Introduction
My name is Vic Mason and I am the Founder of scratchgolfer®.org. You see, scratchgolfer®.org was founded out of frustration with my own game. I had always been a good athlete and picked up sports fairly quickly. When I decided to pick up golf later in life, I was sure I would progress rapidly and I did to about an 18-handicap, but that is where I stalled. Being a driven person, I was sure I would just push through this hurdle.
However, I became increasingly frustrated in my pursuit of improvement. I visited variously swing instructors, purchased numerous instructional DVD's and have accumulated a library full of golf books. In addition, I attended several golf school weekends. I am also a very logical person; I know it takes time and dedication to become excellent at anything, so I just kept relentlessly pursuing golfing excellence. However, after the commitment, dedication and time I put into this pursuit, I would have expected to see results and results were not happening.
To complicate the matter, when I took a step back I realized I had been hearing, reading and watching conflicting information about how to swing a golf club! Things like hinge early in your back swing, hinge late in your back swing, the lower body leads, the lower body reacts, swing your arms in-to-out, swing your arms down-the-target line, swing your arms around your body, take your hands out of it, release your hands hard. Trust me, I can go on and on. But what really got to me is I was paying for all this advice, advice that was so often in opposition to the previous advice. It felt like I was on a treadmill and going nowhere fast.
I started thinking. Could it be there is NOT a right and wrong way to swing a golf club? That it ALL can work, just pick a strategy/swing philosophy and practice it. And if it is true that there is not one correct way to swing the golf club, why do so many golfers practice one golf swing technique, then one day, one week or one month later they are practicing a completely different technique!?
It is like they are chasing their shadow.
Show me the latest swing technique and I will find someone who teaches the exact opposite. The reason being; there are many different ways to successfully swing a golf club. Just watch the next golf tournament and you will see evidence from the best 125 players in the world that there are different swing techniques.
Since there are countless swing techniques, then what does it take to become excellent?
Answer: you have to become exceptional at controlling your golf ball under the "pressure" of the game.
In golf you do not get a "redo". You have to become good at getting your ball from point A to point B the first time while controlling the distance, direction and height of your ball.
Most amateur golfers do not practice controlling their golf ball with without a "redo".
That is when I had my "aha" moment and started hearing about Trent Wearner. Trent authored a book called Golf Scrimmages and in his book he teaches that golf, until now, has not been practiced like other sports. And, in order to improve you need to practice realistically. You need to practice under the pressure of a game with shots that mimic what you are going to encounter on the golf course. This is the way other sports are practiced; football, baseball, basketball, soccer. They all scrimmage. In golf we need to create a practice session to test and practice our skills. We need to create a scrimmage/ practice environment that is realistic AND measurable. This all made sense to me, since this is the way I, along with my buddies, would practice other sports. I started implementing Trent's practice scrimmages and my handicap quickly started coming down. I started becoming less and less worried about my technique and more interested in practice that helped me play better. In doing so, I started to move the ball from Point A to Point B with more success while under the pressures of the golf course.
It got me out of playing golf swing and into playing golf!
My handicap started coming down and I quickly started playing to a 9 handicap! I was so excited that I wanted to create a community around this concept and share it with others! I asked Trent to partner with me and together we created scratchgolfer®.org.
Scratchgolfer®.org has many other unique breakthrough concepts. For one, we are creating a team-like environment not typically found in golf - a community to support one another. When I played baseball we practiced together, played together and just hung out. Whether it was peer pressure, the feeling of accountability, or something else, being associated with a team advanced our skills quickly and I believe this aspect of our site will help others in the same way.
Our goal with scratchgolfer®.org is to create a community that acts as a team to support one another in our individual pursuit of golfing excellence.
Our community is for passionate golfers of ALL abilities! Our name scratchgolfer® simply represents golfing excellence and therefore the ultimate goal of many members in our community.
We invite you to get involved and see for yourself how our practice sessions and community support help contribute to your pursuit of golfing excellence.
By the way, my personal goal is to lower my handicap from 9 to scratch and I would appreciate all the support. See you in the community!
Play Well,
VIC