraska and eagled it with a putt. That’s the hole that the guy aced it to set the record on in Omaha. I once drove the green on a par 5 from off of the tee at Captiva and putted for an Albatross; I did not make the putt and only walked off with a birdie when I three putted. I drove the green off the tee on a par 5 in Kansas and again 3 putted for another birdie. Both times I was barely on and left a 90’ putt. Yes the fairway was rock hard and I did have one hell of a tailwind behind me on both occasions. I did double eagle a par 5 in two with a three wood from the fairway and I had 17 holes in one on par 3’s. Because on every shot, I envisioned and planned mentally for a hole in one. Others just hoped to hit the green.

I had learned to let the big dog hunt, I learned how to grip it and rip it with no fear. With no fear or mental barriers, you can hit the ball a long way. I had 20 eagles out of the fairway, which are the same as holes in one. The reason I had so many of these, 37 holes in one on par 3’s and 4’s, is other players are only trying to hit the green, that is the only mental image they come up with and give their cpu commands to do. They are saying cpu, you can hit it anywhere up there, I don’t care, here’s your target, 40 yards by 30 yrs. Every green I shot at, I imaged a hole in one and that was the command I gave. My target I gave my cpu was an area to hit 6” by 6”, the cup.

I shot at every pin with no fear. If it was a trick pin, I would be smart and take the middle of the green, but I was a shot maker and I loved to hunt the stick. I was out for fun and excitment and was not a tour pro trying to cash a check playing it safe on every shot. I expected to make a hole in one on every shot I made to every green. I slightly over clubbed most greens and sucked back into a lot of holes. My concept on irons to the pin or putts, never up, never in. If you study what course designers do to you, is all of the trouble on most greens are up front, most greens are open in the back, water is always up front and most pins are back of center. Never up, never in worked for me. Yes if there was a big downhill slope, I would rather have a 20’ putt uphill than a 3’ putt downhill on a slick green.

Every day I swung a 10 lb iron bar and then a sledge ax left handed many times to help build up my strength through the ball. I use a seven-degree driver and have always been a low-ball slight hooker of the ball. That came from all those years playing in the Wind in Kansas and Nebraska. I don’t hit many cuts but I can if I choose to. I teed the ball very high and hitting up and over the top of it I produced a lot of topspin roll when it came down. Some of my tee shots would run 50 yards or more when they landed. I was gold on wide hard fairways. Put me on Narrow ones, or if it rained and got wet, not having the hang time, I was in trouble. What I did then, worked a lot, but not all of the time.

Today my big head driver is 8.5 and I am using a higher launch angle and a longer hang time like most of the pros.

I was making as much money selling then as the golf pros were making so I never gave any thought to trying to be golf pro. The leading money winner made $65,000. Today the top 30 golfers all make over a million a year and every touring pro who stays out there a few years becomes a millionaire.

This is a true story and I will swear on a bible or take a lie detector test on it. I submit it just to show what the mind can do if you unleash it and allow it to run your game with no restrictions, then anything is possible. When I realized this and had it proven to me on that Kansas golf course back in 1965, I knew. I then began a lifelong study and the mental and the inner game in all sports. I now reveal what I have learned during those many decades.

I can direct you into that same magic.

PoolChat: A golf story of FAST LARRY GUNINGER - PoolChat