What I really feel sorry for this guy is not that he played poorly, that happens. But he's a teaching pro. Who's going to want to take lessons from a pro who can't break 100?
He shot 72 in one of the two events he played in last year
and we wouldn't be having this discussion if he'd WD'd, an all too often occurance.
If his students improve, it matters not what he shot in a one time event.
Plenty of great players can't teach a note.
Some of the worst tips I hear come from Tour players, and I got great help from a teacher who definitely couldn't break 90 on his best day
Do you want to take lesson from a guy who spends all year playing?....... or teaching
Not saying this guy isn't a great teacher. He very well may be. But what I am saying is that I can't imagine the notoriety is going to be good for business.
As a lawyer, I wouldn't generate a ton of business by losing a case. It may not have any bearing on whether I'm a good lawyer, but losing isn't good for business.
In this case "losing a case" for him would be making a student worse, not playing poorly.
He's clearly not playing for a living.
I'm guessing the publicity he gets will IMPROVE business, not just because of the way he handled it, but also because it puts his name out in front of more people.
So say 10,000 people in his area saw the interview, and 90% are ignorant enough to make a bad score influence their decision
That's still 1000 people that may be potential clients that he didn't have before.
When I taught full time 15 years ago, I shot 72 on a difficult course to qualify in early July for the MET Open .
I then, for the next 6 weeks for 10-12 hours per day, proceeded to teach horrendous golfers, absorbing every ounce of their contagious horriffic rythym, negative attitudes, and awful mechanics as my "preparation" for the torture chamber otherwise known as Meteteconk, about as fun to play as VN looks.
didn't go so well for me there (88 in the first round), and there were plenty of people who beat me by 10-15 shots that round who made about 1/20th of what I made teaching that year.
Taking time off to prepare for that event to be physically and mentally prepared would have cost me tens of thousands of dollars during our busiest time of the year, as well as not have endeared me very well to my boss or membership.
The fact that I bounced back the next round didn't make me a better teacher than I was the first day.
The people that can't see the difference, wouldn't really make the best clients.