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