Friend of mine just sent in this link on yahoo

Over the weekend, a golfer's routine swing in the rough at the Shady Canyon Golf Course in Irvine, Calif., struck a rock. Not so different from the way you play, right? Only this time, the impact caused a spark, and the spark set off a blaze that eventually covered 25 acres, according to the Steven Buck, General Manager of Shady Canyon Golf Course, and required the efforts of 150 Orange County firefighters, writes the Associated Press.

Now that sounds like fun ... setting the golf course on fire...
So that fire brings on a hole lot of questions regarding the rules .

Is fire considered a temporary obstruction such as temporary water ? Where did the poor guy have to drop his ball ? Did he find his ball back ? If your ball melts during a round , can you replace it ?

But most of all ... what was his penalty ? :)

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I think I played my worst round ever today ..

There's a couple of courses around Antwerp and somehow we never managed to play at Ternesse before... today we finally managed ...

The weather has been pretty dramatic for the past couple of weeks , so I wasn't really expecting a course in good state.. I was expecting temporary water on the fairways etc. (On days like this you really don't want to play at Bossenstein) .But they had announced good weather for today ..

Due to the not so great weather I hadn't played for a while

So let's start with the good news... we stayed dry ... not a single raindrop... and we even saw some sunshine.

My first 4 holes were ok .. I was playing my handicap as expected.. but then things started going downhill...
I missed a couple of shots and not a single put dropped... over the course of the day I had about 6 puts that lipped out and 2 that made a 360 turn before the dropped in the cup..

My shots were mostly first grass.. then ball and therefore I didn't have any distance ... most of my shots were about 60-80% of their regular distance ... when we finally figured that it was my ball placement a couple of good shots came back but there were fading way more than usually .. so I missed even more fairways ...

A round to quickly forget ...

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Please note that this blog has now migrated to the blog at www.breakparblueprint.com/blog.

This post is featured here … http://breakparblueprint.com/blog/?p=147

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Please note that this blog has now migrated to the blog at www.breakparblueprint.com/blog.

This post is featured here … http://breakparblueprint.com/blog/?p=129

To gain immediate access to the break par blueprint course go to http://www.breakparblueprint.com/tjohnrichardson/bpb.html

Please note that this blog has now migrated to the blog at www.breakparblueprint.com/blog.

This post is featured here … http://breakparblueprint.com/blog/?p=125

To gain immediate access to the break par blueprint course go to http://www.breakparblueprint.com/tjohnrichardson/bpb.html

Please note that this blog has now migrated to the blog at www.breakparblueprint.com/blog.

This post is featured here … http://breakparblueprint.com/blog/?p=97

To gain immediate access to the break par blueprint course go to http://www.breakparblueprint.com/tjohnrichardson/bpb.html

Please note that this blog has now migrated to the blog at www.breakparblueprint.com/blog.

This post is featured here … http://breakparblueprint.com/blog/?p=32

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This Tony Robbins’ video is from a fantastic selection of videos at TED.com - I can highly recommend a thorough browse through the site for some great perspectives on life.

It’s a fairly rambling speech, to be honest, where he tries to perhaps squeeze too much in.

But… at around the 5.00 minute mark you get to hear some truly great stuff about excuses.

I made excuses for ten years of my life about getting better at golf. There was always some reason why “next year” would be the year to knuckle down and start my challenge. For ten years “next year” came and went. And then I got going…

Do you want to seize this opportunity or do you want to wait until “next year”?

At this rate we will be sold out long before the deadline of Sunday at midnight and I will not be extending the membership for any reason. If you want to get in, you really need to go here right now.

Don’t forget - you can get a full refund for ANY reason during the first sixty days. Why not give it a try and see what might just happen to your golf game?

(Please note: there is some profanity in the speech.  Just wanted to warn you)

Go Here To Buy Your Copy Of The Break Par Blueprint

The 80/20 rule is a strange phenomenon in human behaviour that was discovered by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto.

In business it means that 80% of your profit comes from 20% of your customers, 80 of your complaints come from 20% of your customers and 80% of the productive work that you do comes from 20% of your total hours worked.

In my consultancy business it’s a key concept that I discuss with clients about but… how does it relate to golf?

Welll pretty much the same principles apply. Only 20% of what we do in golf actually helps us get better and perhaps more importantly only 20% of our practice produces 80% of the results. The rest is just ineffective thrashing at the ball.

The Break Par Blueprint is all about you making effective use of your time and making huge improvements without massive amounts of work. So if you haven’t got your copy yet make sure you go here and get signed up soon. We have sold more than half the available copies in only three days so the chances are that we might sell out before the Sunday night deadline arrives. I will NOT, on point of principle, be selling more than the 382 Golds and 20 Platinums because I want to make sure I can provide a strong personal impact to all in the member’s area.

So go here and give it a try and don’t forget my cast iron 60 day I don’t like your hair guarantee.

Click Here To Get YOUR Break Par Blueprint - Totally Risk Free

This is a great little tip from Nick Faldo.  He very astutely discusses the issue of all the myriad swing thoughts and issues that we have before we swing.  As golfers we tend to worry relentlessly about all the things we shouldn’t do.

Faldo explains how important it is to ignore these and not think:

“Don’t hit it in the water!”

or

“Don’t hit it in the trees”

but this simply encourages our mind to think more about the hazard.  Sadly it’s not as easy as just ignoring that and swinging in a more positive way.  The Break Par Blueprint offers you two absolutely cast iron ways to achieve this.  One of them guarantees that you’ll never think about a hazard during the swing again!

So if you’ve haven’t signed up make sure you do so here.

BREAKPARBLUEPRINT

We’re now more than half sold out and I regardless of whether we sell out or not I will stop selling this Sunday (24th August) at midnight.  Don’t forget you are completely covered by my 60 day no-weasel, no-catch money back guarantee.  In fact there is absolutely nothing to stop you buying the course reading these two tips and asking for your money back!  That’s how confident I am of the course and also how much I want you to be able to try something new!

Sorry for the delay (let’s blame the internet or something)

If you go now to www.breakparblueprint.com you go straight to the sales page which leads you to the purchase page. Please note the purchase page is hosted on Andy’s servers so don’t be alarmed when you end up on his site.

The three winners are:

Fabian Greenan

Hans Lofgren

Steve Patterson

I’ll explain why later.

Once again many apologies for the delay.

First of all - for those of you who are still struggling to watch the videos make sure you have Adobe Flash player installed.

You can get it free here:

Click here to potentially solve all your video woes

The main points once again.

1. We will be opening all programs at 12.00 noon GMT (which is actually 1.00 p.m. BST for those of you in the UK)
2. The main sales page will appear at www.breakparblueprint.com This blog will remain for the time being.
3. All videos will be downloadable - perhaps not immediately but as soon as we can get it sorted
4. All members will get their main ebook immediately. The bonus ebooks will take a little longer because I want to make sure they are equally good content and for that reason I will be recording short videos for each of them. They need video to be properly effective since two of them are pure instruction. These will be available early next week and will be available in ebook AND video format for all program levels. For those of you who are struggling with video on dial up and are subsequently only purchasing the Silver edition I will produce a second low resolution version of each video.
5. I will, as soon as possible, look into printed versions of the ebook. I understand this frustration so will look into it quickly.
6. The audio version of the ebook will not be available until Monday 25th August.
7. I have extended the “I’m not happy with the course/It doesn’t do what you said/I don’t like you/your stupid hair/your silly accent/the way you talk too fast” 30 day money back guarantee to 60 days. I.e. if, for whatever reason, you are not happy you can simply asked for a refund - no weasel out clauses, no reasons why. Simply ask and you will receive. i.e. Once more - I do not want unhappy customers!
8. You can upgrade - if you buy Silver and think you’re missing out on the groovy party going on in Gold then you can upgrade no problem.
9. The doors to the private gold members area will NOT open until Monday the 25th August. That is the official start to the 12 week course.
10. All sales of all programs will stop on that date i.e. Monday 25th August. I will not, for the foreseeable future, be selling this course again. We may sell out before then.

If you haven’t signed up yet you need to sign up below to make sure you get notification of when the “doors open”

The response to the “BPB Revealed” was incredible and I’m delighted that so many of you seem to be keen on the program.

This video answers most of the questions (I hope!) but if not please let me know below.

The important thing really is that the course opens this Friday at 12.00 Noon GMT. We will be accepting applications up to Sunday 24th at midnight. The Gold and Platinum course officially will begin on Monday 25th when the private members area will be opened.

There will be a full money back guarantee during the first 30 days so I’m more than happy to take any risk. I cannot emphasise strongly enough that I do NOT want unhappy customers. I am NOT after a quick buck here and will be working round the clock during the 12 weeks to ensure that, by whatever means possible, I manage to make a BIG DIFFERENCE to your scoring.

Finally please note that by law we much charge VAT at 17.5% to all orders within the EU.

Take five people around you…

In this video I want to talk about the influence of other people in your lives. It’s a very real issue for all of us but it does have a direct influence on your ability to play great golf or at the very least to step up from where you currently are – it also helps to explain a bit why I have designed the Break Par Blueprint the way that I have.

The truth is that “we become who we surround ourselves with”

If we want to become all that we can become, in any area of our lives, then we must surround ourselves with people who live at that level.

I learned about this concept years ago when I first started out in my business career and was given a copy of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Hill wrote this book after spending twenty years studying the most successful people in the world.

He talks about the power of the mastermind – which is basically the power of having people around you to help pull you forward. To help support you. He reckons that it’s such an important concept that “No great success can happen without a mastermind” which is a pretty powerful statement. But it’s not one that I would argue with.

Now this presented me with a problem during my golf challenge since I couldn’t find such a group. I was consistently told on internet forums and by some of the world’s best golfers that it was impossible. But along the way I met a few people, in various parts of the world, who did believe in me and I stuck to them like leeches – it was an incredibly important part of the process for me.

I had also read in Hill’s book about some very famous industrialist (I forget who!) who used an imaginary group of past leaders and business men to help during difficult decisions. Since I didn’t have anyone around me that I could mastermind with I chose a couple of imaginary coaches to help me out. One was Seve Ballesteros and the other was the late great Ben Hogan. This sounds ludicrous but it was extremely beneficial for me. I would stand at the range (sometimes entirely on my own) and simply imagine that Hogan and Seve were standing behind me watching my every move and keeping me encouraged. It stopped me playing silly “how hard can I hit this ball” games and kept my focus.

In my business life I use a mastermind group – but this time it’s made up from real life people! We meet every two weeks for a conference call and this is very useful to keep me on track with my business goals.

If this all sounds a little odd then let me ask you a question:

Take the five people closest to you and average them out. Most of the time this average is YOU.

This works in all areas of life…

• · Weight
• · Money
• · Fitness
• · Self-esteem

…and, of course golf!

During my challenge I tested this theory both with some friends and on a golfing forum. I found out that 80% of golfers lie within three strokes of the averaged handicap of the five people they play with the most. i.e. we really only play with people at our own level.

This has profound implications on your golf (and the rest of your life but I’m not here to preach about that) because it becomes tough to break out of these groups.

It’s very difficult to stay upbeat and positive in a room full of negative whiny people.

Likewise it’s tough to stay negative and downbeat in a room or with a group of people who are very positive and upbeat.

So if you play with 18 handicappers you’re likely to stay an 18 handicapper! If you play with low single figure golfers you’re likely to stay at this level.

So that’s why I’ve designed the Break Par Blueprint the way I have. I haven’t just created a book and said – this is how I did it – away you go and good luck to you. I created a 12 week program with lots of support and interaction with others who are in a similar situation. I created, in the Gold version, that “room full of positive people” and a coaching structure so that you can break out of those old comfort zones.

Of course this doesn’t exist in the Silver version – you are very much given the ebook and left to get on with it. Which is fine for some people. Some people have the strength of character to deal with all this and break free by themselves. But you’ll make life a lot easier for yourself if you can get up to the Gold package and keep yourself exposed to an “improvement group” during the challenge. Simply surrounding yourself with great people has a remarkable ability to pull you up regardless of any other actions.

If you want to go Silver though that’s fine but make sure you start to discriminate a little more with the people you play golf with and generally associate with. It will pay serious dividends to your ability to make that big improvement.

Tomorrow I’ll answer all the questions from the “Break Par Blueprint REVEALED” post so make sure you put up any queries you might have in the comments on that post.

Also make sure you leave full details of any improvements you may have made for a chance to win one of the three free Gold places.

I’m giving away three Gold level Blueprints to those who have clearly shown that they are prepared to take action and are capable of IMPLEMENTION - which is the key in all of this.

Inside this video, I explain exactly what you’re going to be learning inside the Break Par Blueprint that I’m launching later this week, and I show you the three LEVELS of the program that are going to be available on Friday.

I also share the pricing for the program, and give you all the details of what to expect and who it might be suitable for. I also make it clear who it is NOT suitable for.

Please Note - the courses will be available for sale from noon GMT on Friday 15th August. You will be notified well in advance by email. At this stage you don’t need to do anything.

IMPORTANT: After you watch the video, please leave me a comment to let me know your thoughts about the Break Par Blueprint. If you have any QUESTIONS about the program after watching this video, make sure you ask them in your comment. I want to make sure I answer all of them by Friday!

Also, to all of you who have made big progress already, make sure you put that clearly in your comments below. I’m giving away three Gold level Blueprints to those who have clearly shown that they are prepared to take action and are capable of IMPLEMENTION - which is the key in all this.

NOTE: Only the first 100 people will get the early registration bonuses which include the 90 minute teleconference. Make sure you get on the list (if you’re not already) by filling your details in below.

Today’s video is about the process I call “Click”.

It’s about that feeling inside when a switch seems to suddenly “click” into the On position and you really truly commit to starting something. I use it for anything large that I’ve been putting off and have extensively used it with many clients in my consultancy business.

If you’ve been putting off getting better at golf then try this out.

Free PDF explaining the whole concept here:

http://breakparblueprint.com/Clickebook.pdf

So what is your golfing goal and tell me in the comments below how you will create your “Click”?

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I’ll let you be the judge:

The number one excuse that people hit me with when they say they couldn’t do what I did is that they wouldn’t have time. “They” say that there is no way they could hit so many balls or devote so much time to practice.

The key point to realise is, especially, if “they” is “you”, that really it’s just a matter of how much do you want to get better. I hate to get all motivational guru here but some part of getting better at golf involves “paying a price”. What price are you prepared to pay to get better?

Are you expecting to get better by paying the price of a new driver or a new set of irons?

Are you expecting to get better by playing a few more rounds a year?

Are you expecting to get better by booking a course of lessons and then not acting properly or in a disciplined fashion on that advice?

Getting better at golf DOES NOT need to border on madness like my challenge did but it does involve a basic commitment to improvement and an open and honest realisation of some of the excuses we all make to avoid us doing certain things. I’m absolutely no different in this but I learned how to create a strong enough goal and apply enough pain to not succeeding that it helped me to keep at it and really focus on getting better for 362 days. Even though on certain occasions I’d have been far happier lying in bed or relaxing in the evening with a glass of wine in front of the television.

In my next video I’m going to show a you cast iron way to get your golfing challenge started. Even if, like I had, you have put off getting better for years and years. This technique is incredibly powerful and can be used to get anything started that you’ve been procrastinating over for a long time. It can be used for weight loss or even for starting up a business.

One last fact:

The average UK citizen watches 28 hours of television per week. During my challenge I only spent 15 hours per week on golf.

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Great golf comes from working both sides of your brain.

In a future video I’ll deal more extensively with this but it’s important to use both the creative (right) side of your brain as well as the logical (left) side.

So if Tuesday’s “clockface” video is pure logical left side of the brain (and it is!) then today is designed to appeal to the right side. Today is for those creative folk out there. At heart I’m a creative golfer. I don’t and won’t get into precise leg, wrist, hip or shoulder angles as a rule but I am aware of them so I try to embrace both styles of learning and this is a crucial skill for rapid progress.

But people learn in different ways and one of the key things I discovered during the year was how to really tap into how I learned to get better. Subsequently through my “normal” training and consultancy business and extensive further study of golf I’ve developed techniques that help people to learn and improve in a much faster and more effective way than is normally put forward by classic instruction.

I will deal with a lot more of this later but I wanted to set the context for how you can try and improve in your own golf. It is likely that you fall somewhere between the two camps too. But… you probably err slightly to one side or the other like most of us. i.e. you’re either naturally either more logical than creative or vice versa. If you can give that five minutes thought it can help you enormously in any quest for improvement.

So today we’re dealing with hitting clubs different distances. This requires much more creative “feel” than simply dialling in a swing to 9.00 o’clock. It also provides great benefits when you are playing in the wind or on classic links courses where the clockface routine won’t work as well.

The key is to be aware of both these styles of learning and not to automatically recoil from one or the other. Don’t, either consciously or sub-consciously, pigeon-hole yourself. Initially this type of practice made far more sense to me than really logical stuff like the clockface routine. But when I managed to metaphorically “uncross my arms” and embrace that technique it made a tremendous improvement to my game.

What this technique teaches you is a much more flexible way to play golf. It teaches you how to hit shots at different heights, it teaches you about gripping down the club and altering distances, it teaches you about punch shots.

But best of all - it does it in a fun way. All learning is scientifically proven to work better when we learn in a fun way. For far too long I slogged away in a relentlessly disciplined fashion with absolutely NO FUN. That is a mistake.

So get out there and try hitting the same distance with different clubs.

And as ever if you don’t want to trust me then trust one of the “big gurus” - in this months Golf Digest Jim Flick recommends hitting 14 clubs to 100 yards! And he developed the tip from Johnny Miller who was one of the most natural and creative golfers we’ve ever seen.

Some things to be aware of:

1. I will deal with the “clear key” later that I discuss in the video. If you read the Todays Golfer article you’ll have learned a little about it. It’s a big subject though and isn’t the point of this video.

2. The video is a little scrappy. If you’re worried about how fast I talk or the sound quality may I suggest you read all my previous responses. Also if you can’t view the video because you are watching on an IBM PC from 1986 I’m afraid again there is little I can do about it.

3. If you can’t watch it at all then it shows me hitting to a green 150 yards away with a variety of clubs. I’m trying to alter the way I hit each club in a creative way to make sure I can manufacture different shots out on the course.

4. As ever don’t concentrate too much on my technique - instead try the concept out. This works for any swing and can produce big benefits for any handicap level.

Let me know how you get on.

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Video One

Video Two

A bold claim certainly but one that I would totally stand over.

This principle was yet another of my “Eureka moments” during the year and with one days work I transformed my ability to get close to the flag from 40 to 120 yards. The great thing is that this works with any swing, any strength level and at any age.

So download the 7 page PDF from this link.

Video One is on the first hole on the par three course at Blackwood. We are exactly 67 yards from the hole and this is my 9.00 o’clock sand wedge distance. To make it exactly 67 yards I have moved the ball back a couple of yards. I then simply dial in my 9.00 swing and the ball, although a little left, lands almost pin high.

Video Two is 93 yards from the pin on the first hole at Blackwood. This could be struck with two clubs

1. My pitching wedge at 9.00 which takes me 95 yards
2. My sand wedge at 10.30 which takes me 92 yards (ignore the video where I say my gap wedge)

I’m more comfortable with the 9.00 shot so go for this. Annoyingly we stopped the video after this which would have helped to prove the concept but if you’re prepared to trust Andy and myself that there was no video trickery you can see that the ball lies almost exactly 2 yards past the hole. In other words I hit it exactly 95 yards which is what my chart says (in the PDF).

This level of confidence and accuracy can transform your game and it works for all ages and strengths - you simply need to take a little bit of effort and work these distances out.

Try it out and let me know how you get on.

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You can never say I don’t love you. I’ve just spent all Sunday pulling together all your queries and questions and putting them into four Youtube videos. As ever apologies for talking at 150 mph but hopefully my umms and ahhhs are reduced this time and I don’t look quite so much like a lobster as I did when wearing my purple shirt.

In the first one I deal with three issues.

1. The quality of the videos. Hopefully this explains why they’re a little bit “guerilla” and not very “Scorsese”

2. What happened to my game afterwards…

3. Specific answers to Lyall Davison’s questions.

Secondly I put together a video with all your questions answered from the putting thread. This is actually very important and even if you didn’t have a query I would advise you watch this. This is a cut down version of the article that Carlos mentions.

Click here for crucial putting information

The third video deals with your questions from the “what clubs to break par” post.

And finally I deal with the questions that arose from the “Q & A” post.

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