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30 Oct 2017 admin

History, Heritage And Preservation Of American Golf

By Mike Stevens USGTF Certified Golf Teaching Professional, Tampa, Florida

Bobby Jones once said the finest golf swing he ever saw belonged to Joyce Wethered. There were some exceptional female golfers in the early 1900s, once they were allowed on the courses from which they were previously excluded.

Playing with hickory-shafted clubs, they added considerable style and grace to the gentlemen’s game. Some of the early pioneers were Dorothy Campbell, the first woman to win the British, Canadian and American amateur championships; Glenna Collett Vare, who dominated women’s golf in 1920, and the famous Curtis sisters (Margaret and Harriot), Beatrix Hoyt, Lady Margaret Scott and Alexa Stirling, who toured the country with Jones giving golf exhibitions. All these wonderful players had one thing in common: They had beautiful swings and played the game with hickory-shafted golf clubs.

The United States Professional Hickory Golf Championship, which was originated in 2011, has always been open to both male and female golf professionals. It is played at Temple Terrace Golf & Country Club, opened in 1922, just north of Tampa, Florida. The first six contests have been dominated by the guys, but the 2017 and seventh was a different story. For several years, the U.S. Open was dominated by British golfers until American players gained their footing. I guess it just took a little time for the gals to get theirs, as Orlando’s Ki Shui Liao navigated the demanding Temple Terrace Golf & Country Club this past February in 75 strokes to become the Champion American Professional Hickory Golfer of the Year. She secured a spot on the John Shippen Trophy, which is dedicated to America’s first golf pro. Shippen played in the 1896 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, where he also worked under Scotsman Willie Dunn Jr.

In those days, the U.S. Open and the U.S. Amateur were played during the same week on the same course. So, in keeping with that spirit, the United Stated Amateur Hickory Golf Championship is also a part of the day’s historical celebration. Bill Geisler of Winter Park, Florida, edged out two-time champion Will Peterson of Orlando by a single shot. Geisler’s name will be affixed to the Oscar Bunn Trophy, celebrating the Shinnecock Indian who also played in the 1896 U.S. Open. Bunn began as a caddie at Shinnecock and learned to play under the tutelage of Dunn.

Ninety-two years ago, the best professionals in the land gathered at Temple Terrace to compete in the Florida Open. It was one of the last tournaments where all players used clubs made of hickory and persimmon wood. The purse was $5,000. Jim Barnes was the host pro who welcomed the likes of Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen and eventual winner Leo Diegel. The U.S. Professional Hickory Championship of this day is a tribute to those great golfers often forgotten over time. The amateur portion of the day recalls the likes of Bobby Jones, Harold Hilton, John Ball and Walter Travis. Having the ladies included just adds a bit of class and elegance to this remembrance of American golf as it began all those years ago.

26 Oct 2017 admin

Do Not Dummy Down

Time and time again I hear from coaches and players, “You need to ‘dummy down’ your in-formation for us!” My immediate reaction is, “No, you need to smarten up!

One of my mentors use to say “always look for simplicity on the other side of complexity,” meaning that as coaches, we must understand the complexity of the issue or technique and then find the simplicity in training the golfer for competitive play.

From my perspective, coaching is not about “dummying down” information or techniques. It is about starting with basics at a level each player can understand, and more importantly implement, and helping those golfers advance the technique or information as their competitive skills progressed.

One example of this process is with pre-shot routines. Here is the note I sent recently to a high school golf coach – whom I am pleased to say was one of my collegiate golfers:

IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY Utilize the following training sequence for new golfers, most high school golfers, and in reviewing each collegiate golfer’s current routine. I have actually employed this technique with a few of our professional golfers to help them get their routines back on track when the wheels start to fall off during competitive play.

READY, AIM, FIRE Start with teaching a very basic “Ready, Aim, Fire” shot routine to golfers, and then expand the techniques within each player’s routine as they progress in competitive play.

During competitive play, watch and ensure that each player is working through the basic “Ready, Aim, Fire” sequence, versus the normal “Fire, Ready…woops, I forgot to Aim” sequence they normally revert to under pressure.

THE BASICS (this can be your initial coaching lesson with each golfer) Ready: From a position behind the ball (it is important to work from behind the ball and with both eyes on the target), select a specific target to play to.

– Remain mindful of your target through your entire routine. – While still behind the ball, take one or two practice (rehearsal) strokes. It is important to develop a sense of success with each swing.

Aim: As you move into your setup, aim the clubface down the target line at your target. (Some players will be playing a draw or fade, and thus their target line will be to the right or left of the target, but the key is to coach them on setting the clubface so that it is aiming down the appropriate target line.)

Next, align your body; position it correctly for the shot. This includes working into a position that allows you to remain balanced through the shot. Balance is the key.

Fire: Aim, move into your stance, and fire. Avoid “freezing” over the ball. Pose for your photo! Hold your finish for at least two seconds, smile, and pose for your photo…on every shot!

START Start your training and coaching with putting, and advance the techniques of each golfer as their competitive use of the technique improves.

KEEP MECHANICS IN THEIR PLACE You undoubtedly noticed that I made no mention of stroke mechanics in the basics for the routine. While effective setup and stroke mechanics are essential with all shots, mechanics by themselves will not ensure more successful shots.

It is important to habituate effective setup and stroke mechanics and be able to employ them automatically within your routine.

COACHING The beauty in this process for coaching is that while you can only guess at the mental and emotional processing the golfer is doing, you can now check, coach, and guide each golfer’s behavior, which will give you insight into their mental/emotional states.

You can observe and assess each player’s execution of their routine effectively during competition/play. Answer “yes” or “no” to the following questions:

Ready. – Is the player working from behind the ball correctly? – Do they appear to you to be physically poised (versus rigid) in their setup? – Do they appear mentally engaged (versus scattered thinking) in their setup?

Aim. – Does the golfer visually align with their target from a position behind the ball? – Are they aiming the clubface down the target line? – Are they aligning their body correctly in relationship with the target line? (Make sure you know their normal stance: slightly open, closed, etc.)

Fire. -Is their body flowing from the setup into, and through, the swing (no freezing over the ball)? – Do they appear to be properly balanced in their setup and remain in balance through their finish? – Does their swing appear to “flow” naturally? – Are they swinging through to their finish and not simply down to the ball? – Are they holding their finish for at least two seconds and smiling?

FINAL NOTE In preparing for competitive play, make certain practice holes “routine holes,” meaning that on those three or four holes, each player focuses exclusively on their routine, nothing else. I actually have a score sheet designed where each player records their effectiveness score on the use of their routine.

I would wish all coaches and players good luck, but we all know that we make our own luck!

– Coach

Coach Robertson has been a Tour instructor since the 1980s.  He is a staff writer for the World Golf Teachers Federation, a former head college golf coach in North Carolina, Oregon and Arkansas, and a performance consultant to several collegiate and professional golfers. Author of  The GOLF Team Swing & Performance Manual and The Encyclopedia of Successful GOLF Coaching. Coach always enjoys your feedback  and can be contacted at (870) 949-9010, CoachRobertson01@Suddenlink.net, or on Skype at james.e.robertson

19 Oct 2017 admin

Teaching in A Simulator Vs. Teaching Outdoors

By Mark Harman USGTF Course Director, Ridgeland, South Carolina

In addition to my duties as national course director for the USGTF, I also teach at two facilities near where I live, one outdoors at a golf course and another in an indoor simulator at a major golf store. The latter is a recent addition to my teaching, and it has been extremely illuminating seeing the contrasts to teaching on an outdoor range. If you’ve been teaching with a simulator or with a launch monitor like TrackMan or FlightScope, some of what I’m about to write won’t come as any great surprise to you. Still, it’s been interesting to see how people learn and perform in the different environments.

The launch monitor I use in the simulator is a new state-of-the-art GC Quad from Foresight Sports. It measures all the data you would expect, including ball speed, launch angle, RPMs, spin axis, direction and curve, and carry and total distance. It also measures clubhead data such as clubhead speed, angle of attack and clubhead path when you put a round metallic sticker on the top of the clubface. You can also measure additional clubhead action that includes lie angle at impact, clubface in relation to clubhead path at impact, and squareness of the strike when you position four metallic stickers on the clubface. The launch monitor and simulator aren’t cheap, and I’m grateful I didn’t have to shell out the money for them! The first thing I notice is people tend to overestimate how far they hit the ball in the “real world” of outdoor golf – one of those things I said would come as no surprise to those of you already using launch monitors. People will tell me they average 260 on the course, and yet the GC Quad is saying their total distance is 230. I use those two numbers specifically because the aver-age overestimation I’ve experienced so far is right around 30 yards. So of course, the first reaction is skepticism to the launch monitor’s numbers. I then point out that their clubhead speed of 88 mph is right about in line with a golfer who hits it 230. Of course, that 260 they got on the course came from a downwind drive on a firm fairway, but since perception is reality to most people, in their minds they hit it 260. The second thing is how disappointed people are when they learn that their clubhead path through impact is anywhere from 5° to 10° left of the target line. This won’t surprise anyone to learn a majority of golfers’ swing paths are in this direction. But these numbers are important because it gives me an advantage that I don’t have outdoors, and that is we can work toward some tangible numbers that are impossible to know precisely without a launch monitor. The third thing I learned, even though I already knew this but not to the degree I know now, is that a ball that starts well right of the tar-get line can be produced by a swing path that is well to the left, and vice versa. When I see a ball that starts well to the right outdoors and curves even farther right, I simply cannot tell with any degree of reasonable certainty what the clubhead path did, especially if the shot came from a driver off the tee. With an iron shot, at least we have a divot that can give us a clue, but one that is often not 100 percent reliable. So having accurate club-head path data is a real benefit to the teacher. Finally, I have learned that many male golfers have a serious case of too-flat lie angles at impact, some regularly hitting shots with toe angles at 7° downwards! I have access to some clubfitting equipment featuring iron lie angles 3° upright from standard, but even with these, it’s not nearly enough to get some golfers to have flat lie angles at impact. Of course the problem is in their swings, but there’s only so much you can do during the course of one lesson. The other feature we have in the indoor simulator is two simultaneous working cameras, one for the face-on view and one for the target-line view. The video software allows me to draw the usual lines, circles, etc., and compare a student’s swing to dozens of touring pros’. With few exceptions, students’ swings change perceptibly during the course of one lesson, and I’m able to email the students their before and after comparisons. I want to be clear: It’s still possible to teach very effectively outdoors with no technology (See “No TrackMan? No Problem,” Winter 2017 edition, Golf Teaching Pro). Even with all my hi-tech tools in the simulator, I find myself working mainly on the same basic fundamentals with students that I would outdoors. But I would be less than honest if I said having some advanced technology wasn’t a great help, and it’s helped me learn some things that have improved my abilities as a teacher. As golf technology becomes less expensive and more available, I believe it’s only a matter of time before the vast majority of teachers will rely on some form to aid in their instruction programs. But without a competent teacher schooled in the art and science of golf instruction, these gadgets are virtually worthless, and in fact could prove detrimental to the golfer who doesn’t understand what’s important and what’s not. There will al-ways be a place for knowledgeable golf teaching professionals, regardless how much teaching technology may advance.

16 Oct 2017 admin

Anthony Netto Stands Up And Plays

USGTF member Anthony Netto lives a more active life than most people, even though he cannot walk, much less run. Netto was on his way to play in a professional golf tournament in his native South Africa in 1994 when his car was hit by a drunk driver, leaving Netto paralyzed from the waist down. And all of this happened just several months after attending a USGTF certification course in the United States.

Netto was a first lieutenant in the South African army and was a veteran of Desert Storm in the early 1990s. After his discharge, he returned to golf and earned his USGTF certification. But the accident put his plans on hold. It is understand-able if Netto felt the normal reactions after such a horrific accident of despair and anger, but if he did, he quickly put them aside and went to work. Attempting to return to the game of golf in a traditional wheelchair, Netto found it too restraining and difficult to play the game in a proper way. He set about inventing a device that would allow him to basically stand while playing, just like able-bodied golfers. Thus, the Paragolfer came about, which rides like a normal wheelchair with the exception that the seat and seatback lift up and puts a person in a standing position.

The Paragolfer was later renamed the Para- mobile because it can be used for more than just golf. Sports like shooting, archery, hunting and fishing are made easier for people from the Para-mobile.

As the Paramobile puts less pressure per square inch on the ground as compared to a normal foot-print, the device lends itself well to golf and doesn’t damage the golf course, including the greens. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Paramobile is welcome at facilities all across the country.

Netto travels the United States these days, promoting the Paramobile and seeking funding for those in need to buy them through his Stand Up And Play Foundation. Manufactured by the German company Ottobock, the Paramobile is available for a purchase price of $22,500.

The Invictus Games, which brings together veterans from 17 countries who compete in adaptive sports, will feature golf for the first time in 2017 in Toronto, Canada. Netto is proud that the Paramobile will be used in order to allow some of the golfers to compete.

Netto has also met former U.S. presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the latter while he was still in office. Obama, an avid golfer himself, took an interest in Netto and the Para- mobile.

In regard to Bush, Netto met him several years ago at the 4th annual Warrior Open, where Netto smashed a drive 270 yards down the middle of the fairway. He still drives the ball farther and plays the game better than most able-bodied golfers, a testament to his grit and determination.

Netto is currently based out of Las Vegas, Nevada, and travels to support and promote the Stand Up And Play Foundation. The fundraising road has been a difficult one, but Netto has succeeded in getting a number of Paramobiles into circulation for use by those who are paralyzed.

12 Oct 2017 admin

Compliments Complement Our Teaching

According to allpsych.com, “The term rein-force means to strengthen, and is used in psychology to refer to any stimulus which strengthens or in-creases the probability of a specific response.” Psychologists recognize four types of reinforcement: positive, negative, punishment and extinction.

In general, positive reinforcement has proven to be the most effective means of behavior modification or to get a certain behavior to be performed. This involves giving a reward upon completion of a goal or speaking in a positive and encouraging manner in an attempt to achieve the desired outcome. Negative reinforcement involves an unpleasantness of some sort if the task is not completed, such as parental nagging of a child. Once the child per-forms the task, for example, the negative reinforcement of nagging is eliminated. Punishment is a term that we are all familiar with, and extinction is, according to study.com, “The disappearance of a previously learned behavior when the behavior is not reinforced.”

The USGTF has long recognized the good that comes from positive reinforcement, and since its inception in 1989 has said that encouragement (positive reinforcement) rather than criticism (negative reinforcement) is far more desirable. Hopefully there aren’t any teachers out there engaging in punishing their students! But then again, we do hear sad stories of parents punishing their children for not succeeding in athletics. Perhaps they make the child run, or take away some privileges, but as those of us who are knowledgeable know, punishing a child for athletic failure is a sure way to have an ex-athlete for a child.

In athletics today, there is a great emphasis on “players’ coaches,” which means that the coach is sensitive to the needs and emotions of the members on theteam. Gone are the days of the coach who yelled constantly at his players, berating them for each and every mistake, and being tone-deaf to the squad’s desire to be guided with a gentler hand. While today’s sports coaches can still be demanding in terms of performance and effort, they are expected to develop personal relationships with each player and to have an empathy for those players. One of the great truths to coaching is that a coach needs to know when to give someone a figurative kick in the butt and when to give a pat on the back. Coaches who only know how to kick derrieres probably won’t last long in today’s world. They need to be able to give positive reinforcement as part of their coaching repertoire.

In line with giving positive reinforcement, compliments are an important way of achieving this. When was the last time you felt badly when someone gave you a genuine compliment? You may have felt not worthy or de-serving, but deep down we all enjoy a compliment that some-one gives us. It boosts our self-esteem and gives us confidence that we are on the right track.

As golf coaches and teachers, we see that the majority of our clientele want nothing more than to enjoy the game. Many of our students are already self-conscious about their golf games; they don’t want to be embarrassed on the course. It’s also not rare for some students to not want to see themselves on video, thinking that their swing is one of the worst there is and looks silly to outside observers. A few compliments during a video review session most certainly will help with a student’s attitude and perhaps give them some newly found encouragement and excitement.

Compliments must be sincere. Telling a student that their swing is one step away from being tour caliber – when they are a30-handicapper – is false flattery that we must avoid. Fortunately, most of us know that. But even30-handicappers have elements in their game that are worthy of complimenting.

Compliments can also help to mitigate the negative feelings associated with giving necessary negative information to a student. USGTF member Ben Bryant has written about the “compliment sandwich,” in which the negative information is preceded and followed by a compliment. An example: “Tom, I really like the way you’re swinging in balance, but we need to improve your release through impact because you have a tendency to flip your trail hand underneath. The good news is you’re already off to a good start because you have a good grip.”

Compliments are also beneficial to the giver of the compliment, because most of us enjoy making people feel good. So complement your teaching with compliments – it gets results!

5 Oct 2017 admin

Moving From A To B

By Bert Jones USGTF Master Golf Teaching Professional Loomis, California

Have you ever wondered why some people can move from their current situation to a stated goal and some people can’t? Is it a matter of applied will, or just having enough knowledge?

If we reflect on the last 40 years, we have little to no improvement in the average golf score. In fact, professional averages are relatively stagnant, also! How can this be, even with the advent of new equipment, better agronomy, and the state of instruction using space-age technology for analysis?

Perhaps we can start by looking at how goals are developed. When developing a goal, it should follow the acronym SMART. The SMART acronym stands for specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic and time-based. Every goal will be based on one of three words: desire, want, and need. Each of these words is different and requires thoughtful consideration. Clarity around need, want and desire will provide you a vision of the goal.

Achieving goal specificity can be an elusive proposition. How many times have you had a student tell you that they “want” to improve their putting? Sounds pretty vague to me! To putt “better” requires analysis of where the student is with their knowledge, skill and ability. I normally put my students through an array of tests such as the Titleist Performance Institute LORD’s test or the Eyeline Skill Test (both of which can be found online) to determine a benchmark. Once the evidenced-based benchmark is achieved, I can then begin to assist the student’s specific goal.

An example of a specific goal could be to reduce the number of three-putts from four per round to two per round over a period of 45 days. The goal is measureable because we have created a starting and ending point over a period of time. It is critical that the goal be agreed upon, as the goal should be intrinsic by nature. The goal should be realistic as it is based upon a benchmark analysis of the player.

Sounds pretty simple, right? If it was, then we would have a nation of high achievers, and we know that is not the case. So why do so many good intentions fall short? Is it bad goal setting or just lack of will?

Perhaps the answer can be found in instruction and motor programming! Most students that I have encountered do not fully understand putting or their equipment. Their skill, knowledge and ability have to be built or reformed. In addition, I have found that many students don’t know how to practice. They think they do, but they don’t.

Explanation, demonstration, observation and correction on identified sub-elements help students understand how to practice. I like to have students use guidance devices to provide feedback when I am not able to stand and observe the player between lessons. A limited amount of drills are prescribed to ensure that students are working on changing their habits.

It is important to understand that habits are changed through ritual. Creating rituals in the pre- and post-routine are the means to integrating new neural pathways in the brain to create better performance. Visit the “Human Performance Institute” online for a deeper understanding of rituals and habit development.

No more three-putts!