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Golfing Life

Has your swing lost its zing? Pro can help

By LOGAN MABE
Published August 19, 2005

One thing was certain going into last weekend's PGA Championship: A PGA professional was not going to be the winner.

Guys like Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and Tiger Woods are professional golfers, not PGA professionals. There's a difference. Members of the Professional Golfers' Association of America exist, in a large measure, to help you play a better game of golf.

Only 25 club pros qualified to compete in the tournament that bears their organization's name. That's out of more than 28,000 members.

Golf pros study for about three years to earn a starting salary of about $30,000 a year.

You will find them at any local course or driving range, typically stocking the pro shop and setting up tee times when they aren't teaching.

But an awful lot of golfers, and I do mean awful, just pass them by.

From my home behind the tee box, I've witnessed thousands of truly hideous swings. It's like a scene from Apocalypse Now: "The horror, the horror." When it comes to the world's most vexing pastime, we all need some guidance.

Yet for some unknown reason, the weekend hacker would rather blow $300 on a Callaway Golf ERC Fusion driver than plunk down as little as $35 for an hour of instruction with a qualified pro. (Like everything, lessons can get more expensive. A five-day boot camp at the Westin Innisbrook's Advantage Golf School will set you back $3,400.)

Why are so many duffers loath to take a lesson?

"Nobody wants to work on it or be disciplined," suggests Steve Zawacki, my regular golfing buddy since we were children in Largo.

"It takes work to be good, or even mediocre. That's why people don't want to take lessons. I've bought and paid for lessons for people and they won't take them."

Personally, I was never averse to learning from a pro. One of the most cherished gifts I ever received from my wife was a series of three lessons from St. Petersburg's Mangrove Bay Golf Course pro Rick Waltman.

At the time, my golf game was in serious decline. It got to the point where you wonder why you even bother putting the clubs back into the car after a round. Why not just leave them in the parking lot for some other deserving soul?

But Waltman got me straightened out, literally and figuratively. He worked out some tweaks in my swing and gave me some confidence. My scores then were nearing the century mark, but Rick said that with some work - remember work? - I could be shooting in the 70s.

I've yet to reach that sacred plateau but soon after my sessions I logged a couple of 83s. And I'll take that any day.

For every Hank Haney (Tiger's swing coach) there are a thousand Rick Waltmans. And a thousand more Matt Mitchells, a PGA professional who works at the Downs Golf practice facility near Westchase teaching people how to hit it straight.

One of his best pupils? Rising LPGA star Brittany Lincicome from Seminole. Yeah, he can help you, too.

Take a lesson from me; no, take one from the pros: Take a lesson.

Logan Mabe lives in Northdale and plays as much golf as he can afford. You can e-mail him at ldmabe@aol.com

[Last modified August 18, 2005, 11:46:08]