{"id":284,"date":"2010-08-05T18:48:37","date_gmt":"2010-08-05T23:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnstrawn.com\/?p=284"},"modified":"2010-12-15T19:56:39","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T00:56:39","slug":"dale-lynch-at-home-on-the-range","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/golf\/instruction\/284\/dale-lynch-at-home-on-the-range","title":{"rendered":"Dale Lynch–at Home on the Range"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dale Lynch stood quietly on the slope of a hill just above the elevated deck of the practice tee at Hillcrest Country Club in Boise, aiming a small video camera at Arjun Atwal as he took a series of abbreviated swings, stopping still as a statue with the clubface just above the ball.\u00a0 When he finally had the tempo just right he took a full swing and launched a lovely mid-iron shot into the pure blue air of a beautiful late summer Idaho day.\u00a0\u00a0 Because the tee sits so high above the landing area at Hillcrest, the ball floated off in the distance like a dust mote, but Atwal and Lynch were already back to discussing the swing adjustments they were working on, trusting that the ball would land near its target.\u00a0\u00a0 Lynch\u2019s voice was gentle and reassuring, and Atwal was relaxed and trusting as he put Lynch\u2019s tutorial into action.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Arjun Atwal at the Albertson's Boise Open<\/p><\/div>\n

Pat Sullivan of the NY Times<\/em> filed a story about Lynch \u00a0after the 2009 British Open, when Lynch\u2019s student, Matt Goggin, was chasing Tom Watson for the\u00a0lead\u00a0until a rash of bogeys late in the final round dropped him into a tie for fifth.\u00a0 Lynch, Sullivan wrote, doesn\u2019t emphasize \u201cpsychology,\u201d but rather \u201ctakes a different approach. He has combined a focus on the fundamentals of the swing with an emphasis on building pressure into every aspect of practice. His belief is that it is better to fix any weakness a player has at the driving range than on the psychologist\u2019s couch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lynch\u2019s bag of tricks for building pressure into practice sessions includes a test that asks a player to hit say, six of ten shots with a five iron to a target green 200 yards away.\u00a0 The first few are easy, but if a player has succeeded five times and has one shot left, that\u2019s pressure<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cPlayers want to succeed, even when it\u2019s not for<\/em> anything,\u201d Lynch says.\u00a0 \u201cThey really start grinding, so that\u2019s also when any swing flaws will show up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Atwal was in the midst of rehab from not one but two torn rotator cuffs, playing in a Nationwide<\/a> event, the Albertson\u2019s Boise Open, hoping to reclaim a spot on the PGA Tour in 2010.\u00a0 Lynch had flown to Boise from South Carolina, where he and his partner, Steve Bann, had recently established the International Institute of Golf<\/a>, part of the vast complex of Cliffs Communities stretching across two states, with courses by a constellation of top designers, including Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio and Gary Player (who was so enamored of the region that he\u2019d moved his design company\u2019s headquarters to The Cliffs at Mountain Park, the course he designed).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

IIG had set up shop at the Fazio course, The Cliffs at Keowee Springs, just over the South Carolina state line from Georgia.\u00a0 In 2010 IIG would open a satellite operation in Asheville, NC, America\u2019s number one retirement town, where legions of active boomers provided a rich pool of potential students eager to improve their games.\u00a0 Lynch, however, continued to focus on guiding elite players, such as Atwal.\u00a0 The success of his finest pupils\u2014 Geoff Ogilvy, Aaron Baddeley, Matt Goggin\u2014had made Lynch a hot name among swing gurus, inspiring his move to America.\u00a0 Despite the financial crisis, the PGA Tour is still the premier showcase for the game\u2019s top players from around the world.<\/p>\n

Lynch, too, once aspired to success as professional player, but grew increasingly frustrated as his efforts to improve led nowhere.\u00a0 \u201cI couldn\u2019t get answers to questions regarding my game,\u201d Lynch says.\u00a0 \u201cWhy was it that I was working hard using the standard methods but actually getting worse and not better?\u201d<\/p>\n

So he set out to learn what worked, not from listening to experts or reading, but from watching, observing with his own eyes what he saw was working for good players.\u00a0 \u201cIt was just me learning how the swing should operate.\u00a0 The full swing was my biggest frustration when I played.\u00a0 How the game is taught now is much different.\u00a0 Then we were still in what I would call the Jack Nicklaus era\u2014\u2018keep your left arm straight, head still, drive your legs, swing the club from inside, roll your wrists\u2019\u2014things that have proven to be false.\u00a0 I say \u2018the Jack Nicklaus\u2019 era\u2019 because that\u2019s what commentators thought<\/em> Jack did\u2014or even what Jack at times perhaps thought he did\u2014but it\u2019s not<\/em> what he actually did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dale Lynch<\/p><\/div>Lynch\u2019s observations took him in a different direction from what he expected.\u00a0 Other players began asking him to observe their swings, and his suggestions for improvement produced good results.\u00a0 \u201dI discovered that I was able to help other players.\u00a0 My initial reputation was that I was a bit of a nut job, going in the opposite direction from standard teaching at the time.\u00a0 But as I had some success with the players I was working with, more and more players would come to see me.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t so clear-cut a process where I gave up playing first and started teaching\u2014it was rather the case of me gradually learning how the swing should operate for myself, and then helping other players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because he had been a professional golfer, Lynch always looked at the swing from the perspective of the accomplished player.\u00a0\u00a0 The lessons learned would one day be distilled for higher handicappers\u2014teaching academies such as IIG are designed, after all, to sprinkle the magical elixir onto pupils willing to pay for the chance to improve\u2014but the focus was always on elite players.\u00a0 Even today, Lynch organizes his schedule around visits to tournaments and championships during the season so he\u2019s available when his players need fine-tuning, or perhaps a pep talk.<\/p>\n

Lynch found talented young players were a natural receptacle for his method, but it still took time for the results to appear. \u00a0\u201cYou can quickly identify talent,\u201d Lynch says, \u201cbut it\u2019s a long journey to success.\u201d\u00a0 As the Head Coach at the Victorian Institute of Sport\u2019s golf program at Melbourne\u2019s Olympic Park, Lynch produced five players good enough to win as professionals.\u00a0 He knew instinctively what Malcolm Gladwell\u2019s Outliers<\/em> points out–that it takes approximately 10,000 hours to master a skill, and no matter how naturally gifted a person may be, without the practice, no mastery is possible.\u00a0 Winning requires not just talent but also persistence\u2014\u201cthey need to have the drive,\u201d as Lynch says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lynch thinks there is another reason for the exceptional number of outstanding Australia pros\u2014after all, the continent has only 22.5 million people, or fewer than the inhabitants of Texas\u2014and that\u2019s the expectation that young players will fend for themselves.\u00a0 \u201c18 year olds in Australia were expected to organize their own travel plans,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cI think they learn responsibility at a young age, while perhaps American players are a bit coddled.\u201d\u00a0 Aussies in general have a matter-of-fact take on the world, and Lynch exudes the practical competence of his culture.<\/p>\n

Americans, he thinks, have another advantage in golf, beyond the abundance of courses, the profusion of college scholarships and the richness of the professional tours.\u00a0 \u201cAmericans are easier to teach across the board because they almost all have some background in baseball or softball, and a good golf swing is almost identical to the perfect motion of a baseball swing.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Jeff Ritter of The A Position makes the same point comparing Tiger Woods\u2019 current imperfect (\u201cstuck\u201d) swing with the classic fluidity of Sam Snead\u2019s swing. \u00a0Jeff describes it as \u201ca baseball mentality: arms behind, arms in front, arms behind.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

To look at what Jeff \u2018s analysis, go to:http:\/\/rittergolf.com\/golf\/golf\/instruction\/94\/take-on-tiger]<\/em><\/p>\n

But with the great players, he works not just on mechanics or technical issues, but on counseling players on the emotional challenges they face.\u00a0 Geoff Ogilvy, for example, who seems so laid-back with his lanky stride and languid swing, \u201cwas very volatile, even in his early days as a pro.\u00a0 He tried to be more relaxed when he played and couldn\u2019t break 80.\u00a0 Even the word ‘relax’ \u00a0is a bad one for a pro\u2014it doesn\u2019t reflect a competitive mindset.\u00a0\u00a0Geoff was volatile because he\u2019s such a fierce competitor.\u00a0 And volatility is also not the same as anger\u2014that\u2019s a different emotion from the fury players who have a great competitive drive like Geoff feel.\u00a0 But Geoff has learned through a lot of thought and discipline to set an even keel during competition.\u00a0 And he\u2019s a very cerebral guy\u2014there\u2019s a lot more going on underneath than what appears on the outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lynch says he always links the technical to the emotional side of the game\u2014a player can\u2019t succeed utilizing only one part of the equation, so when he\u2019s working with players he keeps the emotional side as well as the technical side in mind.\u00a0 When he was working with Atwal in Boise, for example, he focused almost entirely on a very small adjustment in the grip, and for the rest encouraged an easy tempo.\u00a0 His tone was soothing and not a hint of criticism was ever sounded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lynch thinks players who grew up away from golf\u2019s mainstream, like Atwal, may play more with feel than do players who started formal instruction at a very early age.\u00a0 Atwal agrees.\u00a0 He learned the game in a club rich with tradition (and one of the oldest golf clubs in the world), Royal Calcutta, which has produced some of India\u2019s best professionals.\u00a0 In addition to Arjun, two other players from the Royal are full-time touring professionals. Still, the number of competitions, coaches and academies in India is small compared to what players in other countries enjoy.\u00a0 Atwal himself moved to the US as a teenager to pursue his golf career.\u00a0 He\u2019s had several good finishes this year, including tied seventh at the Byron Nelson and tied 17th<\/sup> at the Texas Open.<\/p>\n

Lynch believes \u201cif you get too involved in mechanics, you lose feel and touch.\u201d\u00a0 And the golfer has to learn to let instincts take over, to trust the feel.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same for a full shot or for a pitch, a chip or a putt.\u00a0 Instinct rather than calculation has to guide the execution of the shot.\u00a0\u00a0 But one final theoretical question bothered me\u2014where, I asked, does the short game stop and the full shot take over?\u00a0 What\u2019s the definition of \u201cshort game\u201d?<\/p>\n

Lynch laughed.\u00a0 \u201cI guess you could say that any shot with a wedge that\u2019s less than a full swing defines the outer range of the short game.\u00a0 But if you\u2019re playing in the wind and you need to hit a six-iron an eight-iron distance, that\u2019s \u2018short-game like.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This response sums up Lynch\u2019s approach to golf\u2014thoughtful and specific and well-considered, but neither reverential, stuffy nor hidebound.\u00a0 Dale Lynch has discovered a practical and sensible but comprehensive method of\u00a0golf instruction, but conveys it without a hint of pretense\u2014in other words, echt<\/em>-Aussie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dale Lynch stood quietly on the slope of a hill just above the elevated deck of the practice tee at… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,18,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-instruction","category-golf","category-lifestyle","category-personalities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/08\/IMG_0227.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":469,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions\/469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}