How to Learn Golf - Hardcover

Hurt III, Harry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743417267 ISBN 13: 9780743417266

Publisher: Atria, 2002

Synopsis

The author offers a back-to-basics approach to golf instruction as he identifies the most effective ways of learning various golf strokes, find a swing that works, and determine which learning technique reflects one's own style and skills.

About this title

About the Author

Harry Hurt III, a journalist and bestselling author, was a top junior and college golfer. After giving up golf for twenty-five years to concentrate on his writing career, at age forty-three he launched a comeback, which he chronicles in Chasing the Dream: A Mid-Life Quest for Fame and Fortune on the Pro Golf Circuit. Editor at large of T&L Golf, he is also the author of Texas Rich, For All Mankind, and Lost Tycoon. He lives with his wife and son in Sag Harbor, New York.

Reviews

Golfers hoping to improve their games should read this book before buying any more swing aids or signing up for another expensive golf camp. Hurt's emphasis is not on how to swing the club but on choosing a swing that fits you--your size, flexibility, and perhaps most important, what you want out of the game. With all of these factors in mind, he analyzes the three basic swing types--small muscle, large muscle, mixed muscle--and explains which big-name instructors promote which type. Golfers at all levels, he stresses, should choose a swing (and an instructor) that fits their body type and their expectations (large muscle for strong, flexible, flat bodies out to shoot par; small muscle for weaker, stiffer folks who dream of breaking 100). The topic is a bit technical in nature, but the prose is straightforward, and the analysis is fresh and fascinating. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: Know Yourself: Making a Plan to Improve Your Game

All golfers are divided into two types -- hookers and slicers.

Sure, just about everyone has hit a golf ball straight at some point. But it doesn't happen very often. Not even if you're among the top tour professionals in the world. And especially not if you're an amateur. Each of us has a tendency to hit the ball in one of two directions, either left or right. That tendency forms the essence of our individual golfing personalities, and it has profound implications for how we should go about improving our golf games.

It's easy enough to determine whether you're a hooker or a slicer. All you have to do is watch the prevailing direction in which most of your shots curve. If, as sometimes happens, you tend to hit your iron shots in one direction and your drives in the opposite direction, the curvature of your drives, particularly your bad drives, is definitive. Drivers offer the purest test of prevailing direction because they have less loft than irons, and as a result, impart less of the backspin that helps make balls fly straight.

The odds are almost overwhelming that the prevailing direction of your shots is to the right, which means you're a slicer. Although there has been no formal statistical survey, veteran golf instructors report that well over 85 percent of their students are chronic banana ballers. True hookers, as opposed to those of us who occasionally pull shots to the left, are a rare breed. But hookers often are or have the potential to be better players than their counterparts because they have demonstrated the ability to release the clubface through impact. As Harvey Penick observed in his Little Red Book, a slicer must learn to hook the ball before he can learn to hit the ball straight. (Note: If you are a left-hander, simply reverse these directional dictums -- your hooks curve to the right; your slices curve to the left.)

Hookers and slicers are usually best advised to take opposite tacks in almost everything, including their choice of swing methods, as we'll see in the chapters ahead. But regardless of whether you hit your shots to the left or to the right, your starting point on the road to playing better golf is the same: if you want to make lasting improvements in your game, you have to begin by mapping out an effective learning program. And the key to that is to know yourself.

Both hookers and slicers have two main instructional approaches from which to choose. One is error correction. As the term implies, error correction focuses on a specific swing flaw or problem that needs fixing right away. The second approach is swing development. Here the focus is on building or overhauling your golf swing from top to bottom. Each approach has its pros and cons. Error correction can often produce immediate, visible improvements in your ball flight, but it is by definition short-term in nature, more of a Band-Aid than a lasting cure. Swing development aims to make lasting improvements, but it can be complex, frustrating, and require considerable time and money.

Which instructional approach -- error correction or swing development -- is right for you? The answer depends entirely on who you are.

In fields such as science and medicine, the best researchers typically start by asking a series of probing questions about the subject they are researching. That's a good approach in golf, as well. Unfortunately, it is seldom practiced by the average golfer or the average golf instructor. But several top-ranked teaching pros, among them Mike Adams, Hank Haney, Butch Harmon, David Leadbetter, Jim McLean, Rick Smith, and Mitchell Spearman, endeavor to gather relevant background information on their students, either through formal written questionnaires, informal conversation, and/or on-site observation and exercises.

Here is a composite list of eighteen questions first-rate teaching pros might ask before giving you a lesson. They are also the kind of questions you should ask yourself before taking a lesson.

Eighteen Questions to Ask Yourself Before Taking a Golf Lesson

1 How long have you been playing golf?

2 What is your present handicap?

3 What is the lowest your handicap has been?

4 What is your occupation?

5 How often do you practice and play golf?

6 How much money are you willing to spend on improving your game?

7 How much more time are you willing to spend on improving than you do now?

8 Are you looking to overhaul your golf game or simply to fix a specific fault?

9 What instructors and/or golf schools have you taken lessons from?

10 What are the strengths and weaknesses of your golf game?

11 What is your age?

12 Do you have any physical handicaps or injuries?

13 What is the state of your overall body flexibility and range of motion?

14 Do you have long, short, or average-length arms relative to your torso?

15 Do you tend to hit most shots to the left or to the right?

16 Do you stroke putts straight back and straight through or on an arc?

17 Do you consider yourself a "technical" player or a "feel" player?

18 What long-term and short-term goals have you set for your golf game?

As you can see, these eighteen questions cover more than half a dozen general topic areas pertaining to your golf game and lifestyle. Among them are your frequency of play, playing ability, formal training, learning style, economic status, age and physical condition, and personal aspirations. All of these considerations are interrelated, and each can have a significant influence on the type of instructors and the type of swing methods best suited to you. But when it comes to choosing between the two main instructional approaches -- error correction and swing development -- your frequency of play, your playing ability, and your personal aspirations rank highest on the scale of influence. After examining their influence in more detail, I'll show you how to cross tabulate these factors to identify your personal golf instruction profile.

Frequency of Play

Let's start with your frequency of play, arguably the most important variable in the equation of your golf improvement formula. It is also a variable over which you can exercise a fair amount of personal control. Granted, there may be all manner of extenuating circumstances in your life that limit the number of rounds you can play in any given year. Unless you're a professional golfer, you probably have a nongolf day job. You may have family responsibilities and time constraints. You may live in a cold-climate area where golf courses are closed for several months of the year. Your access to nearby courses may be limited by membership restrictions, financial constraints, even overcrowding.

But at least in theory, your frequency of play is something you can increase if you are determined to do so. Ditto your frequency of practice. You can move from a cold-climate area to a warm-climate area where golf is played year-round, or migrate south in the winter. You can seek out publicly accessible golf courses that have modest green fees and fight the attendant overcrowding, or you can invest your life savings in a membership at a private club where there is relatively little daily play. At the end of the day, it becomes a matter of individual choice, albeit a potentially costly and disruptive one, inextricably related to your personal aspirations and your desire to improve.

In reality, the vast majority of golfers in America are recreational golfers, not aspiring tournament champions or dedicated professionals. According to a recent participation study by the National Golf Foundation in Jupiter, Florida, 26.4 million pe

Edition details

• Publisher: Atria
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0743417267
• ISBN 13: 9780743417266
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240