Mark Gabrielli
Still working on all of it.
I played sports nobody watches. I like hard things that give honest feedback. This is where I write down what I have learned so far, while I still remember what it actually felt like.
I played sports nobody watches. I like hard things that give honest feedback. This is where I write down what I have learned so far, while I still remember what it actually felt like.
I am not a natural at much. What I have is a willingness to do the same thing over and over until it stops being hard. That is most of my story.
My grandfather put a golf club in my hands and it took. Along the way I picked up bowling, archery and fishing, and I learned to draw. None of it is glamorous. All of it tells you the truth about yourself immediately, which is the part I like.
On a bad day I am my own worst enemy, and I have gotten a little better at catching it before it costs me. That is really what this is about. Not arriving anywhere. Just getting a bit better and being someone worth being around.
A PGA Tour pro taught me a three quarter punch with a little cut on it. Learning how the ball spins, and how to make it move where I wanted, changed everything.
Handicap, before and after.
Each one gives feedback you cannot argue with. That is rarer than it should be.
Started with my grandfather. Never put it down.
One motion, repeated, while the lane moves under you.
Aim small, miss small.
A guess about where they are, tested every cast.
You cannot force it. Ever.
The day is decided back at the dock.
Photographs via Pexels.
Make the bed. Do the reps. The unglamorous part is the whole thing.
Talent sets the ceiling. Reps set the floor, and the floor is where you live.
Punch out sideways. Most disasters are the recovery attempt, not the first mistake.
Nobody else is really in the way. I am the one I have to manage.
People mostly get the finished version of you. They do not meet the one who was twenty three with nothing figured out. Nobody writes that part down, so everybody ends up learning the same things the slow way.
My grandfather handed me a golf club and a way of going about things, and almost none of what he knew got written down. This is me not doing that.
It is Mark Gabrielli's personal site, a living record of what he has learned from golf, bowling, archery, fishing and discipline, written in his own words. He chose a site over a book because a book is finished the day it prints and he is not. Most of what a person figures out never gets written down, so he is writing it down while he still remembers what it actually felt like.
Make the bed. Do the reps. Hit the club that is not the longest but leaves the easiest next shot. It is the first of the principles he tries to operate by, alongside reps beat talent, take the small loss, and you are the opponent. None of it is impressive, and in his experience all of it works, which is why he calls the unglamorous part the whole thing.
By swinging easier, not harder. A PGA Tour pro taught him a three quarter punch with a little cut, and learning how the ball spins and how to make it move where he wanted took him from a 12 to 14 handicap down to a 3. He went from swinging at 80 to 100 percent to swinging at 60 or 70, and his handicap fell off a cliff in the good direction.
Through the contact page on this site. Messages go straight to him, with no mailing list and no follow up sequence, and he reads everything that comes in. You can write about something you read here, tell him you think he has it wrong, or invite him to play a round of golf, which he is genuinely open to as long as it works around his schedule.