Recreation in San Diego : In Search of The Perfect Swing : Slice of Golf Advice: No Matter the Method, There’s No Quick Fix

There’s little doubt that the 200 or so golf fans huddled around the seventh tee on a brisk, cloudy Sunday morning recently were in search of a quick tip or two, something to carve a couple of strokes off their weekend scores.

Why else would they give up a perfectly good day to hit the links themselves? Why else would they take the time to park their cars five miles from the Carmel Mountain Ranch Golf Course and then ride a shuttle bus to listen to two PGA Tour pros, Ben Crenshaw and Lanny Wadkins?

It is the golfer’s eternal search for the perfect swing--or at least some suggestions on how to make the swing better. What works? For years, golfers have tracked down a local pro and taken some lessons. But there also are swing analyzers, instructional videotapes, audio cassettes, booklets and magazines. It seems that a newfangled method is introduced each year.

But one thing hasn’t changed. Most people are looking for that quick fix.

On this day, Crenshaw and Wadkins were amiable, but they could not provide all the answers. The problem was simple.

And Wadkins tried to explain.

“You read all of these golf magazines these days and they all say something different,” Wadkins said. “The point is there are as many methods to hitting a ball as there are players on the tour.”

It didn’t stop the fans from seeking answers.

“How do I get rid of my slice?” one asked.

Another: “I’d like to know how to hit my 3-wood into the wind.”

No simple answers.

A third: “I’d like to learn how to draw the ball (move it slightly to the left) on my drives.”

Crenshaw offered a quick tip on that one.

“When I want to put draw on the ball,” he said. “I like to put the ball a little further back in my stance.”

Then Crenshaw realized he may not have given the fan the quick tip he had sought. Crenshaw searched to amend his answer a bit.

“Of course I like to put the ball back in my stance, but other players do other things,” he said. “Jack Nicklaus, for instance, doesn’t move the ball around in his stance. Instead, he changes his grip when he wants to draw the ball. And who’s going to argue with him?”

Later, someone asked Wadkins about what clubs were best to use.

Again, no simple answer. And to illustrate his point, Wadkins told a story.

“Different clubs are better for different people,” he said. “I heard this story about Ben Hogan. One day, he was being pestered by this young caddy about what clubs he should use and what was the best to use in each situation. Finally, Hogan decided to teach the youngster a lesson.

“He was about 120 yards away from the hole and he put 10 balls down on the ground. Then he proceeded to use each club in his bag and he hit all 10 balls onto the green. Then he turned to the youngster and asked, ‘Does that answer all your questions?’ ”

Wadkins facetiously turned and asked everybody, “Does that answer all of your questions?”

Certainly, if the hour-long session had been extended, there would have been more.

How can anyone who normally shoots 100 start to shoot consistently in the 80s? How can someone shooting in the 80s get down into the 70s? How can somebody just starting learn to shoot at all?

For more than 40 years, Harry McCarthy has heard most of the questions. And he has given most of the answers.

McCarthy, 70, retired just six months ago after being the head pro at the Balboa Park Golf Course for 30 years. He still teaches a little bit on the side.

“A lot of people have come to me over the years hoping I could improve their game,” McCarthy said. “I can help, but in my way of thinking, there’s really only one way for somebody to do it. They’ve got to go out and practice, practice, practice.”

But who has the patience for that?

“If they don’t have the patience, they just can’t learn the game right,” McCarthy said. “Some people would come to me for a lesson and I’d help them. Then they’d come back a couple of weeks later and I’d ask them if they had been practicing. They’d say they hadn’t had time. I’d tell them they were wasting their money.”

McCarthy, not surprisingly, believes that the best way to learn how to play the best golf is to go back to the basics. Learn the fundamentals. Visit a local pro and take some lessons. Get some advice and then go out and work on it.

The other day, McCarthy arrived at the Bonita Golf Club to give some advice. The student was 12-year-old Chris Dryden, a youngster interested enough to buy his own set of clubs by saving money he had earned by delivering newspapers.

McCarthy came equipped with some of the older technology, like some trouble clubs--those designed to get you out of trouble. He had no video cameras to tape Dryden’s swing and no swing analyzers to study it.

Included in his bag was his favorite teaching device, the hinged club. Hinged at the bottom of the shaft near the club head, it is designed to help the golfer with the take-away on the backswing. If the take-away is poor, the club face will flip away from the shaft. If the take-away is perfect, the player will still be able to hit the ball.

“That’s about as technological as I get,” McCarthy said. “These other people can use these tapes and other things, but I feel I can look at somebody’s swing and I can tell them what they need to improve on.”

Dryden needed some work correcting his slice. Otherwise, he hit the ball quite well.

“I always try to show somebody who slices the ball how to hook the ball,” McCarthy said. “That way, they can tell the difference and understand what it is they are doing to slice it and hook it.”

Many of today’s professionals have a very basic and traditional approach like McCarthy, but others have joined the technological age.

“I went up to La Costa to see an old student of mine who’s teaching golf,” McCarthy said. “I took some swings and he videotaped them. Then, he took me inside, and I got to look at myself swing. I must admit it was kind of interesting. I had never seen myself swing before. I had been struggling with my swing, and I saw some things in the videotape that helped me.

“I guess just calling your local pro and taking a couple of lessons isn’t the only way these days.”

Indeed it’s not.

Among some of the other new ideas introduced during the last few years is The Ultimate Golf Swing, a 12-month program designed by Bob Poen of San Diego.

Poen, who describes himself as a sports scientist, provides learners with a videotape, 12 monthly learning booklets and 12 audio cassettes.

But, as Poen says on his videotape: “You’ve probably been practicing bad habits for many, many years now. Why not take one more year to improve your swing?”

Fore-Ward Golf, a company in Clairemont, specializes in using a computer to analyze the golf swing and then constructs designer clubs to fit each golfer’s particular swing patterns.

“These computers can really help a pro see what a particular person does on the swing,” said Diane McHeffey, an LPGA teaching pro who works at Fore-Ward Golf. “Do they hit inside-out, or outside-in? The computer is really a teaching aid.

“There’s no replacement for the pro, however. Because, even if you know everything, sometimes something will go wrong in your swing, and you’ll need somebody to take a look at it. That’s where the pro comes in.”

But sometimes, even the pro can’t get across the point he or she wishes, just as Wadkins and Crenshaw couldn’t.

At Stardust County Club, where as many as 10 pros can be found teaching each day, the pros sometimes wish even more than the pupils that there were quick fixes. They wish there was some way to more easily convey their messages.

One such pro, standing on the driving range, tried to make a point with one of her students last week.

“You’ve got to get that back foot to pick up on your follow-through,” the pro said. “Now watch all of these other people down the line (at the range) swing. Watch them and try to do what they do.”

What happened was nearly predictable.

“Now watch,” the pro continued. “They are all . . .”

She gasped.

” . . . doing it wrong.”

Back to the drawing board.