his joke was submitted after first appearing in Golf Digest.

Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods are standing at the throne of heaven. God looks at them and says, “Before granting you a place at my side, I must ask you what you have learned, what you believe in.”

God asks Arnie first: “What do you believe?” Arnie thinks long and hard, looks God in the eye, and says, “I believe in hard work, and in staying true to family and friends. I believe in giving. I was lucky, but I always tried to do right by my fans.”

God can’t help but see the essential goodness of Palmer, and offers him a seat to his left. Then God turns to Nicklaus and says, “What do you believe?”

Jack says, “I believe passion, discipline, courage and honor are the fundamentals of life.

Like Arnold, I believe in hard work. I, too, have been lucky, but win or lose, I’ve always tried to be a true sportsman, both on and off the playing fields.”

God is greatly moved by Jack’s high-pitched eloquence, and he offers him a seat to his right.

Finally, God turns to Woods: “And you, Tiger, what do you believe?”

Tiger replies, “I believe you’re in my seat.”

It’s All in the Hips

Remember the golf coach Chubbs from Happy Gilmore trying to get Happy to relax by saying—“It’s all In the Hips, It’ all in the Hips”.
As a 54-year old golfer, “It’s all in the Hips” had a much different meaning. For me it was about pain. I would do stretches that my trainer gave me and it would help alleviate the pain, but the pain would come back.

The other day I was getting ready to do a strength training session with my trainer Pauliina and I said to her that I noticed that my hips haven’t been hurting over the past two months and I was wondering how much it had to do with the fact that I hadn’t trained in awhile.  She felt that while it was true I hadn’t trained in a while, that my hip issue wasn’t connected to me not lifting weights, but something else.

As we continued to discuss it, I had a big ah ha moment. I remembered watching the Lee Trevino/George Lopez special that was on the Golf Channel in January. It was there that Trevino, in giving George a golf lesson, talked about the take away and the shoulder turn. He said that most amateur golfers turn their shoulders incorrectly. Instead of turning their shoulders around their hips, they turn their shoulder with their hips. He suggested that Lopez should have a flatter shoulder turn and keep the club in front of his chest during the entire turning process.

Trevino comments made a lot of sense to me, so I proceeded to make the change. He also talked about keeping the club in front of your chest and not behind you. These two changes enabled me to make greater contact and more powerful drives. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the suggested change would also produce a change in the pain level in my hips.

I am now swinging more in alignment with my body.  I laughed out loud when I realized this.  Pauliina also went on to suggest that by swinging this way that I was also working on strengthening my core.  She said” I don’t know much about golf, but out of the two swings you are showing me, the newer swing looks less painful. I now find it easier to transfer weight and follow through more. As golfers get older in age one of the first thing that goes, is the follow through. Most of us cut the swing off because of flexibility issues, and various pains in the shoulder, back and hips. Trevino’s instruction changed a lot of that for me.

While Chubbs may be right about it “All being in the Hips”. I can truly say the pain is no longer all in my hips.

I wish I had a cleaner version of this clip, but it has the full expression of the what the golf swing is all about. I’ve watched Tin Cup many times, but it wasn’t until seeing this clip again, and discovering some things about my own swing, did I fully take in Roy’s words. Years ago I did some work with my friend Henry on learning to swing from the heart. This clip expresses it fully.