Kettering
Golf Club:
On
my return from South Africa in 1972 I became the Head Golf
Professional at Kettering Golf Club, in Northamptonshire.
At
Kettering I
taught all classes of golfers from local schools and colleges
to Club Champions.
My
single greatest discovery occurred at Kettering Golf Club
when I discovered the magic of video and developed my first
Video Teaching Studio. I believe it was one of the first
in the country and has been copied many times in the last
30 years.
At
this time I began to record details of every single lesson
so that there was no doubt in my mind, or my pupil's mind,
what we were working on and the lessons became much more
professional. Each pupil was given a lesson card with details
of the lesson. Another bonus was that the pupil could take
a VCR tape home with a recording of the entire lesson.
By
using VCR tapes of the world's best golfers past and present
I began to analyse in depth the technique used by them and
to compare their movements to the theoretical movements
that were widely recognised and taught.
I
have used the phrase 'myths of golf' now for over a quarter
of a century. In order to illustrate them, one of the techniques
was to play a golfer's swing through the VCR recorder to
a TV screen and place tracing paper on the TV screen.
By
playing the swing frame by frame I could place dots on the
hands at address through to impact and produce an exact
path of where their hands moved.
Having
believed and heard thousands of times and read countless
books (Ben Hogan Modern Fundamentals, p.88) that
the hands come down on the inside I was amazed to find that
their hands actually come down outside the backswing line.
My
original tracings of Ben Hogan, Walter Hagen, Tom Watson,
Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and a sequence of Ernie Els
I took at the 2004 Masters simply confirms my original findings.
All the original tracings have been retained and are available
in my studio.
Destroying the myths became one of my key teaching strategies,
as it is not possible to teach people successfully unless
they are aware of the facts and not theories.
Using
cameras and computers is the best way to explain to my pupils
what really happens in the swing.
To
prove I could still play the game I had a career best round
of 66 at Kettering Golf Club.
Belton
Park Golf Club
Army
Golf Club
Farrington Golf Club
Bournemouth Driving Range
