8 May 2017

Partner Events

The Zurich Classic was held this past April on the PGA Tour.  The event changed its format from a normal stroke-play, individual event to a two-man team.  Both four-somes and four-ball formats were put into play.  This was a great move by the tournament committee for a number of reasons, the major one being that it increased participation by top-notch golfers, thus boosting viewership and sponsorship.

In the past few years, the overall field had declined for the Zurich.  In my opinion, the top players in the world were skipping the event because it didn’t fit their schedule, or they didn’t enjoy the course.  The “buzz” was not there, a nightmare for any tournament committee and sponsors.  As a result, the committee decided they needed to make a change to highlight this event.  While New Orleans is a fun destination for both players and fans, with great food and live music, what could they do to get more top-tier players to participate?

The decision they made was to change the format to a two-man team event.  Traditionally, the only time individuals would play in a team atmosphere is if they make the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup team.  It’s been decades since the PGA hosted a team event.  Players were excited, and many of the world’s best decided to make the Zurich Classic part of their 2017 tour schedule.

With the revised format, the event channeled the drama and excitement achieved during the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup.  As they came off the course each day, the players spoke highly about how much they enjoyed the event and the fans echoed this sentiment.

Not just as golf teaching professionals, but as business owners, let’s apply this model to our own development strategy.  The more fun your students have, from the professional level to the average amateur player, the better.  Golf is meant to be an enjoying, fulfilling and exciting game; sometimes this gets overlooked.  Explore offering more group lessons, join a group of guys during their regularly scheduled Sunday morning tee time, or add more team-style events to your home course.  I guarantee you will enjoy the same success as the Zurich Classic.

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Why Golf Will Never Die
5 May 2017

Why Golf Will Never Die

“Today’s kids just want to spend their time playing video games,” say the naysayers about golf, “and on top of that, the game takes too long to play and is too expensive. In addition, with the course closures the past few years, golf is definitely in decline.” Well! That’s a lot of negativity there, so we have to ask ourselves if there’s any merit to what some people are saying. While it is true that the number of courses and players have contracted over the past decade in the United States, all signs point to a leveling out, especially in terms of participants. The National Golf Foundation reports that in 2015 (the last year statistics are available), 2.2 million people took up the game, with the biggest group of beginners coming from the Millennial generation. That 2.2million is just shy of the all-time high of 2.4 million new golfers in 2000, the year Tiger Woods was at the height of his game. But it doesn’t stop there. Over one in four Americans watched golf at some point in 2015,and one in three did some sort of golf-related activity. Interest in the game is increasing, and with the economy continuing to lumber out of its malaise the past decade, undoubtedly the health of the game will continue to gain strength. Golf is a relatively slow game for these fast-paced times, so what attracts 21st century people to the game in the first place? The answer is the same as it has been for centuries:
  • The chance to socialize with friends and meet new people
  •  Getting outside and enjoying a scenic setting
  •  Enjoying the challenge of self-improvement, of you vs. you
  •  Being able to compete at a game that allows for all skill levels, not just elite athletes
  • The inherent enjoyment of a well-struck shot
  •  Watching the flight of the ball, akin to art forsome (e.g., the late Arnold Palmer)
  •  Unique playing fields that vary from hole to hole, from course to course
  • A chance to unwind and slow down from the daily grind of life
  • The physical, mental and spiritual benefits
Even in our modern society, people can’t just be on “go” 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They need to find a way to relax and move at a different pace than they are used to. But while golf can be relaxing, the heat of battle can establish an intensity that is every bit as high as the final moment of the Super Bowl, or the bottom of the ninth in game seven of the World Series. In other words, golf is what the player wants it to be! Golfers travel thousands of miles to play a specific course or courses. How many people travel to play a particular tennis court? People may travel for a tennis vacation, but the court itself is not the attraction. And that game requires an opponent, unless you’re content to enjoy a mechanical “opponent” firing balls at you. New avenues such as Top Golf offer a different model than the traditional to enjoy the sport, and there is evidence that Top Golf devotees are making their way, slowly but surely, to the golf course itself. Anything that brings people to golf-related activities is a good sign for the industry. As was noted in the Summer 2016 edition of Golf Teaching Pro by Ben Bryant (“How Head In-juries Cause Parents to Turn to Golf,” page 36), concussions in other sports make golf an attractive option. Even soccer (or football, to non-Americans) is receiving attention for brain injuries, as heading the ball over a period of time has been shown to produce such injuries. The beginning of this article highlighted some of the perceived problems with golf. As far as taking too much time, golf has always taken about four to five hours to play on a weekend. But playing 18holes isn’t the only option; nine holes are viable for many, and takes maybe two hours to complete. And have you seen how many people are willing to attend a professional sporting event? A lot of people think nothing of driving or commuting 45minutes to the venue, getting there an hour before game time, watching a three-hour contest, and taking another 45 minutes to return home. That’s a total time investment of five-and-a-half hours, and many of these people have season tickets! So it’s not a matter of too much time; it’s a matter of apriority of time. As far as expenses go, golf requires specialized equipment, but there are numerous low-cost options available to players. Green fees at municipal courses, and even at many privately-owned public facilities, are well under $50, and in many cases walking can be done for as little as $10 to$20 (mainly in Midwest and Southeast locations in smaller towns). For those who want to play more, memberships make it possible for a greatly reduced per-round cost. A bucket of range balls is still around $5 to $7 in most places for those who just want to practice. Finally, we can turn to the professional game for evidence that golf will never die. Look how many people attend events, and in many cases record-breaking crowds are attained each year. The tournament at TPC Scottsdale in Arizona is now drawing a total attendance of half a million people, making it the largest-attended single sports event in the world. And we all know sponsors would not continue to pour increasing millions of dollars into a dying sport. Not much in life is consistent, and the game of golf is no exception. As Mark Twain famously wrote, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” The game of golf can accurately say the same.
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28 Apr 2017

Transition: The First Move Down

Of all the aspects of teaching the swing, one stands out for its lack of attention…and ironically, most accomplished teachers consider it the most important part of the swing. It’s the transition, the change of directions from the backswing to the forward swing, and a lot of misinformation and trepidation in teaching it exists among the golf instruction world. One reason for this may be the difficulty in teaching it. Performed correctly, it’s a highly athletic move and the basis of everything that happens from that moment on. Before the move can be taught, the golfer must be in the correct position to execute it; otherwise, the teacher will be teaching out of sequence. And let’s explain that concept before we go further. Teaching out of sequence means addressing an aspect of the swing that happens after the true root cause of a problem. A simple example would be alignment. A golfer who is lined up with a too-closed stance would have to make some sort of compensating move in order for the ball to find its target, such as hitting a hook or coming over the top so the swing path is towards the intended target. A teacher who fails to change the stance and attempts to teach the student from this setup position will be working on the effects of the root cause, and is therefore teaching out of sequence. Strictly speaking, the top of the backswing is a position within transition, but for teaching purposes, we will consider it as coming before transition. There are several aspects that must be fundamentally correct before teaching the transition can be done:
  • A proper coil, with the lower body having responded to the upper body’s turn
  • Weight (or pressure) primarily on the inside of the back foot
  • Hips having turned, not swayed, with only a minimum of lateral motion allowed
  • Lead foot on the ground or heel slightly raised; no thrusting of knee towards the trail leg
  • Spine angle in or near original address position (provided it was correct to begin with)
  • Swing on-plane, with lead arm on or near same angle as shaft plane at address*
  • Clubface in a square position**
*     This is a generalization for most players. On tour, you will see variances such as Jim Furyk’s vertical lead arm or Matt Kuchar’s almost-horizontal arm, but most golfers, including our students, will benefit from a more conventional look. **  There have been notable exceptions to this throughout the years, such as Lee Trevino and Dustin Johnson, but again, most golfers and our students will benefit from a more conventional style. A problem that plagues many is reverse pivot, where the weight has failed to adequately transfer to the back foot, or the spine angle is tilted from bottom to top towards the forward side. This almost always leads to starting the downswing with the upper body in some manner, such as coming over the top, early release, or the weight falling back towards the trail foot. A teacher who works on a student’s transition when the student is in this reverse pivot position is working out of sequence and will not succeed in helping the student. Assuming all of the pieces are in place for the teacher to teach transition, the next question is how to go about it. The key here is to get the lower body moving forward while the upper body (arm swing, shoulder coil and torso) is still moving back. A drill that has shown effectiveness is the “now” or “go” drill, where the teacher says “now” or “go” when the student’s lead arm reaches horizontal on the backswing. This signals the student to begin the lower body’s movement towards the target side. This might seem too early at first glance, but it takes the brain a split second or so to process the command. Another drill used with success is the step drill. From a normal setup position, the student places the lead foot against the trail foot before starting the swing. As the club is approaching the end of its backswing journey, the student steps forward (towards the target), replacing the foot where it would be in a normal address position. Some teachers prefer the “bump” drill, where a shaft is stuck vertically into the ground next to the outside edge of the lead foot. The student must then bump the shaft with the lead hip in starting the forward swing. There are other drills that are effective, and can be found in other sources, including in the USGTF publication Golf Drills for Teaching Professionals. Golfers may be executing the transition at the correct time from a correct top-of-the-backswing position, but they may not be executing the move itself correctly. A proper transition involves the correct blend of lateral and rotary motion. Years ago, it was thought that the transition should move laterally before rotationally, but this has since been debunked by careful observation and science. A golfer who features too much lateral motion, as found in many athletic golfers, will drag the club to the inside and have a swing path through impact that is inside-out. A golfer who has too much rotational motion will throw the club to the outside and have a swing path through impact that is outside-in. One drill that is effective for the lateral hip slider is to pull the trail foot back perpendicular from the target line about 10-12 inches (25-30 cm) and then swing. The golfer will find it difficult to move the hips laterally and it will feel like the upper body is doing most of the work. The golfer also may feel like he is coming over the top, but the end result should be the club path going down the target line through impact. The bump drill is effective for those who need more lateral motion in their transition move. The Gary Player “walk-through” drill is also effective in developing some lateral motion. Is it possible to have a lower body motion that is too aggressive?  Yes, and you see this often in younger players who are highly athletic. A common thing for high school golfers to do is basically “jump” on their transition move and through impact, resulting in the weight mostly on the toes and releasing the club with a hand flip through impact. Such players need to actually feel that the lower body is doing nothing and that the forward swing is started with the arms and hands. David Leadbetter also described it as allowing the upper body to open the lower body towards the target. Note that this isn’t actually what will be happening, but it is the feel of these motions. Making some flat-footed swings, even through impact and beyond, can help the golfer learn the correct motion. Keeping the trail foot flat until the delivery position, allowing it to rollin through impact and the heel to come off the ground after impact, is the desired goal. Transition is a critical part of the swing, maybe the most important. Having a good grasp of the entire process and cause and effect is important to teaching success.
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