Motion:
1) A proposal for action; Esp: A formal proposal made in deliberate assembly.  2) An act, process, or instance of changing pace: movement.  3) An impulse or inclination of the mind or will.  4) To direct by a motion.*

Symmetry:
1) Balance proportions.  2) The property of being symmetrical Esp: correspondence in size, shape, and relative position of parts on opposite sides of a dividing line or median plane or about a center or axis.*

Symmetrical:
1) Having, involving, or exhibiting symmetry.  2) having corresponding points whose connecting lines are bisected by a given point or perpendicularly bisected by a given line or plane.  3) being such that the terms may be interchanged without altering the valve, charac­ter, or truth.  4) capable of division.  5) Affecting corresponding parts simultaneously and similarly.  6) Exhibiting symmetry in a structural formula.*

* Definitions above taken from Websters Collegiate Dictionary of Words

Example of a good golf/swing motion
(Click photo to view video):

How many times have you seen someone make a practice backswing, stop the club at the top and look to check if the club is in position? While I’m sure leading tour professionals and club professionals alike know exactly what they are looking for, I often think the average club player simply mimics what he/she has seen a professional doing!

In this short tip, lets give you some specific direction as to what I look for in my students’ transition position. All you need to do the following exercise are three things: (1) you, the player; (2) a golf club and (3) a full length mirror. Position the mirror behind you as if your backswing were going to extend Into the mirror.

Take your normal set up and simply swing the club to the top and stop.

The first of the three 90° positions I’d like you to check is that of your right arm. Your right arm should find a 90° fold at the elbow joint. This 90° fold should be the forming structure of the extension of the left arm. If the right arm should fold behind the 90°, say to 110° or even120°, the left arm would lose its “extended” position. Your backward arm swing would, therefore, lose its structure, therefore, lose its if you will – width, I feel, is a vital component of your backswing.

Now turn towards the mirror so you are standing chest towards it. Again, set up and swing the club to the top and stop. Look into the mirror and first check the rotation of your shoulders. They should have turned 90° from where they started in the address position. You can check this by finding your right shoulder behind your head (not visible to you) and your back facing in the direction of the intended target.

The third and final 90° angle of the backswing is checked from the same position relevant to the mirror. Again, set up and swing to the top and stop. If you have achieved 90° position No.1 (width/arm structure), as well as 90° angle No. 2 (rotation of torso/shoulders), then the third position I’d like to see achieved is a 90° angle formed between your left arm and the club shaft.

There you have three very specific positions you can check at the top to assure that you have reached a levered, as well as a structural sound backswing position. NOW let IT GO!

Continued from blog entry – “Interview Archive . . . PART IV”

The Three 90° Angles of the Backswing (Checkpoints for Leverage and Structure): 

How many times have you seen someone make a practice back­swing, stop the club at the top and look to check if the club is in position? While I’m sure leading tour professionals and club professionals alike know exactly what they are looking for, I often think the average club player simply mimics what he/she has seen a professional doing!

Lets, in this short tip, give you some specific direction as to what I look for in my students top of backswing position. All you need to do the following exercise are three things: (1) you, the player; (2) a golf club and (3) a full length mirror.  Position the mirror behind you as if your backswing were going to extend into the mirror. Take your normal set up and simply swing the club to the top and stop.

The first of the three 90° positions I’d like you to check is that of your right arm. Your right arm should find a 90° fold at the elbow joint. This 90° fold should be the forming structure of the extention of the left arm. If the right arm should fold behind 90°, say to 110° or even 120″ the left arm would lose its “extention type” position. Your backward armswing would, therefore, lose its structure, therefore lose its WIDTH if you will! Width, I feel, is a vital component of your backswing.

Now turn towards the mirror so you are standing chest towards it. Again, setup and swing the club to the top and stop. Look into the mirror and first check the rotation of your shoulders. They should have turned 90° from where they started in the address position. You can check this by finding your right shoulder behind your head and your back facing in the direction of the intended target. The third and final 90° angle of the position relevant to the mirror, again, set up and swing to the top and stop. If you have achieved 90° position No. 1 (width/arm structure) as well as 90° angle No.2 (rotation of torso/shoulders), then the third position I’d like to see achieved is a 90° angle formed between your left arm and the club shaft.

There you have three very specific positions you can check at the top to assure that you have reached a levered as well as a structurally sound back-swing position.

NOW LET IT GO!

Continued from blog entry – “Interview Archive . . . PART III”

CWGM:  You are a NCAA National Champion, Director of Instruction at one of the finest golf facilities in the Northeast and the Metropolitan PGA Section Teacher of the Year. What is next?

TP:  I went  to college to play college golf with no one expecting me to win the NCAA in any division. I came to Westchester Country Club through the good graces of John Kennedy and got elected Metropolitan PGA Section Teacher of the Year. I am grate­ful for all those things. What ever happens next, happens. I am very happy at Westchester Country Club. It has become my home. I have never had a job as teacher anywhere that has lasted as long as here. Being a golf professional and playing  professional has shown me that golf requires a vagabond lifestyle, constant travel. So being at Westchester Country Club for eight years is certainly a record for me. I do not have any plans for going anywhere. I have a business at Orange County National in Orlando, Florida that keeps me busy during the winter months. When I return to Westchester Country Club each Spring I am pretty fresh and ready to get right into things again.

CWGM:  For our readers whose swings you may never see, give them your best golf tip.

TP:  Most everybody plays golf out of balance. Commercials and advertising tells you that the long drives, oversized clubs and added distance are what is important. All this implies that golfers do not have to be in balance and that the golf swing depends on quality contact and certain other things without being in balance. Most people start out of balance in their set up and proceed to stay out of balance in their golf swing. Based on my teaching philosophy, I believe balance is a fundamental and keeping people in balance in set up and showing them what a balanced finish looks like is essential. If you do not finish your golf swing in balance, you started your golf swing out of balance and you should check that.

Continued from blog entry – “Interview Archive . . . PART II”

CWGM:  Should more golfers become students? And what is your opinion about buying expensive golf clubs?

TP:  Turn on the television and watch any of the golf tournaments. Take a look at players like Fred Couples working with Paul Marchand, Tiger Woods with Butch Harmon and Davis Love III with Jack Lumken, each talking with the other and constantly tutoring areas where these professionals need help. What makes any  golfer who plays once or twice a week, who does not know enough about their golf game or what happens in a golf swing not need help? A very small percentage of the golfing population takes golf instruction, which includes any kind of coaching. In my opinion, it’s an absolute joke to expect to improve your golf game without qualified eyes watching you. Most people do not have a game plan. It is mostly chaos. That is pretty common, but that is what we see.

This section of the country is so rich with good instruction. On Long Island you have instructors like Mike Hebron and Jeff Warne. Throughout  the entire area golfers have a pretty deep group of PGA instructors to call upon for help with their game. If you are going about your business on the golf course, without qualified help, I think you are crazy.

As far as purchasing golf clubs, when you are in a store to buy a suit, you are measured for that suit. When you are buying a pair of shoes, you are measured for size and you try them on to see if they fit properly. Yet people still buy golf clubs right off the rack. In a day and age when people have been educated about club fitting and 100% of the PGATOUR players have fitted clubs because they know how important it is for their clubs to be properly fitted, it is absolutely incredible to me that the golfing population still buys golf clubs off the rack when they can easily be properly fitted. Fitting should be done at a greengrass facility and outdoors. It does not happen in five minutes. It takes about an hour to be properly fitted. Most of the people I see still come to the tee with clubs not right for them.

Long time and very dedicated student Val Klosterman won her second Spanish Wells Club Championship this past winter (2013). Val has been a wonderful student whose work ethic has allowed her to take my coaching and climb the mountain of success! She works with me each winter in Naples and during the summer season while I’m in New York we stay connected via my ON LINE V1 VIDEO ACADEMY.

Val is not through winning yet! I believe her best golf is still ahead of her.

Continued from blog entry – “Interview Archive . . . PART I”

CWGM:  How do you define the difference between coaching and teaching golf?

TP:  I do both. This is something Bill Strausbaugh had a lot of influence in clarifying for me. I want to teach my pupils for a short period of time and coach them for a lifetime. I can sit down with anybody I teach and tell them all they need to know about the golf swing in two hours. From there on it is time to coach. It will require me to tweak everything that is already in place.

People come to you with a lot of different expectations  when taking golf lessons.  You have to define these expectations and make sure they are realistic within a specific time frame. People have job restraints and families. They do not have eight hours a day to work on their golf game. You have to communicate with them and define exactly what it is they are trying to do. It is critical to make sure that they really think about  their expectations. Once you have clarified the expectations, you can set a game plan  that is attainable for them.

People come to us in the springtime and say they have a 14-handicap and they want to be an 8-handicap.  They expect to play once a week and hit a half a bag of balls once a week. I have to explain to that student, that if that is all the practice they can do, they are going to be very disappointed in October. At that point you need to develop a game plan that is attainable within their time constraints and make sure their goals are not unrealistic. That is coaching, not teaching. Once you have established mechanically what is wrong with their golf game, you can establish goals and practice routines for them that will help achieve those things. After that, it is all coaching.

CWGM:  What  was it like to come to Westchester Country Club?

TP:  After spending  two years at Bellport Country Club, I realized I did not want to be a head  professional.  My real love was teaching and playing. I really did not like being indoors. When John Kennedy became Director of Golf at Westchester Country Club he offered me the job as Director of Instruction. He hired me to develop a more upscale teaching program. We had some immediate concerns about the existing program. Two key issues were that many of the members were leaving the facility to take lessons elsewhere and the junior Program was not as strong as it should be for this type of facility.

Since then, we have put together a pretty impressive staff and have created an equally impressive instruction program. Our staff includes John Kennedy; 1997 Metropolitan PGA Section Professional of the Year, Bruce Zabriski; four time National Player of the Year, Deb Austin; the 1977 LPGA Player of the Year and myself.  I do not know of any clubs that have the National PGA Player of the Year, an LPGA Player of the Year, the Metropolitan PGA Section Professional of the Year, and Metropolitan PGA Section Teaching Professional of the Year all on the same staff. We have gone from a Junior program that had about 30 players in it to a program in excess of 200 Juniors.  Our lesson activities have increased dramatically. Now, our members can get everything they need at Westchester Country Club.

CWGM:  Westchester Country Club Is the home of the Buick Classic. What are your fondest memories of that event?

TP:  When you win the NCAA Championship your dream is to play on the PGA TOUR. That dream ended for me in 1988. When I see guys who I competed against in college like Fred Couples, Paul Azinger, Mark Calcavecchia and Jeff Sluman it’s a lot of fun to rekindle old friendships and catch up with them. At the same time, it’s hard to watch them do things you wish you were doing. It’s a double-edged sword. It is definitely a dream for me to qualify for the Buick Classic one-year and play in front of my own club.

CWGM:  What does your job entail as Director of Instruction?

TP: John Kennedy says I am second in command. When he is not here, I am the man responsible for the golf operation. However, when he is here, I help manage all the people outside the bag room and pro shop. My principle job is the instruction program. The instruction staff gives approximately 4,000 hours of individual golf lessons a year not to mention the short game schools and corporate outing activities. I teach about 12 hours a day, which keeps me fairly busy in our short season.

CWGM: As the 1998 Metropolitan PGA Section Teacher of the Year, what is your teaching philosophy?

TP:  I am a fundamentalist.  I have been only teaching since 1988. In that short period of time, I have been exposed to a lot of really talented people. People like Jim McLean, Mike Hebron, Bob Toski, John Elliot from Golf Digest, Hank Haney, Peter Kostis, Mac O’Grady, David Leadbetter and Bill Strausbaugh have gone out of their way to share their ideas with me. This has allowed me to think about teaching golf and develop my own thoughts. I am probably more old school by today’s standards. I think golf is severely over-taught and under-coached. I do not think we have to reinvent the wheel every time we get to the golf course. If I had to classify myself, it would be as a fundamentalist.

Roll the Head

Loosen the neck and shoulder muscles by rotating or rolling the head several times in each direction (see photo on the left). Just to save some time, as well as to make sure the muscles are warm, you can do this one in the shower every morning.

Stretch Upper Back

Holding a club and raise the arms, pulling them forward, toward your head, as far as you can (see photo on the right). Hold for a minute, then relax and repeat. This exercise opens up the upper back and shoulder region.

Develop Muscles for External Rotation

The upper body area – the shoulders, neck, upper back and chest – obviously is involved in the golf swing and needs to be developed and stretched just as much as the lower body.

These muscles deal with external rotation, the forearms swinging to the outside. They are critical to your ability to invert your forearm on the downswing so you can get the club on a shallower plane, coming from the inside. One big reason that golfers come over the top on their down­swing is that their lack of external rotation prevents the club from shallowing out and coming from the inside on the way down. Essentially, they don’t have enough motion in their shoulders.

To do this drill, hold the club in the palm of your right hand and the grip end in your left, the shaft running under your arm as shown (see photo “1.” on the left). Then pull back with your right hand. Chances are you won’t be able to get the hand back much beyond the shoulder. Hold the pull for as long as you can, then relax and repeat. This stretches the rotator cuff area and the pectoral or chest area. Eventually you’ll develop enough freedom in the area to swing the club the way you want.

Exercise the Rotator Cuff

Swing a club in a vertical circle a dozen times or so (see photos “2. and 3.” below). Switch to the other arm, then repeat. This exercise benefits the rotator cuff area. Once you have developed the muscles to some extent, try the same exercise swinging two clubs.