SCIENCE & ART...

After losing a "short Drive Contest"
Anya, flanked by some of our juniors

It would be fitting that after my last post where I said that putting is more of an art than science, I ended up being invited by Anya to Dallas, Texas, to two of her "professional" days: on Thursday, she had a meeting with Pat O'Brien, a well known teaching pro at historical Lakewood C.C. (*) whom Anya goes to for help with her short game; and on Friday, she had a a club fitting day at Adams Golf with Jason Landry, one of their Tour Representatives.

Both days were fun to watch and experience, and coincidentally reinforce the statements I made in my last post about art and science in golf, which I now clarify or amend to:
Teaching is, and will continue to be, more art than science: as a teacher, you've got to "feel" when to say something, what to say and when to keep your mouth shut (if you have taught anything, and mainly if you are a professional teacher at anything, you know what I mean).  Just like if you teach someone to draw, you can teach certain techniques, but the student needs to "feel" what you are saying more than understand the technicalities of it all. Good teachers don't really need complicated "teaching aids" other than a couple of clubs here and there, or perhaps aiming sticks and good communication. Period. Club building, and especially club fitting for the professional golfer, is more science than art, but artistic traits are still necessary.

Let's go to the short game lesson first. I've got to confess that it feels a little weird to be invited by a student (your favorite student at that), to be watched while taught by another teacher, but, if Bill Hass, Jackie Nicklaus and Kevin Stadler, among many others, end up going to other teaching pros other than their famous dads, I guess I should not feel any "jealousy" so to speak of. In fact, once I heard some of the initial comments when Pat started helping Anya with solid fundamentals, and how these affect the swing, and therefore the result of a shot, I left them alone and sat down on a very comfortable chair just to watch.

Pat only reinforced, sometimes with new vocabulary, the exact same things I have learned and taught for years, and the lesson was pretty successful. Pat is a well known teacher who helps other tour professionals, so his fee is not cheap, but Anya gives a big, big discount! (thank you!). Pat is about 20 years my junior, and for Anya, it is a way to reinforce and perfect the principles that she has learned in her short career. After watching this lesson, I am happy to say, that teaching, whether you use "teaching aids" or not, is still an art and will continue to be an art. In teaching someone, you can show him or her all of the lines, and angles in a computer, but if you cannot teach them how to "feel" what they saw in the screen, you've failed.

On Friday, I drove Anya to Adams Golf's headquarters in Plano, Texas and were met there by Jason Landry, the Tour Representative who has been helping Anya the last couple of years with her fitted clubs. Pat is a "Tour Rep", who in fact, fits players with what they (exactly) need. And to "get there" (a perfect fitting), he needs the help of a lot of science, but you can bet your house in this: there is still a lot of art involved from his side.

Long are the days when a golfer needed to add lead tape to a club to adjust the "swingweight" (the scientific measure of the balance weight of a club), or wait a couple of days (minimum) to put a new shaft on a club to be used. In those days, if you did not put the correct shaft, you had to wait another couple of days and so forth.  Now, clubs have weight ports and specially made screws, weighted to a perfect milligram that you can change in the club with a simple tool  to change the weight and feel of a club, movable weights, and special hosel inserts where you untighten a screw, twist the head a little bit, reinsert the head a different angle, with or without exchanging the shaft, tighten the screw again, and voila, you have a new club in your hands in seconds! That is science enough, but you then continue with more science, and art as well.

By using science and experience, Jason first built Anya a perfectly matched set of irons, hybrids, fairway woods and driver... but, now Anya had to go "test" and see if this is what she liked. The irons were a perfect combination. According to the computer, there was not much of a change between her previous set and the new one, as both of which she hit within two yards of each other (same length, same shaft and and model,, same flex as before, all with a new model of clubhead and new feel, and therefore, very similar results, so it was easy, or natural to adjust to what it amounted a new look (she now has a perfectly matched backup set of irons, either set!).

She went to their testing room and started hitting balls into a screen, while a launch monitor recorded every shot and accurately measured launch angle, clubhead speed, ball spin rate, direction, spin direction all combined with carry distance and projected roll, and God knows what else! It was pretty neat to see how a professional golfer is no consistent (look at the screen here, and you'll see one lone left, short duck hooking diving shot... it wasn't hers, it was mine after a "dad, come and hit this club, I really like it... I'm glad you do, dear, but I need a much softer shaft!!).

When she began testing the hybrids, fairways and driver, that is where art and sound knowledge in the system, began to pay off for Jason and Anya, he began "tweeking" the clubs as he felt necessary, a new shaft here or there, he went back and forth bending the lie angle, changing the length and/or the weight of the club, until they saw in the screen what they wanted to see, a 10-12 yards difference in carry distance between clubs... In short, they did not want to see the need for a "Gap Hybrid", so to speak of. When you are aiming at a green from 190-240 yards, you need to know exactly how far you need to carry that ball and which of your clubs will do the job. No, machines will not help you with build a better swing, but well used technology, will help you build a better club for a specific swing.... then, you have to repeat it over and over again (**). Once they were both satisfied, it was time to drive back to Elk City.

Coming up in Highway 6, which is right next to the club, we stopped at the club right about 5:30 p.m. Seeing some people hitting balls in the range, gave me a bright idea.. I invited Anya for a Driving Contest, which I am happy to say, I won (okay, okay, I'll tell the whole truth: it was a "short drive" contest!)

(*) Lakewood Country Club was the fourth golf club in Dallas, and was founded exactly a quarter of a century before Elk City Golf & C.C. in 1912, the same year that Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan and Sam Snead were born. Hogan and Nelson competed in several professional tournaments at Lakewood.

(**) Major manufacturers have similar ways of testing and fitting clubs for their tour pros, however, I will say this: for the average golfer whose swing is not repetitive (anyone with a handicap over 4), the best way to fit them is only by their physique and measurements.