The Wisdom of the Texas Golf Gurus
The Wisdom of the Texas Golf Gurus
Greetings Golfers,
The other night (3am - I don’t sleep very well) I was reading a post on a famous golf instructor’s Facebook page.
On the instructor’s page … a golfer wrote two stories about his learning experiences at The Champions in Houston, TX. He’s not a skilled writer … but he has a lot to say. In fact, his story about what he learned about golf from the Texas gurus - Hogan, Demaret, Burke, etc … is mind-boggling.
Here’s the intro from the famous instructor and some of his thoughts. Then the notes/stories from his friend:
MORE THAN INTERESTING
After talking to a golf instructor and good player - who grew up next to Jackie Burke and Jimmy Demaret’s golf course in Texas - about the game, lessons, and playing … I was taken aback by some of what he told me. So I asked him to send me a note about what we talked about.
I also talked with Hogan … and he told me it was his management skills and not his swing that supported his success. He said that if he had caddied for someone who won, that they would have won by 5 or 6 more shots.
Hogan also talked about the rhythm of each shot - to have rhythm without having to think about each step. He wasn’t talking entirely of the swing, but the order of things during the round of golf.
Here are the notes and stories he sent:
“When I was about sixteen years old, Mr. Demaret came up to me and said that Mr. Hogan wanted to visit with me about my golf. When I went over to his table, he said ask me anything. I said that I have been reading your book and before I could say anything else … he said that the book is a piece of crap and if you’re stupid enough to do what’s in the book that you don’t deserve to play the game. That the book is a description of my swing and has nothing to do with what I think or feel. That you have to find your game based on how your body works naturally”.
“My story about Jimmy Demaret is as follows. When I was fifteen years old in 1968, Mr. Demaret finally agreed to play golf with me. Since he was in his late fifties and wasn’t playing golf very often, he would usually decline. When I arrived at the club one day, he came up to me and said “let’s go play”. When we got his clubs out of bag storage, they had dust all over them because he hadn’t touched them in months. So we went to the first tee at Cypress Creek GC and he took a couple of waggle practice swings and busted one right down the middle of the fairway. As we were playing, I kept asking him how he was able to play with such power and make it look like he was taking a walk in the park. Finally when we got to hole seventeen hitting our second shots, he looked over at me and said ‘see the flag up there, I just see the shot I want to play, then I feel it and just do it’. The whole time he was saying that, he was demonstrating by by gently swinging the club in rehearsal and looking at his target. He ended up shooting 31 and I shot 35 for the nine. One of the most powerful things that he and Burke taught me was how to use my inner vision or third eye and trust what I had communicated to my hands and body so that they could simply respond to my visual cues.
As far as the overall concepts that I learned from the whole group, it was to focus on vision first and last, and then allow the hands and eyes to be the guide while the body is there to support their action, and allow them to have space to work in. In other words, they wanted to keep it simple, and trust that the ball was just in the way of where and what shape I was taking my energy to the target. Burke often told me that your beginning and ending are in the same place, just like if you’re going somewhere in a car, you first decide where your destination is and then work backwards from your starting point so that you always keep the ending in mind. The other thing he was adamant about was the ball only goes where your hands go - good or bad - so trust them to take you there the way you visualized it. He also made me understand that my best balance was holding the club at handshake distance and that the swing happens from handshake to handshake on the backswing and follow through. And that the center of balance lies in the hands and is a dynamic movement of the hands so the body can simply respond to them. The one thing none of them ever did was talk about positions in the golf swing because they believed it destroyed the flow of the swing and interfered with energy flow. They also said the less you think and the more you feel the shots, the easier the game will be, and the more you will enjoy the experience.
Also, what I learned was that there was no right way to swing a club - just easier ways and harder ways - so choose wisely.
Wow!
How fascinating was that?
I don’t have time to go into it now … but I will later.
As you know … this isn’t just about the golf swing.
Cheers!
Tom Abts
GM/Head PGA Professional
tabts@deerrungolf.com