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Link to Sally Jenkins’ Article.
Wayne’s Response:
Sally: I have often read and admired your columns for their depth and thoughtfulness, but I was shaking my head when you gave traction to Brandel Chamblee and his personal war on golf instruction in today’s column. There are a few things you should have considered before taking sides with Chamblee’s notion that no instruction is better than any instruction when it comes to the attempt to improve at golf. First of all, Chamblee is a golf loser, a quitter, beaten down by the game and forced to give it up due to lack of results. He wonders why Tiger didn’t just “keep doing what he was doing” when he had that great run in 2000 and 2001, and yet he himself, after winning a Tour event in 1998, couldn’t sustain his success and was off the Tour and out of golf by 2003. He is a bitter soul, and now blames his failure on teachers and coaches. You both fail to realize that lesson taking is entirely voluntary. If Chamblee sought out help and didn’t find any he wouldn’t be the first or last. To blame his failure on those who tried to help him is pure cowardice. Everyone who takes a lesson does so on his or her own accord. If it doesn’t work out the student is not compelled to come back. Your examples of Tiger Woods and Kevin Na versus Rickie Fowler and Bubba Watson is a convenient one, in that Tiger is currently not playing his best, Na was struggling under the intense pressure, while Fowler has lately been playing great and Bubba won the Masters.
Fowler and Watson are freaks. To use them as examples of how average golfers should approach the game simply points out that when it comes to golf you are fairly clueless. My guess is that you play a little, but not a lot, and certainly not in competition. You quoted Bobby Jones in your article, but you should have added his statement that “there is golf, and there is tournament golf. They are in no way the same.” Let’s say you woke up one day and suddenly felt compelled to win the club championship at your home course. The problem is that you shoot in the 90’s, and the best player at the club regularly shoots in the 70’s. How would you go about dropping the 15 shots you need to drop in order to have a chance? Your “natural” swing shoots 95. Do you honestly think that if I gave you a grass cutter and told you to chop down some weeds that you would suddenly get a whole lot better? It just isn’t that easy. Golf is too hard for the vast majority of players to be even decent at, and yet, since it is such a great game and presents such a challenge in so many respects, people have a compulsion to play it better. Telling someone to “rely on their strengths” or to seek out their “natural” swing sounds like great advice, but why do you think most golfers are so terrible? It’s because they have no strengths, and their “natural” swing shoots in the 90’s. In other words, without a great deal of help, they are going to continue to suck.
You would need some serious help in order to improve enough, and you would additionally need to learn how to handle yourself on the golf course under the stress of competition. Kevin Na’s ball striking statistics are vastly improved this year due to his “tinkering” with his swing, and now he has to learn to take it out under tournament pressure. The only reason anyone was paying attention to Na in the first place was the fact that he was leading the tournament. He would be among illustrious company in ultimately failing in the end, but his conspicuous battle with his mind gave you the idea to write your piece. There is certainly a compelling story here, but you would have been far better served, as would the public (and especially the golfing public), if you had just put a call into Na himself and asked him to comment on what it was you thought you were watching on Saturday and Sunday. The last thing you should have done was to sidle up to Brandle “I quit, therefore I commentate” Chamblee.
I would like to extend to you and invitation to come out to Woodmont for a couple of hours and let me teach you. I would show you what golf instruction is all about. I would try to educate you as to what a swing should do to hit the ball well, what your swing in particular does to not hit it so well, and try to give you effective ways to improve. I would use my video camera to show you how you swing now, show you players who are better than you, and suggest how you might move in the right direction in order to play a better game. I can answer questions about every aspect of the game, because I am a player and when I compete I have to hit every shot in every conceivable situation and condition. I hope you will take me up on my offer. After today’s column you owe it to golf instructors everywhere.