My Brief Bio
As a teenager I caddied at Kirtland Country Club and played with a rag tag set of clubs on Mondays - caddies day. I developed a love of the game which never really went away although I didn’t get a chance to play much until after I completed my formal education at Case Western University and Illinois Institute of Technology. A group of business colleagues invited me on a trip to the Greenbrier where I remember playing a great round - I was hooked for good. I loved everything about the game except maybe my level of play which I became determined to improve. Golf became my obsession – I played, I practiced, I read, I sought out top instructors and was on the course every chance I got. Meanwhile, while seeing four great kids through school and college with my wife Catherine, a tennis player and golfer, I became involved with junior golf and started giving lessons to junior players and parents based on my reputation as a scratch player. In particular, among many others, Byron Nelson and later Jim McLean were very influential in my own development as a player and my instruction reflects the wisdom of these great figures in the world of golf. As I continued my development as a golf teacher, I qualified as a USGTF Level III instructor and later was honored as a WGTF Top 60 Teacher based on my well documented teaching methods, innovative junior programs and community golf programs. I was the teaching pro at Paradise Lake G.C. and Oak Knolls G.C. My pre-Florida winter months gave me time to work on the book, Scratch Golf – Your Way, which is now used by other pros to augment their instruction and is also used in college Phys. Ed. classes. The book is available on Amazon.com. A dedicated golf learner can truly reach his or her playing potential and even become a scratch player if these lessons are applied since the lessons are not a theory or fad put forth by an individual but a composite of the proven teachings of the best instructors. I just wrote down, in my own style, what I learned over many years of sifting through lots of instruction, putting it all to the test and using the best in my own play and teaching. While people come in different sizes, shapes, gender, temperament, ages, athletic ability and fitness level and their swings will be different and unique, the moment of truth at impact is what counts; the basic principles are universal.
I know that if I had had this type of instruction available to me as a young player, I would have reached my own potential a lot faster. Still teaching at 2CLUB Golf Learning Center and "The Rocket Golf Academy" near my winter hangout, I also do Video Swing Analysis which, I feel, can be just as effective as private lessons since the videos can be played and studied repeatedly in a short time, effectively concentrating several lessons into one. The student gets personalized written instruction, effectively his/her path to improvement, which can be referred to at any time. Very little is lost in the student-teacher relationship.