Revealing faults, subtly

BRYCE ALDERTON

Here I was in the wrong set up the whole time.

After spending 1 1/2hours last Thursday with David Wright, a PGA

professional and holder of two Ph.D.’s in psychology, on the upper

portion of the driving range at Pelican Hill Golf Club in Newport

Coast, I may never think the same way approaching a shot again.

Wright, an assistant on both the USC men’s and women’s golf teams,

founded Mind Under Par Golf Schools and has spent the last 10 years

in intense research studying how proper alignment, grip size and

balance all affect ball flight. Each one is equally crucial to the

hitting a shot where you want it to go, a rarity when I get on the

course these days.

Golf Magazine has rated Wright’s schools in its top 25 for four

consecutive years.

Erik Gnagy, Sage Hill School’s boys and girls golf coach, has been

an instructor in Wright’s program for more than a year and was the

one who alerted me about the school.

“[Wright] is dedicated to research and it’s great to be around

him,” Gnagy, a PGA apprentice, said.

This wasn’t a session where I pounded endless balls and broke a

sweat. In fact, I didn’t even hit a ball. But there was really no

need.

Wright, who teaches half-day, full-day, two-day and three-day

classes at four courses in Southern California, including Pelican

Hill, had me focusing on stance and alignment on a green-colored

plastic mat that had two lines, one vertical and one horizontal,

which crossed and had inches marked off.

Before I knew it Wright had a piece of PVC pipe strapped across my

thighs, attached by an elastic band circling just above my belt line.

It’s important that the band doesn’t overlap a wallet or something of

the sort in the back pocket.

How would I swing a club in this position?

That’s just it, I wasn’t going to swing a club, just make the

motion with my arms extended as if I was gripping that 7-iron for a

140-yard approach.

The mat Wright set on the range displayed inches measured

vertically and horizontally -- picture a white cross painted on a

green background. Wright, a top 10 teacher in California according to

Golf Digest, instructed me to place my feet shoulder width apart with

each toe touching the 8 1/4-inch mark on both sides of the cross’s

vertical stripe.

In this set up, the pipe pointed to the left, signaling that my

hips aimed to the left of the target, the first indication that my

address was wrong. To get my shoulders and hips squared to the target

line, Wright had me keep my left foot where it was, slightly turned

to the right. He had me move my right foot back two inches and turned

out to the right, about 45 degrees.

Wow, it felt as if I was aiming at the putting green 20 yards to

the right of where we were standing. But when I glanced down at the

pipe, my hips and shoulders were pointed along that string. I felt

more balanced, with the weight distributed evenly throughout my feet

instead of on my heels.

Without swinging a club, Wright had me in the proper address

position, which needs to be tailored to each individual.

“Our research shows that every golfer’s anatomy is different and

every player can be given a prescribed set up from which the club

path will begin on line. The difference between this and traditional

instruction is night and day.”

You want to talk about night and day, I felt that way when Wright

handed me a club that felt like it had 20 rolls of tape wrapped

around the shaft. My fingers barely reached around the club, but

Wright said I needed an even larger grip.

He had me put a card -- with writing on it -- between my middle

and ring finger. He asked me to note which letter was directly above

the tip of my middle finger. I looked and saw the letter “d,” so he

got out what looked like a calculator, punched in some numbers and

determined that I needed size 1160 grips, a set that would need to be

specially ordered because they don’t make them that big. Standard

size is in the 900s.

“You would be double jumbo,” Wright said with a smile.

Using standard grips, my hands hang too far below my waist at

address, making for a flatter swing plain. With the larger grips, my

hands didn’t sag as much, the club was more upright at address and I

was in line with my target.

“You have to visualize your target before each shot,” Wright said.

And that goes for chipping and putting, too.

We walked to the putting green and visualized lines to the holes.

I stood over a ball about 15 feet from the cup, looked and noticed

the putt broke right-to-left, and hit the shot. It veered in front of

the hole about three inches.

“Where were you looking,” Wright asked.

“Three inches right,” I said.

“Look here,” he said. Wright pointed to the back of the hole and

explained that if I didn’t visualize the line the ball would take

from initial contact into the cup, then the chance of making it was

slim.

We moved to another hole and set the ball about four feet away. A

blade of grass directly behind the hole was my target and I set my

eye on that.

He had me cross my legs and putt with eyes fixed on that blade of

grass. The ball went in. Then he made me putt cross-handed, still

glancing intently on that piece of grass. Same result. I putted

one-handed, nothing but the bottom of the hole.

It’s amazing what concentration and focus does.

Wright, along with two other specialists, are continuing the

research efforts at Centinela Hospital in Los Angeles. Michael

Mellman, team physician for the Los Angeles Dodgers and L.A. Kings

and the director of sports medicine at the hospital, alongside James

Smith, a biophysicist from Atlanta, will embark on a study that will

measure changes in balance created by different set up positions.

Nine hundred pressure sensitive sensors attached to a shoe insert

will allow the researchers to track the changes. The study will get

underway late this year or in early 2004.

*

Jeff Coburn, the Big West Conference Player of the Year for UC

Irvine’s men’s golf team last season as a senior, shot a 12-under-par

276 to finish in a three-way tie for fourth place -- five shots off

the pace -- at the California State Open that concluded Sunday at the

Brookside Golf Course in Pasadena.

Coburn’s best round of the 72-hole tournament, which attracted 250

golf professionals and amateurs -- mainly from mini-tours and

international PGA circuits -- was a 66 he shot Saturday. The

22-year-old Coburn earned $4,133 with his finish.

Fellow UCI standout Mike Lavery, playing in his first professional

tournament, shot a 1-over-par 289 and finished in a tie for 47th

place.