TOP SHELF: John Hanlon (left) is enjoying sharing a sort of worldly wisdom with someone of his own age in Brian Doyle. PHOTO/Paul Taylor
GOOD balance and tempo allow golfers to get away with "a multitude of sins", not least a less-than-perfect swing.
Award-winning musician and advertising guru John Hanlon will be the first to admit it.
"My handicap started going out so much that I had so many mistakes, I didn't know how to fix them," says Hanlon, of Auckland, who can see the flaws in others but is unable to put himself in the witness box for self-cross examination.
Enter Hastings PGA professional Brian Doyle.
When a friend bought a building in Napier, Hanlon decided to visit here last month but, as it turned out, Doyle was on holiday in the Gold Coast at the time.
"There I was with gout in the knee and no Brian, so I came especially this time to see him to help bring my golf back."
For someone who responds to mental images and feel rather than technicalities, the tweaks Doyle made to his golfing template were amazing.
"Brian finds a way to teach you things that work best for you and the results have been instant."
Hanlon "shallowed" his divots even without dwelling on it.
"He's changed my posture without completely changing the way I did things before."
Hanlon was aware he could have improved by practising but the drill could have simply reinforced bad habits.
"My practice is now so much more potent because I know exactly what I'm trying to do and know exactly what's working."
When things start to go awry, golfers tend to go through 18 holes of adjustment but seldom get it right.
His enjoyment now extends to playing shots without thinking about the technicalities.
"I'm enjoying being with someone of similar vintage to me [age] and, I guess, the innate wisdom that comes from the experience," he says, suspecting Doyle's seen it all before but perhaps not encountered too many golfers of his age yearning for single-digit handicaps.
Hanlon has no doubt the former NZ academy amateur coach will have him in single-digit territory within a month.
"This will sound ridiculous but even when I hit those shots less than perfectly, I knew exactly why."
For someone who'll turn 67 "any minute soon" he's still trying to improve.
"I can potentially play the best golf of my life," says the retired singer, songwriter and author.
Drawing an analogy with golf that champions individualism, he stresses exponents will grow if they listen to others.
"I am 67 years of age and highly successful in various aspects of my life and I'm listening to someone who knows a lot more about golf than I ever will."
He often has the urge to tell people who comment on his balance and poise to consult a PGA professional.
"I've chosen Brian Doyle but find someone who works for you because we all know the same gurus don't work for everybody."
He stumbled on Doyle almost by chance when a rash of young players at an Auckland club gave a chorus of approval for "Doyly who taught me this and Doyly who taught me that so Doyly is bloody famous".
"I have subsequently found out when you're with the man, that's not what you're getting.
"When you're with the man, you're genuinely getting a completely 100 per cent one-on-one lesson that definitely does not come off the shelf."
Hanlon prides himself as someone who listens well and responds accordingly.
Like a golfer teeing up, he doesn't know what exactly the returns will be on his card after 18 holes but he has a hunch.
He only focuses on the next shot, as it were, in the game of life.
Distinguishing between positivism and reality comes easily to him, as he dutifully replaces the divots along the way from one patch of flagged prime real estate to another.
He became an author after watching a friend, Paul Wilson, banking a cheque for a book, Little Book of Calm.
He jokingly said to the Australian author and meditation teacher that he was going to write a self-help book because meditation was hopelessly beyond him. "He said 'You should because you're a master of metaphor'." Wilson explained how adept Hanlon was at meetings in drawing analogies to make people focus.
A month later he was playing golf against a scratchie who lands a ball in a divot in the middle of the fairway.
"This man was renowned for his impatience.
"He didn't suffer fools, never mind gladly."
On approaching the ball, the man delivered a speech that addressed everything from the universe to bad people and God but Hanlon just wanted to move on.
"I just said, "Yeah, well Ray, golf's just like life. It isn't fair'. Bing," he says, returning home to write down as many such allegories he could muster.
Hanlon came up with 72, stopping majestically at par for a regular course, finding golf was full of analogies that could be applied to life.
"At some point I realised it was my secret way of becoming a secret granddad because at some stage someone can read it back."
He didn't sell many copies but, bar one publisher, no one ever said anything bad about it.
Hanlon was driving somewhere in South Island at the turn of the century when he received a phone call from a friend saying his grandmother was on radio waxing lyrical about his book.
"I said I didn't have a grandmother in New Zealand but worked out a woman was talking about it."
He'll never forget "until the day I die" that she said "every man, woman and child should read this book in this country".
"She was clearly not a golfer but the next thing she said was, 'I'm going to get six copies for my whanau and I'm going to give it to them, especially the ones in jail'.
"I almost drove off the road," says Hanlon, with a laugh.
Just as "sharks" abuse the golfing handicap system, he feels in society there are people who rort the welfare scheme.
However, he believes the haves must always help the have-nots.
"If you disagree with that, then you're not my sort of person."
In his world, bankers are paid too much and teachers too little.
"People say it is supply and demand. No, it isn't, because that's just rubbish."
Frankly, he believes there's more demand for teachers and nurses than bankers.
"In the welfare system, there's no argument there are people who are shiftless, uninspired and unemployable and ripping off the system, but it doesn't make the idea wrong - just simply the person doing it wrong."