Take your time in finding an adviser

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Don McNay is a columnist for the Richmond (Ky.) Register

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July 16, 2012

Take your time in finding an adviser

Anonymous CNHI The Bluefield Daily Telegraph Mon Jul 16, 2012, 01:09 PM EDT

Abraham Shakespeare did not have much luck in finding a financial advisor.

The dead body of the Florida lottery winner was found in 2009 -- under a slab of concrete.

Moore, who served as Shakespeare’s advisor, is on trial for his murder this month.

Shakespeare did not do an extensive search to find his advisor. After winning a $17 million lottery jackpot, Moore connected with Shakespeare after asking a policeman to trace Shakespeare’s license plate tags.

I’m writing a new book called, “Life Lessons from the Lottery.” Lottery winners have the same problems average people do but the problems are magnified by the large amounts they receive.

People who get lousy financial advice normally don’t wind up dead. But they do wind up broke.

I have a simple rule for finding a financial advisor. Don’t be that person’s most important client.

If you get a $100 million, find an advisor who has worked with $150 million.

It gets complicated finding an advisor outside the financial field.

You can’t easily quantify whether a person is a good teacher, plumber or ballet instructor.

I spent most of the Christmas season in the hospital. I made a list of things to do when I got better and playing golf was one of them.

Self taught as a teenager, I went through long periods when I didn’t play golf at all and eight years ago, decided to give the game up completely.

Coming back at age 53, I was not golfing until I could play without embarrassing myself.

That is where Clay Hamrick came into my life.

I’ve been working with Anne Parton, who runs a personal assistant business called IAssist, with entrepreneurs as her primary client base. Anne has been a personal assistant to several high powered people and I had hired her to help me coordinate my last book tour.

I kept her on to organize the rest of my life.

Anne sat down with me, developed a comprehensive list of what I wanted to do as a golfer and how much time I needed to schedule.

Then, she went out to interview golf professionals. She came back with Clay Hamrick.

I would have never found Clay on my own. He is the head pro at Battlefield Golf Course, a small public course. Not my first spot to find the ultimate golf guru.

It turns out that Clay has an incredible background, including being the head pro at a top 100 course. He graduated from Eastern Kentucky University, married a woman from a prominent local family and moved back to the region to raise their children.

A lucky break for me.

On the surface, Clay and I could not be more opposite. He is incredibly intense, handsome, in perfect physical condition, and impeccably dressed. I’m none of the above.

As it turns out, we have a lot in common. He is incredibly well read, a deep thinker and an absolute student of the game. He pushes a concept called the “Stack and Tilt” system, which is perfect for a middle age man getting back in the game.

Under Clay’s high strung exterior is a deeply caring man with the heart of a lion.

He is a passionate advocate for how golf can improve my overall well-being and physical health. He gets truly excited when I make progress and posts films of the results on my Facebook page.

He uses every type of modern technology to analyze and improve my game.

He also had a revelation that changed my golf swing. Clay’s uncle, Dave Tomlin, was a star relief for the Cincinnati Reds during the “Big Red Machine” era of my youth. He looked at me and said, “Imagine my uncle is pitching to you and hit the ball to Dave Concepcion.”

Once I developed that visual picture, I started whacking the ball.

I played my first nine holes at the West Baden resort in French Lick Indiana. Not an easy course but I knocked in two birdies.

The last time I had two birdies in a round, Bill Clinton was president.

I was so excited, I called Clay from the middle of the golf course.

He, Anne and I have an extensive plan for improving my game over the next two years. It also relates to how I am starting to lose weight and do something that does not involve an easy chair.

Clay has made a big impact on my life and become a good friend.

The key was figuring out what I wanted and finding a top notch person to implement the plan.

If Abraham Shakespeare had done the same, he might be alive, enjoying his lottery winnings, instead of dying an early death.

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Don McNay is a columnist for the Richmond (Ky.) Register. Contact him at don@mcnay.com.