Even top golfers still have teachers

By John Lombardo

Monday, August 4, 2008 11:42 AM EDT

We all know the great quotes from Yogi Berra. Here are some quotes from PGA professional teachers regarding some of their world class Tour players.
Hank Haney: “They are not hitting it as well as they think ... It may be an incredibly small thing, but to a teacher, it's a huge mistake. To the trained eye, it looks huge.”

Mike Bender: “They can't see themselves, they're operating off feel.”

Haney: “In teaching, it's a little like fighting forest fires. One will pop up here and you put that one out; then another pops up there and you put that one out.”

Randy Smith, who teaches Justin Leonard, said the teacher's job sometimes slips into the Twilight Zone.

“The problems usually occur under pressure and when he shows up at my place the problem is gone because the pressure is gone,” Smith said.

Adam Schriber who formerly worked with David Leadbetter, has gone in another direction.

“I do a lot of work with biomechanics, trying to teach the muscles to fire in the right order”.

This is a metaphor for today's younger players who learn the game from teachers and machines, instead of alone out on the range, one muscle at a time.

Mike McGetrick helped Brandt Jobe change his swing from a fade back to a draw.

“We set him up square to the target line at address, which allowed the club to swing in more of an arc around his body on the backswing ... Now he swings on a more shallow angle of approach on the forward swing, which allows his body to be more level through impact in order to hit a draw.”

Haney also teaches Tiger Woods, and said “there is never one specific thing with Tiger. Tiger will tell you he can improve everything. He only cares about getting better, it's never one thing with Tiger, it's everything. Tiger Woods just didn't happen to be Tiger Woods.”

One particularly famous teacher once said “since we are all likely to go astray, the reasonable thing to do is to learn from those who can teach.”

This was spoken by Sophocles in ancient Greece over 2,000 years ago.

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This is a good time to remind everyone to care for the golf course you are playing on, especially in light of the strange tropical weather we are enduring.

Fairways these days are littered with divots that are hacked from the ground when you hit an iron shot. It only takes a second to put them back into the hole that you took them out of, and the turf grows back faster that way.

The same should be said of the greens, where you should repair two or three ball marks whenever you are waiting to putt. Also, replace two or three divots that are left behind by careless golfers.

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We are wrapping up our six-week Junior Golf Camp at Dutcch Hollow and I just want to extend a huge congratulations to all the juniors who attended.

Their attention and dedication to learning was exemplary and they deserve a pat on the back. A special thanks to all the volunteers who helped get the kids onto the golf course every week and who taught lessons about the game of golf. We could not do it without you.

See you on the links!

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