A Golf Story
It’s just a story. There are probably thousands like it. But it is a reminder of how life is just one big circle and how in some, golf plays an important role. For me it is a constant reminder of why those of us who play the game love it so and how it humanizes us. It begins in the spring of 1965, with this young lad wandering the halls of Cathedral High School, a bag of golf clubs slung loosely over my shoulder, hoping it would fi t...
The Comeback of Unique Swings on Tour
It wasn’t too long ago that USGTF examiner Mike Levine remarked how everyone on Tour looked like their swings came from an assembly line – all very similar. In contrast, he noted that when viewing old clips of Shells’s Wonderful World of Golf from the 1960s, many of the swings looked very homemade and not all that great aesthetically. What comes around goes around. Today, we have seen a return to the homemade and unique swings of...
Preserving Golf’s Legacy
Everyone can recall a favorite high-school teacher. Algebra? Chemistry? French? Surely it wasn’t equations, formulas or verb conjugations that made the most memorable impression. Most likely the nostalgia one feels when remembering a favorite teacher stems from that individual’s passion for teaching, love and mastery of the subject matter and, perhapsmost importantly, commitment to students – their learning, progress and...
Teaching Bunker Play
A number of years ago at a certification course, I was struggling with my greenside bunker play. My tendency was to either take too much sand, or getting too much of the ball. Bob Wyatt, our national coordinator, noted that this was the result of the clubhead coming into the sand at too shallow of an angle. I started coming in steeper and the results improved immediately. Later that year I was hitting bunker shots at a tournament. An...
Bottle This!
We are on a mission. My friends and I are in the ski business for financial gain and are avid golfers for fun. Three of us met at a local resort course where my wife and I happen to be members. This particular resort, with two 18-hole courses, is one of the top-rated in Canada. Besides two 18s, it has a superb practice facility that includes a double-ended chipping and pitching area that looks down on the starting and finishing holes...
The Art of Humility
Ted Turner, the famous media mogul, once said, “A little humility makes you perfect.” While it may be argued that no human being can ever be perfect, it is hard to argue with the fact that showing humility is a trait of many highly successful people. This might seem counterintuitive at first. You might think that highly successful people have virtually no humility, because they think they are the greatest and are out to prove it...
Your Students Aren’t your Sounding Board
One of the things that we all share in common is the fact that life is not problem-free. And, that includes everyone. Even those who seem to have perfect lives have problems and concerns that must be addressed. The same obviously goes for us as golf teaching professionals. We certainly have problems, which may range from the minor (our child has a minor illness) to the major (our house has lost much of its value). It might seem...
USGTF Member’s Lifelong Passion for Teaching Defines Coach’s Career
Ben Hogan said, “The ultimate judge of your swing is the flight of the ball.” The beauty of this statement lies in its simplicity. It is no simple matter, though, to reach or teach masterful ball flight. As golfers pursue this ever-elusive dream and instructors help guide them toward it, the imagining of a ball’s perfect arc and landing never dies in a player’s heart. Imagination, dreams and golf…they have a way of intertwining and...
Golf’s Embedded Ball Rule Often Misunderstood
Most golfers believe that an embedded ball is automatically entitled to a free drop, no matter where the ball lies. This is not entirely correct. Rule 25-2 states, “A ball embedded in its own pitch-mark in the ground in any closely mown area through the green may be lifted, cleaned and dropped, without penalty, as near as possible to the spot where it lay but not nearer the hole. The ball when dropped must first strike a part of the...
How We Hold the Club
Communication is a huge factor in the ability to teach the game. As golf teaching professionals, we have the knowledge and of course the secret to our success is our ability to impart that knowledge. There are many moving parts to the golf swing, but, the least practiced and the most important is how we “hold” the club. Notice how I’ve used the word “hold” and not “grip.” Grip conveys the feeling of tightness; hold conveys the feeling...
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