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“Play Golf America!” is the new marketing cry of the PGA of America. Free lesson month, free equipment fitting week, anything to introduce as many people to the game as possible. If more people play, everyone in the business prospers: more rounds of golf for the daily fee courses, more bodies needing equipment and clothing, more beginners desperate for anything to help them improve. The golf magazines need more readers eager to “Cure Your Slice” and “Knock 10 Strokes Off Your Game Over the Weekend”. The Golf Channel needs more viewers to watch “The Big Break 25: San Quentin Inmates Battle It Out For Weekend Passes to Disney World and Exemptions Into Hooters Tour Events!” C’mon everybody, let’s play some golf! It’s fun, and it’s easy. A ten minute lesson ought to get you started in the right direction. Then maybe 8 or 900 dollars for some clubs, and you’re ready to rock, right?
What could be so hard about it? Well, I’m guessing that most of you who are reading this right now have been playing golf for a while, and because of that, you realize that the game is anything but easy. If you’ve ever read anything that I’ve written you know that I spend a lot of my time extolling the difficulties of our chosen sport. I can state unequivocally that anyone who calls the game easy either doesn’t play (or doesn’t keep score when they do), is on crack, or is one of the rarest of rare individuals, a naturally good player.
I really don’t hold it against those who are trying to sell the game that they misrepresent the nature of the learning process that is required to play a passable game, and, some would say (including myself), necessary to enjoy it. Would we all be better served if “Play Golf America” were instead “Play Better Golf America”? How would we ever con the masses into playing golf if we told the truth about it? Should we own up to the fact that the first year (at least) is spent barely touching the ball with the clubface, and that the only stroke you are almost guaranteed never to whiff, the putt, will desert you as soon as you start hitting the ball well enough to generate a decent score? Should we describe the game for what it is, a disease, or, at least, an affliction of the mind and body that becomes an obsession with sadistic/masochistic overtones? Not if we want people to take up the game, we won’t, that’s for sure.
What we will do, on the other hand, is hold up the best of the best as examples of what is possible with a lot of hard work, dedication, lesson taking, magazine reading, TV watching, club fitting, swing aid, equipment, and clothing buying. Yes, “These Guys Are Good”, and they do make it look so easy. The problem is, almost none of them learned to play the game with anything beyond the hard work and the dedication, and even that was prefaced by a giant dose of the secret ingredient to great golf, the magic elixir that is a prerequisite to everything else, you guessed it, talent.
Just what is golfing talent, anyway? How do we define it? My own favorite synonym for talent is “knack”, as in “he has the ‘knack’ for hitting the ball”. When an 8 year old picks up a 3-iron and hits it off the ground up into the air while taking a divot after the ball is struck he or she definitely has the “knack” for the game, at least for the hitting part of it. Another might be able to roll a 50 foot putt within inches of the hole with no prior experience at the task, or pitch a ball 20 yards to a pin next to the edge of the green. How do these things happen? I would never pretend to know the answer to that question, except to say that the individual in question has a brain that sees the problem at hand, assesses the tools for the job (the iron, or the putter, or the wedge), senses the technique required to complete the task, and has the physical ability to accomplish it with only a few trials.
The interesting thing about players with the “knack” is that their techniques are as varied as their personalities. They didn’t need any lessons to figure out how to hit the particular shot or shots; thus, their form does not necessarily fall within any guidelines that a teacher might impose. What they do simply works. As they get older they will most certainly compete, and their level of success will determine how much they will vary from their instinctive swings. As an instructor I am often presented with young players, some of whom have already exhibited an ability to compete at a high level. In every case, however, the kid is not yet a world-beater. The decision to seek out a teacher such as myself is almost in itself an admission that it does not appear that the player in question is going to make it all the way to the top on pure ability. The parents, and usually the player as well, have gotten the taste of success, and want more than anything for the winning to continue. When confronted with a higher level of competition it often becomes apparent that what has been left as “natural” may not be good enough to beat players who not only have talent but elite coaching as well.
When asked about the prospect of changing the swing or strokes of a young player I often bring up the example of Jim Furyk. Furyk’s father is often lauded for not messing with Jim’s admittedly “goofy” swing. I would posit that based on Jim’s success the decision was undeniably correct; however, it would be wise to consider that Furyk is pretty much the only great player with such a swing, although in the annals of great players with bizarre swings Miller Barber and Eammon Darcy come to mind. The fact that you can find a few players with totally screwy looking swings ascending to the top level does not necessarily breed confidence that the percentages are in your favor if you are trying to decide whether or not to leave the swing alone or change it. Therefore, I would venture to say that Mr. Furyk was incredibly fortunate with his decision to leave his son’s swing as it was. If he had brought Jim to me, and if Jim was not winning everything he played in, I would most definitely have tried to mold his movements into ones that followed the rules of physics and geometry a bit more closely (we’re pretending that I would be as I am now, while Jim would be a young junior). When I see a virtuoso (and there certainly aren’t many of them around) I would definitely be inclined to leave the swing be and work on whatever he felt was his biggest weakness, or perhaps would have just taken him out on the course to work on his playing skills.
It is part of the allure of golf, and a testament to the greatness of the game, that idiosyncratic technique such as that exhibited by Furyk can so successful. To my mind the most wonderful, and maddening, thing about the game is the sheer number of variations that have been utilized to achieve greatness. Throughout the history of the game the best players have always been entirely individualistic in their approach to the task of moving the ball down the fairway and into the hole. It seems ludicrous to claim that any one method is hands down better than the next, or that one has to achieve specific movements or positions to be good.
If we watch the greatest that have ever played, we see incredible diversity in their techniques. Nicklaus pulled the club well inside on the backswing while keeping his right arm well above his left. This led him to “cross the line” at the top with his right elbow winged up and away from him, a position he made up for by returning to impact on a steeper path as his head pulled back away from its original position. The fact that he is the best player to ever play the game is proof enough that whatever he does when he swings works, and as such all the positions and movements he utilizes are proven options in the search for a workable technique. That does not mean, however, that as a teacher I would choose to recommend any of those movements or positions to any particular student.
I believe that one of the keys to my success as an instructor is my knowledge of what the best players do with their swings. I find film of as many players as I can and I analyze it in an attempt to figure out why they are so good. I spend lots of time every day watching swings that do not produce great, or even decent shots on any sort of consistent basis, try to figure out why they don’t work, and then try to come up with an alternative that produces better results. As I go through this process every hour, and believe me when I tell you that every student is entirely different and unique, I depend quite a bit on the knowledge I have accumulated by studying swings that work.
It is mind boggling to watch the bizarre techniques that have won major events on all the top tours. For every Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, and Ernie Els there is a Colin Montgomerie, Jim Furyk, Scott Hoch, and Craig Parry. For every swing that stays “on plane” there is one that lifts straight up, or one that swings around like a baseball swing. If you think that a good swing requires stable legs, I will show you Colin Montgomerie. If you think that “over the top” is a “death move”, I will show you Craig Parry’s swing, and you can watch him hole out a 6 iron on the 18th at Doral. Think of every mistake that should preclude a golfer from being good, and I will show you a champion who makes that very mistake. How in the world did Vijay Singh become one of golf’s best ball strikers when his right hand comes completely off the club a millisecond after impact? Just what is going on here? Are there no rules that dictate what works and what doesn’t?
In fact, there are rules, but they don’t really apply to most talented. If you have “the knack”, you will figure out how to hit the ball far enough and straight enough to shoot good scores. You will also figure out how to get the ball into the hole quickly, and since less than full shots require even less physical ability they are open to an even broader spectrum of techniques. We all know someone who can’t hit it a lick but can up and down the ball from anywhere, and never seems to miss a make-able putt. Talk about a strange bunch of styles: just think about putting. All sorts of different putters, stances, grips, anything that works seems to be OK. And do you know what? That’s the best way to think about it: if it works, it’s OK. It doesn’t seem particularly fair that someone can be great with a swing that doesn’t really deserve to be good at all. It is even more annoying to listen to players with great swings who have no idea what they are doing, not that it matters to them. Listening to an uber-talent explain how “slowing down”, or “swinging easy”, fixed all of their ills and allowed them to hit every fairway and green and shoot 64 is enough to make me want to shoot myself. Hearing a great player describe his swing as “one big circle” or “just straight back and through” makes me want to knock him upside the head with my 5-iron. None of these explanations ever help anyone of normal ability. If you still think golf should be easy just follow Sam Snead’s advice and when you want to fade the ball, just “think fade”. Yeah, that ought to do the trick.
The teaching pro becomes important when things don’t work just because, and thinking fade doesn’t make the ball fly high and drop gently to the right. If I am confronted with an odd technique that produces great results, it’s my job to figure out why it works and to make sure that it continues to work. I know that I am in the presence of talent, and that the real question is whether or not that talent and that particular technique will make it to the top. I can say honestly that I have yet to find myself in that situation. I am a pretty good player, better than most of my students, and I am constantly in search of better technique. I can see where my swing is lacking, and I work diligently to improve. When I teach any golfer hopeful of climbing to the next level I try to present an honest assessment of their technique and why it is not producing the desired results. My recommendations are most often in the direction of the type of swing that follows the rules. I have to teach something, and a swing that moves on plane and flows in proper sequence is more efficient and actually easier to maintain than one with more moving parts and shifting paths. That my ideal model is more on line with what Tiger is doing shouldn’t be surprising. That I understand that there are infinite variations that are capable of producing championship caliber golf makes me a more flexible, and, I believe, a better teacher than one whose dogmatic view would suggest that there is only one way. History shows emphatically that this is not true. One would have to ignore many of the great players of the past and present to adhere to that type of thinking.
If you are looking for a point to my ramblings I think it would be that if you are not winning Tour events your swing could probably use some improvement, and that if your technique is idiosyncratic in any major way it would probably be a good idea to explore the possibility of changing it, knowing, of course, that any change is difficult, especially with something as difficult as hitting a golf ball. Once you have figured out a way to do it without embarrassing yourself your brain will cling to those pathways and feelings no matter what you tell yourself to do. The most difficult people to teach and actually help are those who have made themselves into decent players with suspect technique. It takes hard work and perseverance to fight through a change, but it can be done, and the rewards are tremendously satisfying. For my part the striving for improvement keeps me intensely involved with the game and reminds me as patient with my students as I try to be with myself.
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