Helping Each Other Out / Bartering

I take golf lessons, not a lot, but enough to avoid embarrassment on the course. My primary golf goal is to make the first cut and eventually the second cut at the Kent County Amateur. I wouldn't mind conducting business on the course too, but it has not presented itself as an opportunity, yet. The Kent County Amateur It is an all ages stroke play tournament with over 200 players. Not US open caliber, but enough to make me feel like I'm on of the top 50 players in my community.

So anyway, about every 24-30 months I shell out $75-$100 to have a real professional take a look at my swing and fix the 15 things that have gone awry since my previous lesson. I saw Charlie Vandenberg, a local PGA Pro in May. Charlie is a delight to work with. He's energetic, encouraging, and takes a real interest in you as a person. He has this great software called V1 that shows you the angles of your swing and really gets quite precise at potential flaws. He also has a machine that looks a bit like a piece of weight-lifting equipment that restricts your swing to only those moves that are needed.

Charlie has all this set up on a laptop and has a VCR and TV to allow you to see everything almost real-time. He gives every student a VHS tape to take home with them to help review their lesson periodically. The tape has my swings from a camcorder we used on the driving range, and voice-over from Charlie about how I can improve.

Charlie says to me during the lesson that he wants to start giving students a DVD or CD when they leave instead of a VHS tape. That way the student will be able to see all the discrete analysis that done on the computer. My mind quickly leaves my lesson and starts thinking about what Charlie needs to get that job done. I'm such a Maven, that I can't turn it off. Maven is a term that I picked up from Malcolm Gladwell in his book, "The Tipping Point."

I've gone back out to Charlie's 'office' (the golf course) twice and added 8 feet of cables and a couple sound adapters to his set up, and we've almost completed the job. What will I get paid. I don't know ... but I trust Charlie. I trust that if I work with him for 4-5 hours. He will return the effort with 4-5 hours of his time or things that he can control, like the lesson time, time in the machine, or a round of golf (or two ;-) ).

It is not about making money on the time I spent with Charlie. It is about building that relationship with Charlie and the next PGA professional that will help support my passions. If I end up making real money at the end of the day even better, but I do not approach the problem with only money as my primary objective.