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28 Jul 2016 Corina Pelloni

TIGHT SHIRTS

Here we go again! During the year’s British Open telecast, Johnny Miller, working his first ever Open, spouted out commentary which once again leaves some raising their eyebrows, while others cheer his candor. Some players despise his brutal honestly, some choose to ignore and laugh, while viewers/listeners are offered the option of tuning out or debating his hypotheses. I fall in the latter. There’s nothing like a good debate. His latest views were directed toward Rory McIlroy’s skin-tight wardrobe’s ability to espouse the benefits of his workout routine, to which we’re all somewhat privy via various social media forums. His comments as follows: “Golf is a game of finesse and touch that requires a certain amount of strength, and Rory has a little too much of the latter.” “I think he overdid the weight room, personally. I don’t think that helped him at all. I think the same thing with Tiger Woods. You just get carried away with wearing the tight shirts and showing off their sort of muscles.” Okay! Where do I start? We could put Johnny’s comments into context. He’s on live television and there is no script, with the possibility he didn’t think every word through the way a speechwriter preparing a presidential state of the union address would. Johnny Miller is the Donald Trump of television commentators: shoots from the “lip” and sticks to his beliefs, all the while remaining immune to the fallout, if any. Miller is hired for his knowledge of the game and to provide cringe-worthy opinion at times. However, and like Trump, every once in a while he’ll say something people may be thinking but don’t want to verbalize, not always based on fact but opinion and half-truths. This, of course is my opinion, and you the reader are entitled to agree to disagree. I digress. Where is the truth or the facts in Johnny’s statements? We could start with: – “Too much strength.” Relatively easy to surmise Johnny didn’t think that one through, but again, it was live television. Nothing wrong with strength…with strength comes stability and speed – “Golf is a game of finesse and touch that requires a certain amount of strength.” Hard to argue with that statement. – “I think he overdid the weight room, personally. I don’t think that helped him at all. I think the same thing with Tiger Woods.” This is the most debatable quote. I’m a big believer in stats, as stats seldom lie if the data is accumulated effectively over an extended period of time. If we look back over Tiger’s career, he led in many statistical categories, with putting and greens in regulation (GIR) being his forte. His average driving distance fell off slightly in terms of ranking as he was always in the top three early in his career. Could this be attributed to his added bulk (muscle) in his torso and biceps? Perhaps, but we’ll never really know, as this was the era of modern equipment changes, so making the comparison proves difficult. We can go on Tiger’s own words in that he gained strength but lost explosive speed from when he was younger. Is it fair to say this is occurring with Rory? If we compare this year to 2014 and a couple of previous years, he has lost distance and ranking in this category. It is known that muscle is heavier; hence, moving a heavy weight as fast as a lighter weight is not so easy. Rory may be strong, but perhaps he’s lost or in the process of losing speed due to his increased bulk, blatantly visible in his upper arms and chest area. Tiger was not the first professional golfer known for introducing weights and fitness training into golf. As we’re all aware, his predecessor Gary Player owns this title, but of course, Tiger’s superstar status and results forced others to take notice and step up their respective regimens. No doubt every male professional golfer in the world who is capable of earning a good living at the game believes he has the best team of coaches, trainers, etc., providing them with all the tools and expertise to play their best. Miller believes, along with other golf pundits, Rory and fellow “gym rats” adding bulk are doing themselves and their games a disservice. The belief stems from the fact we have never witnessed great champions in the past built like football linebackers, and for good reason. They also believe such practices are putting themselves at risk for injury. We may never know or find out for sure why Tiger Woods at 40 years old has been plagued with serious back issues. Are they from lifting heavy weights, or purported injuries suffered while training with Navy Seals? One thing we do know is none other than Ben Hogan hit more balls than anyone, except for perhaps Moe Norman, and never suffered an injury related to golf. His body was lean, flexible and wiry-strong. Was he blessed with these physical attributes? Most definitely. However, Tiger was, as well. Rory, too, has been blessed with great flexibility and explosive speed. Starting a few years ago, he developed his body in the gym to withstand the rigors of professional golf. The question about Rory overdoing it in the gym now needs to be asked, and this truly was the point of what some claim to be Johnny Miller’s controversial statements. I think the jury can remain out on this one regarding injury. Only time will tell, because some are more prone to hereditary injuries than others. However, he has lost explosive speed compared to 2014. He has also fallen in two important statistical categories in which Tiger never suffered: putting and greens in regulation. Perhaps a little less time in the gym would curtail this trend.

The Private Lesson

It’s been a staple of golf instruction since the first teaching professional set up shop: the private lesson. The private lesson has evolved over the years, but it still features a student who wishes to play better golf and a teacher plying his or her trade. What makes for a proper private lesson? The answer is an inventory of the student’s desires and a plan of action that the student can accomplish. How this comes about is largely involved in the art portion of teaching, but today’s teacher has an arsenal of scientific hi-tech teaching aids that can help pin point the answer to the student’s problems to a degree never seen before. Most teachers, though, don’t have access to these gadgets, many of them not being cost-feasible. They still rely on their knowledge of the swing and the game itself to help improve their students’ abilities. Generally, students come in three types: advanced, intermediates, and not advanced, although we recognize there are varying degrees of these descriptions. Those who are not advanced are considered beginners and novices, as well as those who are wildly inconsistent. Players who shoot double-bogey golf or worse can be considered not advanced. Those who are intermediates exhibit some control over the golf ball, but lack the skills to show some consistency. This group usually ranges from bogey golf (around 90 on a par-72 course) to double-bogey golf. The third group, advanced, can be said to be players who play better than bogey golf. While some may say it’s a stretch to call someone averaging 85 advanced, for purposes of this discussion we will say they are, as they exhibit some form of regular control over the golf ball or certain areas of their game, or they may have a fairly consistent ball flight. How we teach these three groups is distinctly different: Not advanced Players in this category need to be given proper fundamentals in order to ensure a solid base for future advancement. So many players come to the game without proper instruction and it shows, as they have visible problems with poor grips and poor overall setups, and their swings tend to be arms-and-hands dominated with improper body rotation. Many of these players inherently learn that they can initially get the ball off the ground more easily with fault-filled setups and swings than they can with proper technique, or with whatever feels good. Those executing the fundamentals properly may take a little longer to see progress, but of course we all know that those who start with bad habits plateau earlier and stop progressing. Think of it as the old fable with the rabbit and the turtle: Those with bad habits (the rabbit) may have a quicker start, but those with proper fundamentals (the turtle) will win out in the end. Intermediates These golfers can be said to have short periods of success followed by long periods of inconsistency. In this stage, these players need to revisit the fundamentals. They may regress for awhile, but they don’t really have much to lose by starting somewhat over. The interesting thing is that we can also focus on the ball flight laws while teaching this level of player, whereas with the not-advanced player we don’t concern ourselves with ball flight. Advanced With this stage of player, we mainly want to focus on their ball flight and think about the five aspects of ball flight laws: clubface angle, clubhead path, centeredness of contact, angle of approach, and clubhead speed. Again, players at this level are not necessarily close to expert level, but they more often than not have control and a somewhat consistent ball flight, even if that ball flight doesn’t give them ideal results all the time. The four sub-categories of players at this level are: 1) Poor results through a bad setup and a bad swing 2) Poor results through a bad setup and a good swing 3) Poor results through a good setup and a bad swing 4) Good results through a bad setup and a bad swing (Excluded for purposes of this discussion are players getting good results through a good setup and a good swing.) The players in categories 2 and 3 are the easiest to teach, because if we correct either their setup or their swing, they will show improvement. Category 1 players are the next easiest to teach, but they will likely require both a setup and a swing change. Category 4 players are the most difficult, because they have learned to compensate for a flawed swing with a flawed setup, or vice versa. With these players, you must make both a setup and swing change simultaneously. They are somewhat different than Category 1 players, because if you change only the setup, for example, their results will be worse because their swing compensations are now unnecessary and will produce a bad ball flight. With Category 1 players, since they were getting bad results to start with, any one change may initially result in some improvement. In closing the private lesson, your students should have a clear game plan of what they will be working on. Make sure they are both willing and able to commit to the plan of action you layout. Finally, it goes without saying that the student should enjoy taking the lesson from you. This may be the most important aspect, as it means the student is happy and will likely return for more instruction.

HONOR

Many discussions have been held regarding Dustin Johnson’s ball moving during the final round of the U.S. Open and the resulting ruling. For those who might not remember the scenario, Dustin was on the green early in his round and prior to addressing the ball, the ball rolled backwards about a one-half of an inch. D.J. called the walking rules official over and informed him of what happened. The official said there was no penalty and they moved on. A few holes later, a few officials came back onto the course to let D.J. know there was a rules violation and that they would visit after the round. Golf differs from other games in many ways. One of the major differences is that the golfers will call rules infractions on themselves. This doesn’t happen in any other sport. You would never see a basketball player call a timeout to tell the official that he fouled another player. Could you imagine a football game in which an offensive lineman would tell the referee that he held a defensive player? Golf is an anomaly in that regards; we call penalties on ourselves. Always have and always will, because it is a game based on the honor system. I’m not saying that other sports don’t have honor associated with their game, but that they have a (sometimes) neutral third party calling infractions. When the USGA official asked Dustin if he made the ball move and D.J. said he didn’t, it should have been the end of the story. Period. There was no visible proof that he made the ball move; now the USGA officials are questioning D.J.’s honor and integrity. In my opinion, the USGA tried to make themselves the focal point of the tournament versus the actual tournament itself. As golf teaching professionals, we lead by example for our students and members. We play with honor and integrity. I’m very honored to be part of a wonderful organization like the USGTF and WGTF. Happy teaching!

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