My GOLFTEC Experience

As I’m getting ready to turn 40, I’ve decided that I really want to see how good I can be as a golfer. That means looking at everything from diet and exercise to fitness and my golf swing. Sure, I’ve had people take a look at my swing since getting into the golf business back in 2016, but those sessions have been few and far between and any lessons have been almost non-existent. I’m taking a complete look at my game because I want to play in more tournaments and shoot better scores when I do.

I played in four events this summer beginning with the Southern Chapter PGA Pro Series event at La Paloma and concluding, most recently, with the Assistant PGA Professional Championship at We-Ko-Pa. My scores have not been anywhere near where I would like. The worst score I shot was an 82 while the best was a 74.

It’s safe to say I can shoot anywhere between those two numbers consistently without trying too hard, but my goal is to consistently break par in tournaments and even shoot in the 60s more than once. I’ve shot in the 60s before, but I’d really like to do it in a tournament setting while playing against my peers.

In the last PGA Pro Series event at The Gallery Golf Club and again as I was preparing for the Assistant Championship, a flaw in my swing kept rearing its ugly head: the dreaded pull hook. It got to be so bad that just days before this latest tournament, I called a buddy of mine to take a look because I couldn’t fix it. I needed another set of eyes. Typically, when I’m teaching someone who is pull-hooking the ball, I will try to get them to swing more out to the right (inside-out) on their downswing. It usually works, but when I tried it, my hook only got worse, especially with my long irons and fairway woods, which makes sense. The less-lofted the club you’re hitting, the less backspin there is to counteract any sidespin that’s created, and the result is greater curvature of the golf ball.

I knew there was something really wrong with my swing, but with only a few days before I would be standing on the first tee up in Fort McDowell, there was very little my friend could tell me to help fix my swing. To his credit, he didn’t suggest a major overhaul but simply gave me a few concepts on which I could focus and from which I could gain confidence.

However, when I did look at the down-the-line video he took of my swing, one thing was clear — my takeaway was way too far inside. This was going to be an interesting tournament, and that it was! I shot 78-80 and finished in the middle of the pack, nowhere near the 12-under par score that advanced to the National Championship in Florida.

As I left the facility at the end of day two, I decided I was ready to put my swing, and myself, under the microscope. I think that’s a tough thing for anyone to do. I personally have never enjoyed looking at my swing on video, but if I really wanted to see how good I could be, it was time. The question was, where should I go to get help?

Time now for a little backstory. My short game, specifically my putting, is really good. That’s the only thing that’s gotten me through the tournaments I’ve played this summer. All the credit for that goes to Sue O’Connor, the Cool Clubs Master Club Fitter who not only fitted me for the proper putter but gave me the confidence and the tools to really roll the rock. In my mind, I can putt, and when it comes to putting, that’s more than half the battle! The problem is, Cool Clubs is way up in North Scottsdale, near Grayhawk Golf Club, and if I wanted to go up there more than once, I would have to set aside at least six to seven hours for the round trip. My wife and I have two young children, and while Cool Clubs does have a TrackMan at their first-class facility, it’s probably not realistic to think I can get up there more than about every six weeks or so.

I had to think more local, and that’s when I circled back to my days as a student at the Golf Academy of America (GAA) in Phoenix. To this day, GOLFTEC still holds a special place in my heart. When I got ready to graduate in April of 2016, I knew I wanted to teach, and I thought GOLFTEC was the best place to get started. GOLFTEC offers the perfect combination of instruction and technology. Their Certified Personal Coaches teach anywhere from 1,800 to 2,000 30-minute lessons per year, so they get the reps, and their swing database really helps them leverage their motion measurement technology and “industry-leading” TECSWING video analysis software.

Access to the GOLFTEC swing database is the real advantage. It contains hundreds of thousands of swings ranging from high handicappers to PGA Tour Professionals. They know exactly into what swing parameters the best (and worst) players in the world fall. Their motion measurements are based off of PGA Tour averages, and they’re all color-coded. Green means good. Red means bad. It’s as simple as that. There are four colors in the GOLFTEC system: Red (slice golfer), Yellow (fade golfer), Blue (hook golfer), and Green (draw golfer). My thinking was that if I could get my swing to fall within the green guidelines, I would have the best chance to play my best golf. Plus, it’s only about 25 minutes away from the house. Advantage GOLFTEC.

I probably know more about GOLFTEC than most. They have a history of hiring GAA grads, and I had even gone so far as to interview with them on campus and then at their Arrowhead location in Peoria in the off chance that we decided to stay up in the Phoenix area. I really wanted to work for them, but I also knew that our home was in Tucson and that we would more than likely be moving back after a 16-month stay in Chandler.

If I was going to work for GOLFTEC, it would have to be at their Tucson location inside the Golfsmith store on Oracle Road, and there simply weren’t any job openings at the time. I had to move on, and that’s when I accepted the job as an Assistant Golf Professional at La Paloma Country Club.

Wouldn’t you know it, shortly after moving to Tucson, a job at the GOLFTEC in Tucson opened up, but I had already started my new job at La Paloma and felt I had to honor that commitment. A few months after that, in September of 2016, Golfsmith filed for bankruptcy protection, and GOLFTEC relocated to a really nice brand new storefront on Campbell Avenue. Looking back, I don’t have any regrets about taking the job at La Paloma. It’s given me the opportunity to do more than just teach, and no two days are exactly alike. I’ve helped establish a Junior Golf program, run the ladies nine-hole League, and currently serve on the PGA Southern Chapter Board since earning my PGA Certification in October of 2018. I know I wouldn’t have had the same opportunities had I worked for GOLFTEC, and most importantly, I don’t have to been inside all day. One of the reasons I got into the golf business in the first place was so that I could be outdoors enjoying the beautiful scenery of the Catalina Mountains and the golf course. So far, I wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve had for anything.

But back to my swing issues. I also really wanted to see the GOLFTEC process first-hand. I had seen countless stories online and on television of the high-handicapper going to GOLFTEC, seeking improvement, and succeeding, but where were the testimonials from the low, single-digit handicappers looking to take their games to the next level? Could I be among the first? How long would it take someone with knowledge of the golf swing and good golf body control to really play better golf? I wanted to find out for myself. I also thought it would make me a better instructor to see how GOLFTEC used video analysis when working with a better player.

I knew it would come at a cost. GOLFTEC is not inexpensive, but you get what you pay for. An initial 60-minute Swing Evaluation will run you anywhere from $99 to $125 depending on the time of year, but that fee is completely waived when you purchase a lesson plan. Without a plan, each 30-minute session costs $95, but if you decide to do a ten-lesson plan, probably their most common plan, that lowers your cost to just $70 per half-hour ($700 total). All of those 30-minute sessions are supervised by a Certified Personal Coach.

This is where GOLFTEC tends to lose most of its clients A lot of people undergo the Swing Evaluation and are really excited to establish an action plan until they hear how much it costs. That’s when they decide maybe they don’t want to be that good. But from what I know about GOLFTEC, I believe in what they do and think it offers the best chance for improvement. How fast you get better is up to each individual client and how much they’re willing to practice.

Out of curiosity, I elected to at least schedule the Swing Evaluation so I could really see what was wrong with my swing and then assess what I wanted to go from there. Scheduling the Evaluation was easy, and before my appointment, I received an email confirmation and a Swing Evaluation Questionnaire to fill-out before I got there.

I met my Certified Personal Coach, Cody Rathbun, a little before 9:30a on a Friday. After warming-up briefly, he had me put on a backpack-like shoulder harness that measures shoulder turn and a Velcro utility belt around my waist to measure hip rotation, and we got started. After just a couple of shots on the Foresight launch monitor, my swing flaw, the pull hook, made its first appearance. It wasn’t as pronounced with the 7-iron I was hitting, but when I switched to the 4-iron, the 1,700 rpm of side spin I was generating resulted in a 17-20 yard hook. For every 100 rpm, you can expect about one yard of movement or curvature. Ideally, you want your side spin number to be three not four digits. That number will be negative if you’re curving the ball from right to left (a draw or a hook if you’re right-handed). It didn’t take long for Cody to diagnose that I had three main things happening with my swing:

1. At address, my shoulders were wide open to the target. When a red-colored box popped-up on the screen, I knew that wasn’t good. The Tour average for shoulder turn is seven degrees open, and my shoulders were 20 degrees open! I was aimed way left with my shoulders, meaning my shoulder alignment was a big reason for the pull in the pull hook equation.

Then, at about hip height, my shoulder turn was 62 degrees closed, meaning I had over-rotated some 30-degrees (20 open at the start to 62 degrees closed at hip height), way more than the average Tour player. The Tour average at that point in the back swing is about 57 degrees of shoulder turn.

“Not a big deal,” said Cody, “Unless you’re hooking it because that’s a big part of where the hook comes from.”

At the top of my swing, my shoulder turn was 93 degrees closed, but this time a green box popped-up, so I was inside the parameter. The Tour average is about 89 degrees of shoulder turn at the top.

My shoulder sway (upper body movement) at the top of my back swing was 7.7″ towards the target, which resulted in a blue box. Not terrible. My hip sway (lower body movement) was 6″ towards the target. Again, this got me another blue box, but was still a little excessive. “Any time you over sway towards the target, that’s going to be more of a hook ball flight and swing path,” Cody told me. About 4″ towards the target is the Tour average for both hips and shoulders.

2. I have a tendency to sway on my downswing and through impact. This is something that I’ve fought for years, and it’s something that has affected my impact position. Instead of that really great straight left arm, I look like more like Jordan Spieth or Patrick Cantlay with a slightly collapsed left arm. If there was a wall on my left side (off my left hip), at impact I was blowing right through it. Said Cody, “PGA Tour guys don’t slide through the golf ball, they turn into it and straighten their left leg at impact.”

At impact, my shoulder sway was 2.9″ towards the target, and my hip sway was 4.4″ towards the target. The Tour average is .8″ of shoulder sway away from the target and 1.6″ of hip sway towards the target. I also only had 24 degrees of hip turn at that point, whereas a majority of Tour players will have about 36 degrees of hip turn. Guys like Brooks Koepka and Jim Furyk, who play more of a straight ball or a fade, have a lot more than that without a lot of slide and a straight left leg at impact.

Tiger also helped make that move popular: posting on his left leg, really driving down after it, and then back up at impact. If you have too much sway and not enough hip rotation combined with being too flat on your downswing (too in-to-out), you’re going to hook it.

3. The last issue had to do with my swing plane, the very thing I’d seen on the video my buddy had shot only weeks earlier. The club was way too far inside on my takeaway, and therefore, too far underneath the plane on my downswing. Again, this was a recipe for hooking the golf ball. It was going to be difficult to do anything other than that.

Cody put my swing up side-by-side to that of James Hahn, a two-time PGA Tour winner. On my downswing, my hands and the club dropped slightly below the secondary plane line (the line drawn through the hips; the primary plane line is the line drawn through the shoulders). That, along with the extra sway towards the target, is going to produce a hook. If you look at Hahn’s swing, his hands and club stay above the secondary plane line, which is what I needed to do while not being so “slidey” through the golf ball.

To go about fixing these issues, the first thing Cody had me do was to get my shoulders properly aligned. When my shoulders were square to the target but felt closed to me, the shoulder harness sensor I was wearing would “ding” loudly and repeatedly so that I knew I was in the correct position. I was getting auditory and kinesthetic feedback at the same time, which I really liked. When I heard the ding, it was time to swing, and it didn’t take more than a few swings to really feel how open my shoulders had been and how closed they felt now.

All I had to do was move my left or lead shoulder more forward, and on video, they were perfectly square even though they felt closed. I always tell my students that in order to get their swings into the correct position, they really need to exaggerate the opposite of what they were feeling before. For me, what felt like closed was actually square. I felt like I was aimed way right.

The next thing we attacked was the sway and slide on my downswing. To get this feeling, Cody held a swimming pool noodle on my left hip and told me to “stay behind it” on my downswing. On video, the result was a straightening of my left knee as I moved more up and away from the target line at impact. This feeling helped me to stay more behind the imaginary wall instead of blasting through it as was my tendency.

The best drill for this if you’re on the driving range is to put an alignment stick into the ground outside your left hip (if you’re a right-handed player) and try to stay behind that stick on your downswing. For a little visual feedback, Cody put up a side-by-side of Brooks Koepka and his position at impact. He has a really powerful move!

Again, after just a few swings, my numbers drastically changed. At impact, my shoulder sway had decreased from 2.9″ towards the target to just .7″ not towards but away from the target. For that effort I got a green box, a sign that I was well within the Tour average. My hip sway was also down from 4.4″ towards the target to .1″ away.

I got a yellow-colored box for that move, but this time, I didn’t slide or crash through the imaginary wall on my downswing. I eventually ended up with a hip sway 1.1″ towards the target, within the Tour average, and another a green box. The shot shape that resulted was a four-yard fade with my 4-iron as opposed to the 17-yard pull hook as well as a higher launch angle, from ten degrees up to 14.

And finally, to deal with that pesky underneath swing plane, Cody had me feel as if I was swinging more outside-in or over-the-top. The drill that seemed to work the best was a stick Cody placed on the ground at a 45-degree angle to the alignment stick running across my toes. “Take the club back along the stick on your takeaway and come back along the stick on your downswing,” Cody told me.

I was attempting to hit more of a cut or a fade, again, completely opposite of what I was doing when I arrived. Not only did my centeredness of contact improve, but so did my numbers. Instead of red boxes under shoulder turn, shoulder sway, and hip sway, now almost all of my boxes were green! It didn’t take long, and the moves were relatively easy to achieve. There was hope for me after all! And most importantly, I was able to perform the necessary actions easier and in less time than I had anticipated going into the process.

Within hours, I received an email to access my web lesson online through GOLFTEC’s Player Performance Center (soon-to-be-called the GOLFTEC Clubhouse). My account contained my initial swing and then another six swings of narrated video analysis by Cody, a video drill I should work on, written notes from the lesson, and an infographic indicating the proper body position and hip sway at impact.

The 30-handicap golfer has approximately .4″ of hip sway away from the target. Professional golfers have 1.6″ of hip sway toward the target. Not surprisingly, as the hip sway towards the target increases, a player’s handicap decreases.

I’m already scheduled to return to GOLFTEC for another 30-minute session with Cody next week. This process could take weeks or months, and I plan on documenting the entire experience here. From an instructional standpoint, I can safely say that GOLFTEC is almost without equal. I only say almost because about the only weakness I can see is that you have to hit balls into a net.

While you’re in the air conditioned comfort of a state-of-the-art indoor practice facility, there’s still something about being able to see the golf ball fly through the air that’s missing. In my opinion, if GOLFTEC had indoor/outdoor facilities, they would be unstoppable.