Balance is The Key To Great Ballstriking
From the ages of 14 to 19, Moe Norman shagged more than one million golf balls, most of them in a 225- yard field at Rockway Golf Club in Kitchener, Ontario. The field at Rockway helped forged one of the most powerful and accurate golf swings in the history of the game.
Forty years later, Moe didn’t talk about working hard at Rockway. He talked about effortlessness, ease, and simplicity; about learning to move his body in perfect sequence – in perfect balance.
“My swing balances me,” he would say.
All great ballstrikers swing in balance. Whether we look at a figure skater, quarterback, skateboarder or golfer, all high-performance athletes make complex movements look easy because they move in perfect balance.
Golfers who cannot swing in balance significantly reduce their chances to hit the ball solidly, accurately and consistently. The overwhelming majority of golfers swing the club from outside to inside the target line, while better players tend to swing excessively from the inside.
In both scenarios, the club is out of position and the body moves to counteract the forces at work in the swing, making it difficult to stay in balance. This verifies Moe’s explanation that his swing balanced him.
Moe talked about making the body stable. With stability, the student has a much better chance of moving in balance. Drills that encourage stabilizing the body and proper spine movement will promote proper club movement.
Ball Position
Anything that affects the movement of the spine affects the balance of the body. This includes distance from ball and the position of the ball relative to the lead shoulder, which is a function of stance width. To create an optimum position of the body for balance, the ball must be positioned correctly in order to simplify the body’s ability to balance during the strike.
Since balance is related to how the feet work and balance the body throughout the swing, the best drills for working on balance help you learn connection to the ground.
Great ballstrikers synchronize their upper and lower bodies in a way that allows the hips to turn into the backswing as the shoulders turn. Then, during the transition, the lower body starts the downswing move as the club “drops” on plane. The lower upper body/lower body relationship establishes the stability of the lower body as the upper body produces speed.
Feet on the Ground Drill
Striking golf balls with both feet on the ground from the backswing through release helps train students to stabilize their lower bodies. Ensure that students turn their hips while keeping their feet on the ground, and that the right hip turns inward in the downswing as the lead knee remains flexed. This drill keeps the spine in position throughout the golf swing.
Leverage Bag Drills
A leverage bag is a great training aid to help students move into impact with the upper and lower body moving correctly in sequence. The leverage bag helps teach stability throughout the swing. Note: at impact, the hips are open and feet are flat on the ground.
Todd Graves is the founder of the Graves Golf Academy, with teaching locations in Orlando, Florida, and Edmond, Oklahoma. Visit www.moenormangolf.com for more information. Tim O’Connor is president of O’Connor Golf Communications in Guelph, Ontario. For more information, visit www.oconnorgolf.ca
How I Teach Golf
By Thomas T. Wartelle
USGTF Level IV Member, Washington, Louisiana
At my golf academy, our teaching philosophy and methods are innovative. We use a combination of “old-style feel” with the latest in technology.
We specialize in golfers who are serious about moving to the next level. Training includes all aspects of the game with a focus on:
- Swing Mechanics
- Short Game
- Tournament Preparation Techniques
- Mental Focus for Tournament Golf
- Fitness Training
The Learning Process: Mechanics, Feel, & Playing the Game
A typical session involves a segment where mechanical issues are addressed. From a technical standpoint, we believe that there is an optimal swing model for each individual. This model is determined by a person’s athletic ability, anatomy, physical handicaps, thought process, and level they wish to play the game. The goal is to move closer to each individual’s ideal swing model. Ultimately, this will lead to the most important part of the golf swing, impact position. First, we determine a student’s model by an evaluation of the student in terms of physical ability and goals. Next, we extensively use the SwingModel video analysis system. SwingModel was developed by Dr. Ralph Mann, an Olympic medalist in track and field. Dr. Mann has been analyzing sports performance for over 30 years in many different sports. Briefly, SwingModel is science-based. It uses decades of research on elite athletes performing the optimal movement in certain sports. In this case, the performance is the golf swing. All elements of the body motion are followed, and the athlete’s performance is digitized by a computer. Using computer analysis, a model is developed for the maximum biomechanical effort to perform the action. The model can then be fit into each person’s anatomy and ability to perform at a certain speed. Therefore, the SwingModel is custom-fit for each individual person. It is then overlaid on a video analysis of a student’s swing. From this point, I can begin to provide the student the information he needs to progress. The real art in teaching is to be able to communicate the information to the student for his/her learning type and thought process. A valued teacher finds a way to deliver this information. It is important to understand each student’s learning process. The teacher must communicate the skill through different forms of learning. This includes visual, feel, and verbal communication. We use “input amplifiers” to transmit the information. These are the visual, feel, and verbal cues that pass the information from the teacher to the student. We prefer to use minimal verbal cues. We find kinesthetic and visual cues are much more effective at transmitting information. Often this can be a simple kinesthetic training aid such as the SwingRite or the visual aid ProAlign1000.
Through research and experience, I have found that many swing flaws are created in the set-up position. When the setup is flawed, the swing becomes a series of compensations. For instance, ball position has a major impact on how a golf club is swung back and through to impact. A ball position too far back or forward greatly impacts how the body will shift and rotate throughout the swing. A ball position that is too close or too far away from the body affects rotation of the torso as well as path of the swing on the backswing and downswing. For instance, research has shown that the ball moves back in the stance in relation to the lead foot less than four inches from the driver to the wedge. The average distance from the ball (toe line to center of the ball) with a 9-iron is 20 inches, and with a driver, 32 inches. Anatomy has an effect on these measurements. SwingModel tells us exactly these measurements for each individual.
This is where a training aid such the ProAlign1000 is useful in reinforcing a proper setup position. We use SwingModel to tell us exactly where the set-up position should be, then we set the ProAlign1000 in this perfect position. Now the student is obliged to set-up in the desired position. Only through perfect repetition can the proper learning process take place.
The same process is repeated through all aspects of the golf swing where the student should be close to his SwingModel.
Feel and Playing the Game
The mechanics of a golf shot are just a part of the game of golf. At any level, the game involves execution of shots. Therefore, I am a firm believer in playing golf on the golf course. Regardless of skill level, the best way to learn to play golf is on the golf course. At our academy, we also simulate game experience with certain drills and techniques designed to teach a golfer how to perform on the golf course. By doing this, we instill game-time performance and repetitive positive habits.Fitness and Athletic Ability
Fitness training is one of the largest sports industries. People are now starting to realize that top golfers are athletes, and better performance can be achieved with better fitness. We focus on getting strength, flexibility, and endurance. The golf swing is an athletic movement. One of the fastest ways to get better in golf is to treat the golf swing as a sport and train like other sports. Too often, golfers want to get better but fail to exercise the required amount to perform to their expectations. Also, exercise increases quality of life. Golf fitness can increase performance, but can also be a fitness choice for people looking for alternatives to the regular gym. For more information on any of these products or teaching techniques, please visit the following website: www.swingmodel.comThe Evolution of The Golf Swing as Dictated by Equipment
From wooden golf balls to modern urethanecovered rockets, from tree branches to graphite- shafted aerodynamic titanium clubheads, the golf swing has evolved along with changes in the equipment used throughout the years. Here is a primer of how the golf swing has changed in response to the equipment being used at the time.
Feathery golf balls
The feathery was made by stuffing wet goose feathers into a leather pouch, sewing the pouch up, and the drying feathers expanded to make a fairly hard, useable golf ball. Since the feathery didn’t have the aerodynamics we are familiar with today, it was best to keep the ball low to the ground. To achieve this, the top players would swing in a relatively flat, roundhouse manner known as the “St. Andrews swing.” This swing produced a draw.
Hickory-shafted golf clubs
For centuries, golf clubs were made with wooden shafts, often hickory. The shafts had a lot of torque, or twist, in them. This necessitated strong hand action and rotation in order to square the clubface at impact. To achieve this strong rotation, players would rotate through the ball with minimal lateral action, hitting against a firm left side.
Gutta-percha balls
The gutta-percha ball replaced the feathery in 1848. Dr. Robert Adams Paterson invented it at the time, being too poor to afford featheries (according to his New York Times obituary in 1904). Being far superior to the feathery, it soon became the ball of choice. Golfers then noticed that the ‘gutty’ flew farther when it got nicked up, and soon golfers began to put their own carvings into their new golf balls. Manufacturers then started making their molds, first with outward-facing pips, and then with lines and the dimples we have come to know today.
In Jersey, England, the players found that if they swung more upright, they could get the gutty up in the air, which worked because of the aerodynamic properties of the gutty. Harry Vardon became the first notable golfer to swing in this manner.
Steel-shafted clubs
With the coming of steel shafts in the 1920s, the game was about to undergo a major change in swing motion. Since steel shafts had far less torque than hickory shafts, the old swing of aggressive rotation with the hands produced a hook with the steel shafts. To offset this, players soon found that they had to use their lower bodies much more actively than with hickory shafts, in order to prevent the clubface from being shut at impact. Byron Nelson is known as the father of the modern golf swing for being the first prominent golfer to use this new action.
Titanium drivers and solid-core balls
Not much changed for decades when it came to the swing since Nelson’s day, because the equipment remained virtually the same from the 1930s to the late 1980s – wound balls and persimmon drivers. There were differences in swing styles which were player-influenced, but equipment per se did not influence the differences.
But, with the advent of metal drivers and solid-core balls, the swing changed again, although in more subtle ways. While some golfers, such as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, were always encouraged to hit the ball as far as they could and worry about accuracy later, most were taught to have a controlled swing. Since the metal drivers offered more forgiveness than persimmon drivers, young golfers were encouraged to seek distance first, accuracy second. Solid-core premium balls, which became popular around 2000, spun less than the old wound balls, which meant that sidespin was also decreased, further limiting crooked tee shots. The result is a generation of free-swingers never before seen, perhaps most notably Bubba Watson.
The future
With so many recent constraints put on the driver from the R&A and the USGA, along with the premium golf ball nearing the maximum distance standard, it seems difficult to believe that swing changes in response to equipment changes will be forthcoming. However, the game has always evolved to some degree. So perhaps anything’s possible.
Byron Nelson on Teaching Golf
This article first appeared in the Spring 1996 edition of Golf Teaching Pro, and is another in a series of looking back through the magazine archives. This interview with Byron Nelson was compiled by USGTF contributing writer Russ Pate and has never appeared in any other publication except for Golf Teaching Pro. The article is Nelson’s fistperson account on his thoughts on teaching golf.
By the time I got my first pro job in Texarkana, I had learned how to play really well, but I hadn’t done any teaching at all except for myself. After I was hired, I began to think, “Oh boy, if someone comes out and wants a lesson, I’ll have to give it.”
I was a little nervous about the prospect, but I just studied what I learned myself and the procedures I had gone through in learning to play well. I decided it was working pretty well for me, so I figured I could teach it. I’ve never felt I had much imagination, but what I did have came out when I played golf, and I felt I could use that in my teaching.
Sure enough, my first pupil, Mrs. Josh Morris, came along shortly after I started at Texarkana. Having studied how I had learned, and realizing I was only able to learn one thing at a time, I realized I had to do the same thing with Mrs. Morris – try to teach one thing at a time. This was necessary, because in golf, whenever you make a change, it doesn’t feel natural at first because your subconscious only knows what it’s been doing – it takes a while for any outside changes to sink in.
So, you work on one thing first and get to where it feels normal and natural to do, and then you don’t have to think about it at all. The only trouble with that when teaching yourself, you need to be very good at understanding what your biggest problem is. Then you work that problem and after you correct it, you go on to the next area. But, this isn’t easy for someone who doesn’t understand what their problems are, or how to rank them. That’s why teachers are necessary for most people trying to learn to play golf.
I was never a believer in taking a lot of lessons at once. It works best to take two or three lessons until you get an idea on what the teacher is saying, then go out and practice and play a little on your own for a couple of weeks. Then, take another lesson, practice and play a little, and so on. Learning golf efficiently is really a slow process, a little like recovering from an operation. You don’t all of a sudden begin walking or running, you have to take one step at a time. It’s the same way in golf.
Using these two main thoughts – teaching one thing at a time and not giving too many lessons at once – I basically had good results with the people I taught. And, most important, I didn’t confuse them.
One interesting thing I discovered about teaching was that sometimes when you’re on the practice range, people are so intent on hitting the ball itself that they’re not paying enough attention to what you’re saying about the mechanics of the swing.
For example, there was Zoe Tasker at Inverness. Her husband Eddie and I played together quite a lot, and Zoe was a pretty good player herself. She scored in the 90’s most of the time and that was good, because at that time ladies didn’t get much break off the tees at Inverness. The trouble was, Zoe had a very good swing and should have scored much better, but she was pitiful out of a bunker. She got in them a lot and didn’t get out the first time hardly ever.
I worked with her in the practice bunker at least three times and had not made the progress I wanted to, and she wasn’t happy with it, either. I got to thinking about it, and one day, after she had finished playing Ladies’ Day, I said, “How did you do, Mrs. Tasker?” She said, “I played pretty well, Byron, but if I could have gotten out of the bunkers, I could really have had a good score.” I replied, “Well, I’ve got an idea about that. When you get through having lunch with the ladies, I want to meet you in the mixed grill and talk to you about it.” She agreed, sent a message over when she was ready, and I went and had a Coke with her.
“I want to give you a lesson sitting right here,” I said, and that’s exactly what I did. She listened while I told her everything I’d told her when we’d practiced in the bunker. She asked a lot of questions and we spent about an hour on that “lesson.” The next time she played, she shot an 88 and she never had any more trouble getting out of bunkers.
Some of the best lessons I ever gave were like that, teaching someone without a ball in front of them or a club in their hands. Very often, especially on a cold or rainy day, I’d use the mirror in my pro shop. I feel it worked better even than the videotapes they use so much today, because the student is thinking about what they’re doing, rather than about hitting a ball.
Then, there was Izzy Danforth, who used to be married to Ted Danforth, the son of my wonderful friend Bill Danforth, one of the founding members of Augusta National. Bill lived in Hyannisport, and his children went to school with the Kennedys. One time in the late 1950s, I was up visiting Bill and we went out to play golf at Oyster Harbour with Ted and Izzy. Izzy had a pretty good golf swing, but like Zoe Tasker, she was also poor out of the sand. I watched her whole round – I’d seen her play before but had never played with her. Like Zoe, she, too, should have been in the 80s but she wasn’t because of her sand play.
Now, the whole time we’d played, the weather was getting gloomier and gloomier, and by the time we finished the 18th hole, it looked like it was going to pour. But, I had eight balls in my bag, and I said, “Izzy, come over here and get in this bunker. You’ve got a good swing, but you need to learn how to play out of the sand.”
I could tell she didn’t want to do it, and then just as we got down in there, it started raining. Now, Izzy really wanted to quit, but I told her, “I don’t care how wet you get, you’re going to learn to play out of this bunker or drown!” That got her attention, so she really listened to me. We stayed in that bunker about a half-hour, got soaking wet, and the next year she won the club championship.
That kind of teaching, where a student learns how to do one simple thing well enough so that they can really enjoy the game, is very satisfying to me. One more example is my good friend Ed Haggar, who loves to play, but has often had trouble with his short chips, 10 to 20 feet off the green, which is where a lot of the scoring is done in golf. He’d flub it or top it quite often, and the reason was he didn’t move his feet at all. He used only his wrists and hands and just chopped at the ball. I worked with him every time I’d play with him, and after awhile, he began to chip rather well. Some time afterwards, I saw him playing at Dallas Country Club, and he hollered across the course to me, “Hey, Byron, I just chipped one in!” It always makes you feel good when you can help a friend that way.
The teaching pros who stand out in my mind all have different personalities and somewhat different teaching methods, but they also have one thing in common – they like to help people. To me, that’s very necessary if you want to be a good teacher. You must be patient also, because if you’re not, your students will feel it and that will be harmful both to their game and your ability to teach.
And again, you must not try to teach too many things at once. Concentrate on one problem at a time, and let the student work with that for awhile before you move on to something else. I’m sure most good teachers understand the fundamentals of the game pretty much the same way, but the way they teach may sound different. That’s why golfers sometimes have to go to two or three different pros to fi nd one they can understand and relate to. Even the touring pros today sometimes go to several teachers to fi nd one who can really help them.
Many of the pros in my time were reluctant to teach a lot, because they were afraid the bad habits of their pupils might affect their own golf swing. That didn’t affect me much, fortunately, and I think it was because I didn’t try to teach anyone to swing the way I did – because golf is such an individual game. I simply taught what the right fundamentals were, and those are the same for everyone.
That really is a basic part of my teaching philosophy, that the golf swing is as different as your own personality. If you try to change someone’s natural rhythm, you won’t be very successful. You have to try and see what potential a person has in his or her swing. For instance, after I’d worked with Tom Watson, some people would tell me I needed to get him to slow down his swing. Well, Tom moves quickly, thinks quickly, does everything with a certain amount of quick energy. To try and change his swing speed would mean trying to change something very fundamental about his whole personality, and that just doesn’t work.
As for changing an amateur’s swing, it’s really kind of the same idea. You have to work with their own natural rhythm, their own build, and so on. Unless someone has a lot of time and money and is willing to work really hard, totally rebuilding the swing is just not very productive.
People sometimes ask me – and I sometimes wonder myself – why today’s touring pros can’t seem to correct their own swing faults. In my mind, it’s because so few of them have learned how to swing on their own. They’ve been taught by others from the time they were junior golfers, with rare exceptions. When you teach yourself something, you understand it better and remember it better than if someone else teaches you. Even when I was on the tour, though, there wasn’t much teaching done between the pros themselves as there is today. Unless you were to ask someone for help, they really pretty much let you alone. That might have been because there was so little money out there and the competition for it was pretty fierce at times, but I think it was mostly that the boys were more self-taught, more independent.
I’ve seen a lot of the gimmicks and gadgets on the market now, and I have to say I don’t really believe in them much. If you understand the basics of the swing thoroughly, you won’t have much trouble with your swing, ever. But, one thing I would have liked to have had when I was teaching is the video camera they have now. It really can be so helpful to see your own swing on film, so you can really be aware of what you need to change exactly. Sometimes it’s such a small thing that needs to change, but until you see it yourself on fi lm or in a photo, you aren’t convinced that’s even what you’re doing.
Some people rely too much on what someone tells them to improve their swing or their ability to score. You do need some help sometimes to expedite the process, but rather than running to a teacher every time you have a bad game, you need to analyze the situation yourself first. Decide where the problem is – your driver, long irons, fairways woods, chipping, putting – and work to correct it with what you already know. It’s really best to go to a pro when you decide you really want to improve your overall game and you’re ready to commit the resources it will take to do that. Now, if you all of a sudden start slicing everything, that’s one thing, but your pro has already given you the keys to correcting that, and you just have to go back to the fundamentals.
When you make the decision to take your game to the next level, be sure you’re ready to listen. I’ve had more than my share of pupils who would take lessons, but would just keep doing things their own way. That’s a waste of everyone’s time. Sometimes, you may have to search for a pro who speaks your own language, but when you find one, you’ll be pleased with the results.
I guess my final thought on teaching golf is that professionals need to impart a solid, basic understanding of the swing – the first, middle, and last. When they do that, and do it well, their students will improve steadily, be able to correct temporary problems on their own, be enthused about learning more, and, most important, they’ll enjoy the game as it’s meant to be enjoyed. You can’t ask for more than that.
How Golf Came To Europe, America, And Beyond
Golf Course Design: What makes a Good Test?
- Size of greens. Greens should be smaller for short-iron approaches and larger for long-iron approaches. You would think this would be common sense, but very few courses that I’ve played are designed this way.
- Length of holes. In addition to having too many holes of similar length, how many times do we see the longest par-3 (from the white tees) being 170 yards and the shortest par-4 at perhaps 320 yards? All the time. From the back tees, you might see the longest par-3 at 210 and the shortest par-4 at 360. In both cases, we have a 150-yard gap. Why are so few holes designed in this yardage range? I really don’t know, except that most architects probably consider this range to be awkward. However, think about it – wouldn’t it be interesting to play a course that had holes of 240 (long par-3), 260 (short par-4), 280, 300, and 320 yards? A trend now is to have a “driveable” par-4, but usually it’s only one hole and usually it’s not driveable for us mere mortals. Finally, a course that has a wide variety of hole lengths will test all phases of the game equally – short irons, medium irons, and long irons/hybrids. When one aspect is disproportionately tested, it’s not only monotonous, but competitively, it provides too much bias in favor of and against certain players.
- Difficulty of holes. How about six easy holes, six medium holes, and six hard holes? Again, you rarely see this. Most courses veer towards the vast majority of their holes being in only one category, and usually it’s either easy or hard. A course that has mainly difficult holes is dispiriting, even for good players. A course that has mainly easy holes leaves many players feeling empty, as if they weren’t really challenged. A good balance of holes in terms of difficulty leaves the golfer feeling both challenged and a sense of accomplishment.
Financial Planning For Golf Managers
Introduction
As golf managers, we spend much of our time at our golf course facility ensuring things run smoothly. There is the other side of our lives where we deal with the issues of everyday life, including financial matters. This is the first of several articles I intend to develop pertaining to financial planning issues you may be dealing with now or in the future. Since US Golf Managers Association membership covers a broad spectrum of ages and occupational arrangements, I will endeavor to keep the articles general but informative. For more specific information, I will always suggest you contact your advisor, in whatever discipline the question involves (i.e. investments, insurance, taxes, etc.). However, due to the significance of 2010 and the Roth IRA Conversion opportunity, I thought this is a timely topic to cover first.Roth Basics
The Roth IRA differs from a traditional IRA in the fact that contributions are made with after-tax dollars (not deductible), the account grows tax-free, and distributions (within the IRA rules) are tax-free. Maximum contributions to the Roth IRA in 2010 are $5,000 (or 100% of earned income), plus an additional $1,000 catch-up provision for anyone 50 years of age or older. Contributions to the Roth can be made at any age, provided they have earned income equal to or greater than the contribution amount. These are the very basic principles of the Roth, but then we have the conversion opportunity.Traditional IRA Basics
The Traditional IRA gets its funding from contributions made with pre-tax dollars (or tax-deductible), or from rollovers of pre-tax retirement accounts such as 401K, 403b, Thrift Savings, etc. Because these accounts have never been taxed, and will grow tax-deferred until distributions commence, every dollar distributed will be taxed in the future. The amount of tax won’t be known until we reach that point in time, and many believe we will see higher taxes in the future.Roth Conversion
One way to eliminate the unknown of future taxes is to utilize the Roth IRA conversion privilege. The urgency of this strategy came into sharp relief during a planning session with a client whose adjusted gross income had crept higher than expected after she reported modest winnings from a sweepstakes casino she’d been using recreationally — a reminder that even small, unforeseen income events can shift the tax calculus in meaningful ways. In 2010, the conversion opportunity is now extended to anyone with tax-qualified holdings in IRA accounts. Retirement accounts with previous employers can be rolled into IRAs and converted to Roth IRAs, as well. Under prior law, taxpayers with incomes above $100,000 were not eligible to convert a Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. Additionally, if a conversion was available, the full conversion amount had to be claimed in the tax year the conversion took place. Depending on the size of the conversion, it could substantially affect the overall tax liability for that year. The 2005 Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act (TIPRA) repealed the income limitation for Roth conversion starting January 1, 2010. The act also allows conversions for taxpayers who are married but file separately. And, it also gives the taxpayer the option to report the conversion amount in 2010 (as previously), or at the taxpayer option, to report half the conversion amount in tax year 2011 and the remaining half in 2012. Effectively, the conversion takes place in 2010, but the tax consequences can be delayed To the 2011 and 2012 tax years.Considerations
Roth IRA conversions can be a good opportunity for many, but not everyone. Here are a few points to consider: 1. Because you pay taxes on the conversion, doing so is most effective if your tax bracket is lower now than it will be in the future. While tax increases are a political “hot potato,” given the size of the federal deficit and accumulated cost of economic stimulus, it is difficult to believe we won’t have income tax rate increases sometime in the not too distant future. 2. You need a reasonable amount of time for accumulated earnings to offset and justify the conversion. What is a reasonable time frame? A minimum of five years, but the longer the better. The Roth conversion is especially attractive if the money is planned to pass on to heirs. 3. Paying the taxes on the Roth conversion. Ideally, you need to be in a position to pay the taxes with money not currently in the Traditional IRA. Using Traditional IRA dollars to pay for the Roth conversion creates additional tax liability for the amount withdrawn from the Traditional IRA. In addition, if you are younger than 59 ½, the withdrawal would be treated as an early distribution subject to a 10% penalty.Final Comment
Converting to a Roth IRA is not for everyone, but many should consider it. To find out whether a Roth conversion makes sense for you and to take advantage of these changes in 2010, talk to your tax or financial advisor. If you want to do more research on your own, go to your favorite search engine, type in “Roth IRA Conversion,” and you’ll get a plethora of information and tools.Golf Management Education
Introduction to Golf Club Management
By Dr. Patrick Montana
USGTF Level IV Member and U.S. Golf Managers Association Course Director
Scarborough, New York
I have been teaching management to business executives at all levels in profit and nonprofit organizations for almost 50 years. Futhermore, as a certified golf teaching professional, I believe strongly that the process I describe in this article will better enable you to meet your golf club management expectations.
There are many similarities in management and golf as well as in teaching management and golf. Both require strategic thinking, planning, execution, control, evaluation and feedback.
Let me begin be stating that at the heart of a system of managing for results is managing expectations. More often than not managing expectations seems to be the missing link in business practice. However, it occurs seldomly in golf, because everyone knows what is expected. There is an agreed upon standard of performance – namely, par.
Standards of performance in management have one major purpose and that is to develop your people. You may use them for merit, promotion, transfer and compensation purposes but primarily as a manager you want to develop your staff to meet expectations. I might illustrate this point by the game of golf.
Par on the golf course is the standard of performance for a professional golfer. Now you can go out all by yourself in the morning, or join three other people in a happy foursome, and when you come in from #18, you know – no matter what the comments are – you know immediately whether you are a good golfer or whether you need development.
The standard of performance for a job should be as clear as par on a golf course, at least to the extent language will allow.
As golf club managers, we should be developing performance contracts with our staff so that they know what is expected on the job. For every responsibility assigned to a subordinate, a standard of performance or condition that should exist when a responsibility has been carried out well, should be developed jointly by manager and subordinate. It is an engineering of agreement as to the condition that should exist when a responsibility has been carried out well.
In order to develop a system of managing for results which negotiates performance contracts through managing expectations, it is important to step back and review or learn the purpose of management and the management process and to break down the process to see how a results-oriented management system fits into the process. Next, during the Golf Club Managers Certification Course, we ask the question: “why bother?” Then, after answering this question, we take a look at the critical links that hold the management process together for the golf club manager and the skills that are necessary to make it work. Finally, I discuss how one goes about implementing such a system back on the job.
In addition to learning this system of managing for results, during the Golf Club Management Certification Course students hear from practicing golf club managers and professionals about customer relations and customer service, golf facility operations, merchandising operations, food and beverage, tournament management, golf club financial management, ownership management, turf management operations, golf instructional operations, and even learn about today’s modern golf equipment.
If you’re thinking about a career in golf club or golf resort management, you may want to consider enrolling in a forthcoming U.S. Golf Club Management Certification course and increase your employment opportunities in this growing global field.
For further information please check our website: US Golf Managers Association.com.