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Some year’s back I wrote an article titled “Interview with the Devil’s Advocate, in which I assumed the guise of a somewhat belligerent interviewer and asked myself questions on a number of topics concerning my experiences with the game of golf. I found it to be a nice vehicle to express thoughts and opinions in a fashion that differed from the usual lecture mode most pieces drift into. A lot has happened in the game since that article was written, and certainly a lot has happened with me personally. In approaching this month’s article I recalled my use of that format and decided to reprise it with new questions.
I have always loved a good debate, and I realize that I am highly opinionated when it comes to the subject of golf. I am concerned that some of my readers might see me as close-minded, that I think my way is the only way, or that I don’t think my opinions through and address the other side of the coin. In presenting my responses to tough questions I hope I can provide some insight into the way I have formulated my approach to matters concerning golf, and perhaps show that I am not a “know-it-all” who does not allow for variations in methods of playing and teaching. In fact, the older I get, the more I find that there is no one “way” to do anything in golf, and thus I have become more accommodating when it comes to allowing for differences of opinion, as long as those opinions are credible and can be backed up with evidence. Right now, the D.A. (Devil’s Advocate) has arrived, so let’s get the grilling started.
DA: (Looking something like a cross between Peter Kessler and Mike Wallace) Hello again, Wayne. Are you ready for a few questions?
Wayne: Absolutely. Let’s get started.
DA: You haven’t had a very good playing year by your standards. For someone who always talks about teachers needing to play competitively, does that fact affect your teaching?
Wayne: I feel better about what I am teaching if I am playing well, but I realize that the game is extremely hard and that everyone is bound to go through periods of struggle. You should also remember that I always make sure to make it clear that I don’t think teachers need to play particularly well, but they do need to play. I probably learn more from playing poorly than from playing well.
DA: Really? How does that work?
Wayne: If things are going well I am usually trying to go through the same routine and repeat whatever it is I am doing. My thoughts tend to be simpler, and I avoid any error correction during the round. In other words, I just keep trying to do the same thing, and if I hit a bad shot, I can forget about it quickly and focus on doing it right the next time. On the other hand, if I am playing poorly, which usually means inconsistently, at some point I will have to abandon to some degree what I have been working on, or at least modify it. This type of on-course correction is difficult and mentally taxing. It requires me to think about everything that might be going on and come up with something to hit the next shot well, hoping that I will come up with a thought or a sequence of thoughts that will carry over for the rest of the round. This is where theory runs into reality, and where playing under pressure forces you to learn more about what you can and can’t do on the course. This is what every player must contend with, and those who never play will necessarily be weak in this regard.
DA: If you know so much about the swing, and about playing, why haven’t you been able to fix yourself?
Wayne: I ask myself that every time I play. I certainly try. I bring my camera to every tournament and try to get my body to do what my brain sees as the correct movements. I believe that my model, what I perceive as the best way for me to swing, is a good one, but I have trouble with tendencies I have had for 20 years.
DA: Tendencies like what?
Wayne: Well, since I had my back operated on I have a tendency to over-twist my lower body in the backswing, which leads me to overturn my upper body and cross the line at the top, especially with the longer clubs. I also tend to lift as I go back, which I believe is an unconscious avoidance of pressuring my right leg, where all of the nerve damage is. From a lifted and crossed position I drive my right hip too hard toward the ball, and the result is a club head that shallows out too much and gets trapped behind my hands as I approach impact. At this point I rely too much on timing, and when my hands don’t turn the clubface over just right I can block it to the right very easily.
DA: So, what do you usually work on to cure your ills?
Wayne: I’ve been working hard on not crossing the club at the top, by a combination of added strength in my mid-section (which allows me to resist my leg movement better) and better right arm movement, where pinching my right elbow in keeps the shaft laying off as it gets to the top. My swing it getting a bit flatter as a result and it is taking some time to get used to. Also, I am working on driving my legs less in the downswing, especially with the driver, by turning both feet straighter ahead than I had been and by keeping the right foot and heel down longer heading to impact. It feels to me like my arms are accelerating more, trying to swing more past my legs than following the body. I know that the lower body leads, but since I always overdrive it, I need to feel more arms.
DA: That doesn’t sound like you at all. Are you changing the way you teach?
Wayne: Not at all. In fact it’s just the opposite. I take pains to explain to my students that if a swing movement is chronic, such as overdriving the legs in my own case, then you have to exaggerate in the other direction in order to change it. Ideally the sequence of the forward golf swing, as supported by information gathered from scientific means such as the bio-link, is hips, trunk, shoulders, arms, hands, club, in that order. It is important for a student to understand how that works. Once a swing is established, if it has sequence problems, it is up to the teacher to arrange the student’s thoughts in order for the sequence to work correctly. By trying to use my arms more to start the downswing and quiet the lower I am not supporting a method that would claim that this would be the best way to do it in all cases. It is simply in my own best interest to think about in this fashion. The important thing is to hit the ball well. As I search for ways to solve my long term problems I become more open to different ways to approach the swing. The idea is to be pragmatic, not dogmatic. Anyone who says that there is only one way to do anything in the game of golf is not paying attention to what the best players are doing.
DA: And what are the best players doing, exactly?
Wayne: Well, nothing, exactly. Or, just about everything, inexactly. In other words, if you examine the swings, short game strokes, or putting strokes of the best players of this or any other generation, you will find barely any patterns at all, except that when the ball is struck it ends up close to its intended target. Set-ups range from bent over to almost straight up and down (Fuzzy Zoeller to Don January), grips from way weak to way strong (Johnny Miller and Corey Pavin to Billy Casper and Paul Azinger), takeaways from inside to outside (Bobby Jones and Jack Nicklaus to Miller Barber and Jim Furyk), from flat at the top to upright (Ben Hogan and Chad Campbell to Nicklaus and Scott Hoch), from cupped wrists to flat wrists (Gene Sarazen and Mark Calcavecchia to Byron Nelson and Tiger Woods), from high approaches to low approaches (Cary Middlecoff and David Toms to Hogan and Vijay Singh), you name it, and someone has done it, and has been great doing it. It is one of the wonders of the game. You don’t have to do it any particular way, but you do have to figure out how to hit the ball. If you can’t get it through hard work alone then you are going to need some help. Those who are trying to help are going to have to believe in something, are going to need to have preferences when it comes to all the things we just ran through, and more. A teacher is simply more able to help more people when he or she has experience in trying to figure out his own game. The more ways you have to attack more problems, the more likely you are not to be stumped by a student’s inability to change or improve. Sometimes it just takes time, and others it takes new, fresh approaches.
DA: Is there a difference between teaching Tour players and everyone else?
Wayne: I don’t teach any Tour players regularly, although I have worked with some off and on for some time. Tour players are indeed different to work with, especially if they have already played the tour before you work with them. If a player has reached that level he or she obviously possesses great talent, and has already figured out how to play the game well enough to be successful. When a player at that stage comes to you for help you must be careful to remember that there is probably no need to revamp too many things. It is more likely that the player has gotten away from what had previously made them successful, and it is the teacher’s job to get them back to what they used to do. Old video is a great help in this case, as direct comparisons can be made and changes can be easily detected. If the player has always fought certain tendencies, then the instructor may choose to treat the lesson as any other lesson, where he would explain the concept, show how the player varied from that, and then try to get the player to change. This is always difficult with guys who always have a tournament to play in, as it is hard for anyone to take something different out onto the course immediately and trust it. There is always the tendency to revert back to what is comfortable. I try to suggest to all players that they try to incorporate change and play with it, but not to force the change to happen. I like to practice new ideas on the range with various drills, then a few days before a tournament I am specifically trying to figure out my thought process for the course.
I tell non-tour players that since they have not reached their next level it would be a good idea to be conscious of not drifting back into old habits, thus “forcing”, or expending a lot of focus, on what they are trying to do mechanically. It takes a great deal of time to work new things in, or to change old patterns, and the sooner you commit to using something different the sooner it will feel comfortable. Players who don’t want to work on anything new because they have a tournament coming up are the ones who progress more slowly. If you don’t test things out you will never know if they will work.
DA: It seems that teachers that hook up with more famous Tour players are the ones who are perceived as the best teachers. Do you agree with that? And what do you think would be the best way to judge an instructor’s ability?
Wayne: Tour players are creature of convenience. They have to travel so much they usually don’t want to travel to get to a teacher. Thus, the teachers tend to travel out to the Tour to spend time with the player, unless they are teaching in a warm weather spot such as Florida or California where the Tour comes around a few times a year. For someone like me to teach a Tour player it would almost always come on a referral from one of the players I already know, such as this year when Brian Claar, who I’ve known since our mini-tour days, brought up Bill Glasson before and after the Kemper. The way most hook-ups occur is for the teacher to find a way to get out onto the range at a Tour event, and then take advantage of the Tour player’s tendency to listen to anyone who appears to know what they are talking about. I’m too busy with my own lesson schedule at home to be hanging out at Tour events, so that is not going to be the case with me.
As far as helping players who are already great, I have found that in many cases the actual teaching being done is minimal. Most tour players who are looking for help are slumping, and need some encouragement and something innocuous to think about that will give them the impression that they are moving in the right direction. It’s human nature to need a change of perspective in order to remain optimistic in the face of poor results. Players get into trouble when they question too strongly the game that got them where they are in the first place.
It is also well to remember that Tour players revel in their ability to pump up a teacher’s career simply by giving them credit for helping out. It is a powerful feeling to say someone has used their expertise to help you, then watch as the rest of the industry reacts with attention, added business, and even job offers. I generally question how much I have actually helped an accomplished player, and I have the feeling that in most cases way too much is made out of any teacher’s contribution to players who already have figured out how to play. We are providing an eye and someone to talk to, both important things to someone leading the generally lonely life of a traveling tour pro.
DA: You’ve made both of the major teaching lists, Golf Magazine’s Top 100 and Golf Digest’s 50 Greatest. Are these good indicators of a teacher’s expertise?
Wayne: I have to admit, it’s nice to be recognized as being a good teacher, but again, whether or not these lists truly measure teaching ability is highly questionable. To my mind, the only way to measure a teacher is to physically watch him or her in action, then follow the student to see if there are any positive results. Then again, we must ponder the qualifications of the people who would be judging the teachers. For the Golf Digest list, a survey is sent to a group of teachers in a specific area who are to rate each other on a scale from 1 to 10, with an added column for “I don’t know”. The list of teachers who receive the survey is compiled through various means, and from what I have seen it is fairly comprehensive. This allows the magazine to compile a state-by-state list, while a further question asks the surveyor to choose 25 teachers out of a list of the previous Top 50. The problem is that I have watched exactly none of the listed instructors teach, so I don’t really know how any of them go about their business. I know the guys that play in PGA Section events, and I might know a few other guys I have seen on television, but I am essentially rating people I have never actually watched. My guess is that this is the case all over the country, and what you have in the end is essentially a popularity contest, where the guy with the best reputation, deserved or not, and the most exposure, gets the highest rating.
The Golf Magazine Top 100 is just as suspect, as a group of magazine editors, aided by another group of so-called “sports experts” from some college pore through what amounts to a 20 question essay test on various topics regarding teaching. After failing the exam a number of times, this year I decided to concentrate on writing what would get me on the list, and, lo and behold, I made it. This was the last hurdle I felt I needed to make in order to satisfy my desire for recognition, but after I achieved my goal I looked back and was somewhat ashamed at my blatant pursuit of these dubious honors. Where does it say that if you publish a magazine you are qualified to judge the worth of a teaching pro? Why did I need the approval of a magazine to feel worthy as a teacher? My lesson book is full and my students (certainly not all of them) generally improve and come back for more lessons: what else do I need to feel good about what I am doing? Besides, I still play, and play fairly well, and that is something that sets me apart from most of the teachers on either list.
DA: Do you ever get tired of teaching?
Wayne: You know, honestly, I don’t get tired of it at all. I play because I love the game, and I teach because I love the game. It’s just another part of being involved in golf. The fact that I get paid well to spend the day intimately involved with golf is a great thing. I always imagine that the people I teach are just as enamored of the game, and want to improve their games, just as much as I do. My physical problems don’t allow me to practice 8 hours a day, so I spend most of it teaching. There is nothing I would rather be doing to earn a living besides playing full time, and since I can’t do that I am happy to be doing the next best thing. Another thing that keeps me interested is that every lesson is a new challenge, and every student requires me to use all my expertise to help them improve. Every lesson requires 100% of my experience and total concentration in order to find the best way to help the student. I can never mail one in: the game is too difficult, and changing anything is such a task that I am always immersed in the lesson from start to finish. And with every lesson I add to my experience, which enables me to better help the next guy. And since I still compete, I am always looking for corollaries to my own struggles, and am forever searching for ideas that will help me with my own game.
DA: So where does it go from here? Will there be a Wayne DeFrancesco School of Golf somewhere?
Wayne: I doubt that very seriously. I have always believed that instruction is far more effective in a one-on-one setting. Golf schools are simply a way to teach more people at one time, and thus make more money. The information gets watered down, since the top-billed teacher cannot be hands-on all the time. And no matter how well others are trained, there is no substitute for the expertise and experience of the main instructor. So while people may enjoy the camaraderie of the group experience, they are definitely not getting the same level of instruction they would if they had a teacher to themselves for the same amount of time. I am happy teaching one person at a time: not only does it allow me the best opportunity to help my students, it also allows me to play, as I have no management responsibilities to worry about. I love what I do, and I plan to keep on doing it the same way for the foreseeable future.