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How I Got Thrown Off the Top 100
If you are like most of us who are afflicted with this maddening game you probably want to get better at it. You have but a few avenues to do so: you can teach yourself through books, magazines, videos, or TV; you can mimic better players and ask them to explain what they are doing; you can buy the best equipment and all the swing gizmos you see on infomercials; or you can take lessons. If you are going to go the lesson route you are immediately faced with a problem: how do you find a teacher? Again, there are various ways to go about locating your guru: you can ask around for recommendations; you can make the effort to actually watch teachers teach people; or you can look to trade publications for lists of top teachers in your area and around the country. The purpose of this article is to enlighten you about these “Top Teacher” lists and to then let you make your own decision as to whether you would trust them to identify someone with whom you might want to spend your time and money.
Golf instruction is certainly a curious business. I should know: I’ve been doing it for 20 years. Notice that I didn’t say “curious profession”. It is a wonderful profession. There are many intangible rewards that come from helping people improve at a very difficult game. It’s nice to see someone get better under your tutelage, and for the most part students are highly appreciative of your efforts. It is a low stress job in that the work never follows you home. There are few complaints, very little paperwork, and if things don’t work out the student will usually blame himself before the teacher. I can set my own hours, play in tournaments when I want to, and teach the material I want to teach. All in all, it’s a nice vocation.
Once a teacher has a job, the idea is to “fill up the book”. Indeed, a teacher can only be successful if he or she is busy. Empty spaces mean not enough clients, which either means you aren’t good enough or not enough people know how good you are. Thus, the next question is “how do I gain recognition for my teaching abilities?” Personally, I have always relied on word of mouth. I have never advertised, and have always eschewed attempts to “market” my lessons. I figure that if I help someone, chances are they will tell someone else, especially since most of them have never been helped in the past. I have also benefited from my playing ability. There is no better advertisement than performing well in a tournament and getting your name in the paper. Playing well earns you credibility that all the self-promotion in the world can’t approach.
That being said, I have a confession to make. After 10 years in the business a teacher becomes eligible for “the lists”. The two lists of note that all teachers would love to be on are the Golf Digest 50 Greatest Teachers and the GOLF Magazine Top 100 Teachers. Being selected to either or both of these lists is, for better or worse, a mark of distinction that separates a teacher from his peers.
Each list has its own method of selection, and each method is rife with problems. Those who make the Golf Digest list are selected by their peers. In 2000, the first year of the Golf Digest list, selected teachers from each state were given lists of local instructors to rate from 1 to 10, then instructed to name who they considered the top 10 teachers outside of their area. This first list was done covertly: the editors of the magazine, not wanting anyone to know what was going on (especially GOLF Magazine), created the ruse that the ratings were for a small article to be published in their trade magazine Golf World Business, which is read by practically no one. What they really intended to do was to start their own “top teacher” list and print it as the cover story of an upcoming edition of Golf Digest. This was perhaps the purest selection process ever imagined, since no one knew the stakes involved.
I filled the thing out and forgot about it, and was surprised a few months later when I got a call from a Golf Digest editor informing me that I was ranked #42 in the country. I was even more surprised to learn that the list was due to be featured in the cover story the following month. I had wondered for years why I had never made the GOLF Magazine list, but now this seemed even better. After all, top 50 was better than top 100, wasn’t it? And being selected by your peers, especially since there was no politics or lobbying involved, was certainly better than being picked by a bunch of magazine editors, as was the case at GOLF Magazine.
Getting back to my “confession”, I have to admit that I craved the notoriety that goes along with making the lists. I have always been passionate about my teaching, and I take pride in the fact that I am one of the few teachers considered for the lists that plays competitive golf. Listening to guys spout off theories about the swing, the short game, or even playing under pressure, when they never even come close to hitting a real shot under any sort of pressure, rankles me to no end. I take great pride in my abilities as a teacher, and it seemed to me that any list that didn’t include me was a farce.
Now that I had made the Golf Digest list I needed to get on the GOLF Magazine Top 100. The Top 100 has been around for just over 10 years, and since the magazine uses the members of the list to fill their instructional pages and offers many additional avenues for the Top 100 to promote themselves and the magazine, it is the list on which everyone wants to be. The application process for the GOLF list is quite different from Golf Digest. Teachers are nominated every other year to fill out the few spots opened up by those falling off the list. Out of perhaps 400 nominees only 10 or so might become new Top 100 members. The selections are made by six editors from the magazine, with help from staff at the University of Georgia’s Sports Learning Lab, described by the editors as “the nation’s only college lab designed to study how sports are taught”.
The application for the Top 100 list is for all intents an essay test. There are 17 questions, all of which encourage to nominee to discuss his or her teaching backgrounds, philosophies, and methods. No one from the magazine ever physically watches any of the teachers actually teach. It took me four attempts to finally figure out what they wanted from the answers to the “test”, and finally, in 2002, I made it. I have to admit, it was a relief as well as a sense of accomplishment. I was no longer on the Golf Digest List, that ended in a year after everyone figured out what the voting was for, but now I was on the list that really mattered. I had, in my own mind as well as in the minds of my peers, arrived, although I had this feeling, as I had always had in the years I wasn’t included on the list, that there was something wrong with needing the approval of a bunch of magazine editors and college wonks. But there was no denying the power of the lists to raise a teacher’s recognition factor, which in turn can lead to more students, which of course is a very good thing. I had been doing quite well without the list, but now I felt somehow complete.
I had always complained that the technical instructional articles in both major magazines were overly simplified and lacked the detail that people needed to improve. I had ideas formulated over years of teaching and playing, and I hoped to do something different, to make a mark on a national scale. It is difficult for a teacher who is not either on the Top 100 list or a member of the Golf Digest Teaching Staff to have any sort of instruction article printed in either magazine. I had managed to have two published in Golf Digest, one of which was quite substantial and of which I am quite proud. I thought that I could do even more with GOLF magazine: alas, two years later I found myself out of the Top 100, perhaps the shortest tenure on the list of all time, notified by a short letter from the editor-in chief. What did I do wrong? What follows is the actual correspondence between me and the editors of GOLF, with only the names deleted.
October 27th, 2004
Dear Wayne:
The editors of GOLF Magazine have just completed the sixth revision of GOLF Magazine’s roster of the Top 100 Teachers in America.
Each time we undertake this process, the selection becomes more difficult. Of course, America is so blessed with far more than 100 great golf instructors. But, we can select only 100. And so it is with regret that I inform you that this time we were unable to include you on the list.
The pool of worthy candidates becomes bigger and more impressive each time we prepare a new list. For that reason, we have appended our Top 100 list with an additional list of “Top Teachers” in each region of the country, and you will of course be included on that list, which will appear with the February 2005 issue of GOLF Magazine.
In the meantime, on behalf of the editors—and readers—of GOLF Magazine, thank you for the teaching excellence you have consistently displayed. We’ve been proud to call you a Top 100 Teacher, and although lists come and go, that is an honor that lasts a lifetime.
Sincerely,
The Editor-in-Chief
Now, I don’t think I have to tell you (but I will anyway) that this came as more than a bit of a shock to me. I had no prior warning, and thus no inkling, that I was in any danger of losing my spot. The only person from the magazine with whom I had any actual contact was the teaching editor (the magazine employed a number of these) who had been assigned to be my guide in helping me come up with ideas and putting together articles to be published every 6 months or so. A large portion of the pages of each issue of the magazine are filled with such articles generated by the members of the list. Upon meeting “my” editor I was surprised (incredulous might be a better description) to find that he had grown up a tennis player, had played professional tennis, and after an injury had knocked him out of competition had worked as a writer for Tennis Magazine. He had only played golf for just over a year, and could barely break 100. As you read the rest of my correspondence with the editors, the staggering irony will become even more apparent. I would like to say that I didn’t care about being dropped from the list, but I suppose that rejection does not sit well with anyone with competitive instincts. I thought about firing off nasty letters to all concerned, but I managed to control myself until I thought to ask them what had actually happened.
Dear Tennis Pro:
I would be curious to hear your opinion as to why I was dropped from the Top 100 list for 2005. Perhaps you could e-mail me back or give me a call if you had time.
Wayne D.
I sent the same note to the chief instruction editor, but after a week I had received no reply. I figured I should try again.
Dear Editor (and Tennis Pro):
Still looking forward to any comments you might have regarding my being deleted from the Top 100 list.
Wayne D.
Finally, I received a return note from the editor. Not surprisingly, I never heard from the Tennis Pro.
Dear Wayne:
My apologies for the very slow response, we are shipping our Feb. issue this week without an editor. Our new boss starts Monday. So this week has been crazier than usual.
As for our decision regarding dropping you from the new Top 100 Teacher list, the situation comes down to supply and demand. Simply put, we have many more than 100 great candidates that deserve a shot at being among the Top 100.
Once a teacher makes the list we put a lot of weight on how well he or she developes [sic] article ideas relative to the rest of the Top 100 and we also look at participation in a variety of area including story idea generation, e-mail polls, and various other Top 100 functions. We give our Top 100 exclusive access to filling more than 300 pages a year and most are very eager to come up with nourishing instruction articles to fill those pages.
Relative to the rest of the Top 100, you seemed much less interested in participating in the magazine than the other teachers. In two years, you never called with any ideas or suggestions for stories, which is highly unusual among the Top 100. When we were able to visit you in Maryland, you didn’t seem to be very familiar with the types of instruction articles that we do and you seemed to have a relatively difficult time putting your swing theories into easy to understand tips that would benefit our readers.
You are certainly a fine teacher, but compared to the rest of the Top 100, we felt that there were other teachers around the country who, at this time, are more deserving of a spot on the new list. You probably think this is just splitting a few hairs, and you would be right. We’ve got more than 600 candidates vying for what turned out to be 10 spots on the new list. Every spot on the list has become hyper-competitive.
As you know, we take the list very seriously, and we search for the best teachers who are enthusiastic about being involved in the magazine’s mission to help out 6 million readers improve. We never sensed that enthusiasm on your part.
Most teachers will never, ever make it onto the Top 100. You have already accomplished something most in the industry will never achieve. We will be happy to reevaluate our decision in future years as it is apparent that you will be a fine teacher for many years to come.
Sincerely,
The editor.
Now finally it was my turn to reply with what I really wanted to say:
Dear Editor:
Thanks for your thoughtful response. You are probably right.
I spend far more of the time I have apart from actual teaching working on my game than I do on self-promotion. One of the problems I had in “putting {my} swing theories in easy to understand tips” was what I considered to be the general incompetence of the Tennis Pro. I don’t mean to be harsh, and I know (or at least he explained it as such) that you were responsible for hiring him, but I considered it the height of absurdity to send a tennis pro who couldn’t break 100 to guide me in creating articles.
One of the conceptual problems I have always had with golf publications is the prevailing idea that the readership is incapable of following anything beyond a picture and a caption. The game is hard, and there are no quick fixes to anything. When one plays competitively that fact becomes quite apparent. When one chooses not to play competitively he or she effectively removes himself from reality and enters into the “twilight zone” where any theory is a good as any other, and nothing has any real substance or credibility.
I believe your readers are more capable of comprehending complex ideas than you do, and I think they crave honest instruction that doesn’t pretend that everything is either “simple” or can be “simplified”. The Tennis Pro was singularly incapable of understanding anything I was talking about when it came to the golf swing. He consistently took any ideas that I had and molded them into the same tired, shopworn articles that have been published forever. He even managed to print a simple pitching article with the wrong picture, which astonished and embarrassed me. I simply gave up. I called you to complain, then thought better of it, not wanting to seem difficult or arrogant. It doesn’t matter now. I have come to terms with my desire to be accepted and acknowledged as a competent teacher, and I no longer answer to the siren song of your magazine’s exposure. Of course, that has been made easier by getting on the list in the first place. I was so disturbed by the way things were going that I contemplated asking to be removed from the list. If I had the balls I would have. I should have quit before I got fired. Oh, well.
It is unfortunate, but your magazine has the power to elevate the position of any teacher it deems worthy of its list. I truly believe that without actually watching a teacher teach it is impossible to judge his ability. Your essay test is easily manipulated. I know, I did it. To do justice to the power you have with your list you owe it to the individual teachers to do a better job of selecting them. You don’t pick the Top 100 Courses without playing them, do you? Select a committee to travel around and judge instructors just as you do the courses. I realize that my views on these matters are far from the mainstream. Demanding that teachers play competitive golf is not a popular idea when the vast majority of teachers don’t. Presenting the game of golf and the components of the swing as difficult and complex is another unpopular view. People are not getting better and are quitting the game as a result because they can’t get any help. Teachers don’t have first hand knowledge of what they are trying to teach because they don’t play. Their information is second and third hand, and they have no “feel” for what they are teaching and no idea of what will and will not work on the golf course. Until you commit to more substantial articles that require more than a 10 second read you will continue to contribute to the problem. And as long as you hire editors who are no more than beginning golfers the chance of that is zero.
Again, thanks for your response to my inquiry. I know you didn’t have to explain yourself in such detail. I hope you don’t see this letter as an attack on your magazine, or for that matter the Tennis Pro, who was a nice enough guy. I realize you are proud of what you do and the magazine you help to produce. I think you could do much better. I’m sure that at some point we will meet again: I am in the game for the long haul. I have a passion for it that has spanned the vast majority of my life. My goal is to become a better player, and to help the people who come to me for guidance. In having me as a Top 100 Teacher you helped me fill up the last remaining spots in my lesson book, and for that I am grateful.
Sincerely,
Wayne D.
So, there you have it. If you know me, none of this should really surprise you. For those of you that are just getting acquainted, I suppose that this will serve as an introduction to my attitude toward the game and golf instruction. I love golf. I practice every day. I study the swing, and I try to find any way possible to improve my scoring. I do the same with my students. I know for a fact that the game is so hard as to be nearly impossible to even approach perfection, yet I dig and claw my way toward the ultimate goal of controlling the ball. The secret truly lies in the dirt, and I don’t suffer con-artists and charlatans who seek to profit from the desperation and misery of the masses who are trying to learn to play. At the same time there is a certain humor that must be salvaged out of the grind, and I always try to remember to keep a light heart as I bleed all over the range. In other words, I never know what is going to come out next. I hope you will keep reading in order to find out.
Orignally published in GolfStyles Magazine.