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Mind game

Golf school fosters hope for better play

Web posted Saturday, April 12, 2003
By Steven Uhles | Staff Writer

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - "When I ask people what they want to get out of golf school, the answer I most often hear is that they want to swing like Tiger," said Andy Prosowski, director of golf instruction at Golf Schools of Scottsdale, as he sent a slow arcing 7-iron shot into the Arizona sky. "That's when I tell them to put down the golf clubs and we'll head over to the gym. To hit like Tiger, you have to be fit like Tiger."

Nonchalantly glancing down at my distinctly non-Tiger gut, I decided that emulating golf's crown prince could come later. Instead, I decided, I would concentrate on not being an embarrassment to the sport.

And so began my pilgrimage, my troubled journey to the center of my swing.

Since turning my attentions (and affections) toward golf about a year ago, the game and I have shared a tumultuous relationship. While I alternately sang her praises and cursed her existence, she offered me just enough sweet shots and sunny afternoons to string me along. But with scorecards that broke through into triple digits somewhere around the 14th fairway and an unfortunate tendency to re-landscape tee boxes with canyon-like divots, I was always something of a golf hazard.

But now I have a new weapon in my bag, a secret source of power that my game was sadly lacking six months ago.

I have hope.

In December, disgruntled and discouraged with my golf game, I packed my inherited clubs, half a dozen candy-colored golf shirts and my broken gate golf swing and headed off to Golf Schools of Scottsdale. Listed as one of the top 25 in the nation by Golf magazine, the small golf academy limits enrollment to 10 at any one time. All classes are led by Andy Prosowski.

Slim and suntanned, with a mild-mannered nature and a quiet, calming voice, Mr. Prosowski gives the impression of being a sort of Zen golf guru, a Yogi Ben Hogey as it were. His instruction often leaves the mundane ideas of swing and stance behind, drifting into more metaphysical ideas, pearls of golf wisdom handed down from a high mountaintop, or at least a well-elevated green.

"One of your problems is that your left side and your right side are not working in harmony," he told me on the first of three days I was scheduled to spend with him. Watching me send shot after ineffectual shot skimming across the well-manicured driving range at the Orange Tree Golf Resort, Golf Schools of Scottdale's home facility, he offered more advice.

"What you need to do is forget about your right side," he said. "It wants to control the shot, to force the shot. Remember, golf is either a tranquil game played violently or a game where a violent action takes place in an atmosphere of tranquility."

Although I never quite figured out what that meant, the advice seemed to work. By paying extra attention to my left arm, making sure it remained straight and moved smoothly through the ball, I was soon able to send my shots flying with little effort.

Later, we adjourned to the putting green where Mr. Prosowski, standing among a cluster of yellow practice balls, expounded on a variety of approaches to the fine art of putting. Most seemed obvious, dwelling in the expected lands of muscle control and logical systems for reading rake and distance. Then things took an unexpected turn, and the Yogi Ben Hogey returned.

"Here's something you might try," he said, easily sinking a 20-footer. "Try visualizing the path of the ball and willing it toward the hole."

I have to admit my brow furrowed a bit at that one. I mean, had the golf guru just encouraged me to approach putting by using The Force? Placing a ball on the turf, I tried to imagine a shining path, a fluorescent freeway my shot would travel from club to hole. Then, delivering it Jedi-style with a little tap and good vibes, I sent it on its way. Although the ball didn't sink beneath the surface of the green, it did come close.

"Sometimes, you just have to think outside the box," Mr. Prosowski said. "Commit to what you're going to do and then trust your shot."

By the second morning, I found myself applying aspects of Mr. Prosowski's unexpected approach to golf to other aspects of my life. At breakfast, faced with the perplexing problem of cereal and no spoon, I took the 9-iron flop-shot approach to dining and happily began scooping up Froot Loops with a fork, proud of my outside-the-box thinking. Belly full, I rejoined Mr. Prosowski at the driving range, where my tendency to attack the ball was addressed.

"If you hum while you swing, you can hear where you are speeding up," he explained, stepping up to a teed ball. As he began to swing, he let out a low, throaty Om, letting it continue through the subsequent contact with the ball. According to his theory, the pitch of the hum should automatically rise just as the ball is hit or just after, when club speed increases.

I give it a shot.

Ommmmmmmm.

Halfway through the trip from top to bottom, I find I'm singing like a soprano and the Yogi is nodding knowingly.

"Muscling the ball," he said.

By the end of the second day, my body began to remind me that golf is indeed a physical sport. There was a tightness across my back and shoulders that became more pronounced every time I swung the club, and my hands had begun to blister and burn. Most distressing, however, was a mysterious soreness encircling the base of my right middle finger. While it didn't seem to affect my swing, it did prevent me from expressing my traditional gesture of golfing displeasure with as much speed and accuracy as I would have liked. The bird just wouldn't fly.

At Mr. Prosowski's urging, we took a break from lessons on the third day with plans to resume after 24 hours of rest. But I didn't want to rest. I was feeling confident, ready to test my new super-swing powers on one of Scottsdale's famous desert courses. A tee time is wrangled at Dove Valley Ranch, a new development set among the saguaro at the edge of civilization. I stride, nay strut, up to the first tee with my driver in hand, ready to lay down some serious hurt and prove to myself and the golf world as a whole that the hacker has left the building. In his place stands a mighty desert warrior.

Pride sometimes can be misplaced.

My first "desert warrior" swing is rushed and unspeakably ugly. The ball leaves the club face not like a bullet, but a skittering rodent, bouncing and rolling toward the safety of the forbidding desert flora about 20 yards away. It was an inauspicious, but fairly indicative, start. Over the next 18 holes I slice, dice, duff, divot and whiff my way to a score I know was deep in three-digit territory. (Per Mr. Prosowski's advice, I didn't keep score.)

I was deeply concerned.

Had my Yogi Ben Hogey turned out to be charlatan, or had his lessons just fallen on deaf ears? Why was I unable to reproduce the lovely shots I had made on the school's range in the real world of fairways and greens?

The next day I asked about the phenomenon. Mr. Prosowski grinned and explained that what I had experienced was common. Golf, he said, is not a game where lessons are learned and mastered in a single afternoon. It takes time to apply the knowledge and permanently store a good swing in muscle memory.

"Golf is a game where we learn how to swing and then forget it," he said, returning to one of his favorite mantras.

Interestingly, the Andy Prosowski I met that final day was a man I hadn't met before. The serene, soft-spoken Master of the Spiritual Swing had been replaced by a veritable chatterbox. Throughout the morning and on into the afternoon he stood just outside of clubbing range filling the air with comments about my swing, my problems, advice and anecdotes.

I have to be honest, it was pretty irritating. But later, looking back on that last day in the Scottsdale sun, I came to understand that there was a method to his madness. The endless white noise, the ceaseless instruction prevented me from indulging in one of my favorite golf sins - speeding. Instead of whacking ball after ball at record pace, I was being forced to stop, listen and wait for the distraction to cease or at least fade into the background. Instead of hitting hundreds of hurried shots, I hit dozens of dandies, shots that allowed me the opportunity to discover what a good shot felt like.

It feels good.

So am I now a great golfer? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Am I a good golfer? No, I probably wouldn't even go that far. Can I be? Well, there's the trick, because for the first time in my life I believe I can be.

Om.

(1) A picture-perfect swing by aspiring golfer Steven Uhles is framed by a majestic Western sky. The ball ended up nestled among the desert briars.

(2) Wired up and ready to relax, Mr. Uhles is hooked up to a focus trainer to relax his swing. Surprisingly, the beer buzz effect sent many balls straight and far.

(3) According to Andy Prosowski, spine angle is a key element in a good swing. This hokey pokey-esque exercise is designed to make the golfer aware of that angle.

(4) Andy Prosowski, of Golf Schools of Scottsdale, points out problems with Mr. Uhles' swing on a video monitor. It took some time.

(5) Steven Uhles clubs of choice are 20-year-old Hogan Radials. Mr. Prosowski explains why it might be time to invest in something a bit more up-to-date.

Reach Steven Uhles at (706) 823-3626 or steven.uhles@augustachronicle.com.

--From the Sunday, April 13, 2003 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle

Golf School Pro Teaches Lessons for Life

Quechee's Andy Prosowski gives instruction during a lesson last week

Part of Andy Prosowski's pitch as co-owner of Golf Schools of Scottsdale is that when you attend one of his sessions, You get a golfing instructor for the rest of your life."

Apparently, The Quechee Club's director of instruction means what he says.

"A guy from Wisconsin called me up right about this time last year," recalled Prosowski. " He said he played great at Golf Schools, but had lost it and was about ready to slit his wrists.

"So we e-mailed back and forth and talked on the phone. When I didn't hear from him for a couple of weeks, I called back and said, 'Is he dead?' "

Prosowski was joking, of course.

As it turned out, his email and phone tips had straightened the man's game out enough that he hadn't felt the need to call.

"Then, two weeks ago I got an e-mail from his wife," Prosowski said, picking up the story. "She told me on his 60th birthday he shot the lowest round he ever had, a 72."

I e-mailed her back and said, 'Thank God he didn't slit his wrists.' "

Contrary to what some people may believe, golf really isn't a life-or-death proposition. In fact, that is one of the philosophies at Golf Schools of Scottsdale, which this year was named to Golf Magazine's elite top-25 in the country list.

"People always say they think too much on the golf course," said Prosowski. "I say they worry too much on the golf course. They worry too much about what this person or that thinks. They worry too much about where the ball is going.

"I've found I can lower somebody's score four or five strokes just by teaching them how to relax on the golf course and put all their doubts and fears behind them."

Prosowski has been doing just that at Quechee in the spring and summer, and in Scottsdale Arizona, in fall and winter, for the past 15 years. Before that, the Long Island native started and ran the first American-owned and American-run golf school in France. It was his experience in Biarritz that led directly to his involvement with Golf Schools of Scottsdale, one of the first three such enterprises in the Arizona city that now features upwards of 40.

"I had been in France for four years when I got a call from a friend who knew somebody who wanted to start a Golf School. I was ready to come home, so I flew right from Paris to Scottsdale."

Prosowski became a partner in the school seven years ago when he and a former student bought out the school's original owner.

"Now my partner does all the phone work and the stuff I don't have time for," Prosowski said, "and I do all the instruction."

Prosowski began holding summer sessions of the golf school at Quechee a decade ago. Last year he officially registered the Upper Valley operation as the Golf School of Scottsdale at Quechee. This year, he started a branch of the school at Long Island National in Riverhead, N.Y.

Though the business now has two venues in addition to Orange Tree Golf Resort in Scottsdale, it is Golf School's size that Prosowski believes is part of what makes it different from some of the others around the country. He's tried to set a cap on class enrollment at 10 or 12 students, a far cry from the 100 or so some of his competitors will push through in a weekend.

"We are a small school that can really give individualized attention," Prosowski said. "I don't know many times Jack Nicklaus is at the Nicklaus-Flick School. I'm no big name, but I'm the director of instruction and you'll get to see me there and work with me. We think that's important."

The smaller class size allows Prosowski and his assistants to tailor their approach to the individual player.

"One of the first things we do when they get there is develop a learning profile," he said. "It's something like 24 questions and tells me the type of person I'm dealing with. Then we ask them why they are there and what they want to achieve."

What is gleaned from the students' answers is then weaved into their individual programs, from the rank beginner to the low-handicap player.

"If they are 'never-evers,' we take them out on the golf course to show them etiquette and rules and simple things you never think about, like how to mark your golf balls or where to stand when someone is hitting," Prosowski said. "Or for someone who just wants to work on their driver, we can do that.

"If the players are better, we might take them out on playing lessons and talk about how to manage yourself and the mental aspect of the game. How to keep an even keel and play your best golf when things aren't going the way you'd like, instead of concentrating on the technical aspects of the game."

When it comes to those technical aspects, Prosowski makes extensive use of a state-of-the-art computer setup that allows him to break digital video of a pupil's swing down to 1/10,000th of a second.

"Its a great teaching tool," he said. "The hardest thing about teaching golf is what you feel is not always real, and your perception of your swing isn't real. One picture really can be worth 1,000 words."

Using computer aided pictures, Prosowski can synchronize a student's swing with that of a tour pro with the same body type and even overlay the stick figure of the pro's swing on the students video.

But it doesn't end there.
"I can download the video to a CD and give that to a student, or move it to videotape or even email it," Prosowski said. "And I save clips of all of my students. I have a database where, at the end of the session, I type in what we worked on and what they still need to achieve, so I'm ready for them when they come back."

Or to answer their frantic phone calls. "I have an 800 number that goes right into my office and home, so they can call me for free," Prosowski said. Or they can send me an e-mail or e-mail me a video.

"One of the problems used to be I'd teach them for three days and then lose touch with them. Now that's changed. Every night I'm emailing students back with a video clip or answering their questions."

Somewhere in Wisconsin, there's a 60-year old guy who is living proof.

CREDITS:

Article copied from Valley News-Rebecca Denton by Valley News Staff Writer Bruce Wood.