"In the past 25 years, the average amateur
handicap has not improved."
              
                             The GolfChannel, 2002

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For more than 5 years, eSticks studied the progress of a representative group of amateur golfers. Many in our focus group played almost everyday, took many lessons, attended golf schools, bought every gadget/tape/book, and bought/fiddled with equipment regularly.  Did their handicap (index) improve?

We were shocked to find out -- NO !

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"Tennis camps across the country have, historically offered tennis tips, suggestions, and new stroke patterns. Unfortunately, 98% of the students return to their home courts and promptly revert back to their flawed—yet comfortable—stroke patterns and habits! All players who are introduced to new concepts must change their perception. This change is paramount to the complete acquisition of more productive and more highly skilled stroke patterns."
                                         
                                                          Dave Smith, 2004

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Bottomline: You have to figure it out yourself, so start your experimentation here with 100's of ideas that we know work for other club-level players.

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● I'd like to know more.  Read on ...

Like singing or dancing, you can't learn or acquire it, or any other "talent" for that matter, so stop trying. Go out and spend 4 or 5 figures, and months and years on painting, singing, dancing or violin lessons -- let us know how far you get.  Probably not a good investment.

What can we do then?  The answer is amateurs helping amateurs. Together we CAN improve our skill level, our aptitude; but not through currently over-promoted and over-sold channels and methods. They simply don't work (we know this) and they can't work.  Why?  Read on ...

In short.  The pros can "just do it".  How many times have you heard Tiger say when asked about posture, "to be honest with you, I just stand there". The pros are simply remembering something they already know.  The talent comes naturally, it's instinctive, they make it look easy.  For the rest of us (the great majority), we have some work to do.  We can do it though, and therein lies the fun and the reward.

A quote from a widely read golf magazine that had 100's of tips in just one issue!

"I like my students to have one in-swing thought, and never more than two.  The ideal is to have none at all."

                           GOLF MAGAZINE, August 2001

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The solution hit us one day. We were talking to a friend who teaches singing for a living -- we asked if we could learn to sing like a pro.  She never did answer our question, yes or no, but we could guess what she was thinking (good luck).  She did go on to say though, "if you wanted to try, you wouldn't go to Pavarotti".  Why?  Because he can just do it!

We already knew that amateur golfers do not improve and then it dawned on us.  The club-level player is doing it all wrong!  Bobby Jones, "How I play Golf", Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods? Nonsense, they can just do it. Butch and Tiger -- fine.  Butch and You,  Butch and Me -- won't work.

 

Traditional instruction books and videos simply describe (often with pictures) and assign a language to, a very high-level sports motion -- that of a pro.  They tell you what a pro does, sometimes why, but not how s/he does it.  Again, this is like studying slow-motion video of Yo-Yo Ma and then trying to play cello.  We need the how!

The how is made up of numerous pressures and exertions with relative magnitudes that take place in sequences (kinetic chain), and often in micro-seconds.  How can pictures, or videos (even high speed, in slow-motion) help with balance, feel, timing, pressures, or tempo?

At eSticks we continue to search for, and to develop visualizations and easy-to-perform related motions that mirror the correct motions.  You can experience, or sense, what's right.  It might not feel right at first, but give them a try and let the results be the judge. 

Once you trust yourself to perform what might feel like contortions and counter-intuitive maneuvers, you have started to finally solve the club-level player equation:

knowledge + trust = confidence

Confidence is clearly a big difference between the pro motion and the club-level.  Confidence is generally regarded as the delimiting factor among the pros at the highest levels.

A small bonus.  Once we have developed confidence, we are less likely to stray from the sound fundamentals after a bad shot, and we are less likely to "add more" of something just because it lead to one good shot.

Choking?  First tee jitters?  Not if you have reasonably sound technique, AND you have confidence in your skills.  Afterall, what's the difference between your 50th range ball and the first tee of the club championship?  Same swing, same sound technique.  You now know what you're doing, so let 'er rip!

What the heck is going on here, and why?  Is the left upper-arm being squeezed against the chest?  Is it just resting?  Or, is the upper body pushing and the left arm just riding along?  Sure looks tight.

Where is he looking -- 5 yards behind the ball?  He must have swung and wiffed it.

Look at the neck, upper left arm, and chest again. Does it look relaxed and tension-free to you?  Not to us. Is this position purposeful, or the result of other pressures, exertions, and motions?  Make any sense to you?

Maybe tennis is easier.
 

• hit down to make the ball go up

• light grip to hit hard

• and many more ...

Amateurs have to fight one of the very basic tenets -- it's just not natural to hit down on something to make it go up! Also most of us don't like to take chunk out of a nice lawn.

What can this nationally ranked junior (12's) know that we don't?  Looks to us like he's going to hit the ball with the butt-end of his racquet.  He should be easy to beat!  Afterall, he's only 12, weighs less than 100 lbs and hits the ball with the wrong end of the racquet.

Click here for a bigger picture.

For the club player, professional level golf and tennis instruction feels uncomfortable, unnatural, and looks wrong.  Incorrect static positions and dynamic motions feel comfortable, seem natural, seem to make sense, and look right to the amateur.

At eSticks, we are evolving a new language and imagery. New instructions and concepts that make sense to the amateur, and that can be implemented and ingrained.  The light goes on.  Finally, now I get it !!!

Remember, classical instruction is fine pro-to-pro.  Watch a pro working with a pro.  You hear an instruction, and immediately, the other pro says, "yeah, you're right, I forgot".  Watch an amateur receiving classical instruction from a pro.  Lots of confusion and conflict.  Even if they get it, the amateur soon reverts to their old bad habits, their "comfort zone", especially under pressure.

STOP, before you get the impression we are opposed to club-level players working with teaching pros.

In fact, just the opposite.  But, you will need ...

● the time
● the money
● the pro

The last one, the pro, is easier said than done. Pros truly committed and able to help the typical amateur are hard to find and the good ones are often booked solid.  Are they out there? Of course!  Our advisory committee is made-up of some top notch teaching pros.  We have a section on how to find and work with a pro.  Your feedback is invited.

Question?  Since you know what your teaching pro does, but not clearly why and certainly not how; does your teaching pro know why or how you do what you do?  Remember, your teaching pro probably does what s/he does from instinct -- it comes naturally.

Although many have tried, practically speaking, no one has been successful after simply deciding, "I want to be a pro golfer".

Many talented pro athletes from other sports have spent many years and a load of dough trying to become professional golfers.  Their raw athletic ability (strength, speed, hand/eye coordination, quickness, etc.) likely far exceeds most of the top golfers in the world.  Yet, these "cross-overs" from hockey, baseball and tennis for example are missing from the even the lowest levels of professional golf.

Why?  Because, it's a talent.