The Efficient Golfer
by Robert Anthony Prichard

Grade: D-

Teacher’s Comments: The book actually isn’t bad, but a bizarre “licensing agreement” totally turned me off.

Robert Pritchard has found a new angle with his book, The Efficient Golfer.

And that’s a good thing, because what the world absolutely does not need another book on basic golf instruction. There already are so many—and so many written by the barely qualified—or the barely literate—that the market has become a confused jumble. I counted twenty on a single shelf on a recent trip to the bookstore, and know of dozens more available online and as ebooks.

What anyone writing a golf instruction book needs is a new angle. Jim Hardy—eminently qualified and smart enough to hire a ghostwriter—has done that with his Plane Swing series. John Novosek has done it with Tour Tempo.

Add to the list Robert Pritchard. His contribution is a book that explains to the reader how to use videotape to analyze their own golf swing.

Match Made In Heaven
by Bob Mitchell

Grade: B-
Teacher’s Comments: An interesting premise, but a bit trite.

In A Match Made In Heaven, Bob Mitchell offers an interesting premise: on his deathbed, a man is challenged by God to a golf match for a chance to return to Earth.

Of course, he doesn’t actually play God—or even Jesus—but rather a succession of eighteen stand-ins ranging from Leonardo DaVinci to Ben Hogan.And as you might expect, with each hole, important truths are revealed about life and golf.

It’s a nice idea, but was a bit too contrived for my tastes. The “truths” were nothing more than those offered by the typical 19th hole philosopher; the whole thing too neatly done.

Just as after watching the Wizard of Oz for the fortieth time you know that Dorothy is going home, so here you know the outcome of the match. There are no surprises and no big revelations.

On the plus side, Mitchell has a nice easy writing style and I polished the book off in a single sitting. It was fun reading about the golf games of characters who would never have played the game (Moses, Joan of Arc). And I wanted to race ahead to the next chapter to see who would show up next.

Get it at the library.

The Ultimate Way
by Chad Westra
Ultimate Golf and Academy

Grade: B- for new golfers; C- for experienced golfers.

The Ultimate Way is a $9.99 e-book from Chad Westra of the Ultimate Golf and Academy in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The book is one of a number of products offered by Westra, including a CD of the book and a DVD of golf tips. A copy was emailed to me for my review.

The intended audience for this ebook clearly is the beginning golfer. It covers grip, ball position, stance, the backswing, and so on. None of it is revolutionary. As someone who has consumed hundreds of golf instruction books (which may explain my perpetually confused swing), I’ve seen most of it before.

The “Ultimate” part of the book comes from the notion that swing guru A.J. Bonar—of whom Westra apparently is a disciple—has found the key to the golf swing. For those not in the know, Bonar teaches what has been described as a “handsy” swing to manipulate the clubface.
That isn’t necessarily good or bad—it just is what it is.

The best part of the book is that at every point, the author offers clues for different learning styles: visual, auditory and kinesthetic. For example, in the section on releasing the clubface, Westra writes:

Auditory learners should release the clubface with the bottom hand by counting (3) aggressively. A lazy (3) can keep the clubface open; resulting in a slice.

Kinesthetic learners should release the club starting at position (3) and stopping at waist height of the follow-through called position (4). Refer to the clubface drill to capture this feeling.

As a teacher I appreciated the approach to different learning styles. It’s something that’s not often explicitly addressed in golf instruction.

I’m very much sitting on the fence on this one. But there’s one thing about it that really annoyed me:

At the bottom of each page of the pdf is a notice saying “Easy PDF Creator is professional software to create PDF. If you wish to remove this line, buy it now.”

If I were trying to sell an ebook, I would have bought the license for the software that created it. The notice just makes it look cheap.

Hopefully, they’ve made enough money from the ebook to be able to afford the licensing fee.

Grade: Incomplete
Teacher’s Comments: An interesting premise.

Your friendly neighborhood GolfBlogger has a cousin who is a doctor of Oriental Medicine in Hawaii. He’s been practicing accupuncture for many years now and apparently has quite a practice.

But in spite of that family connection, I’ve always been skeptical of such things. While I am sure that they work for some, I seem to get along just fine without them.

So when a copy of Tap In Golf arrived in the mail, I wasn’t at all sure what to make of it.

What Tap In Golf seems to offer is essentially an accupuncture program to help golfers reduce tension and bad thinking during their rounds. The difference is that instead of sticking needles in critical points, Tap In Golf asks you to tap them with two fingers.

Author Stephen Ladd says that Tap In Golf is “a combination of cutting edge quantum physics and centuries old wisdom ... whose most widely known therapy is acupuncture”

While this sounds like it belongs in the same league as pyramids and crystals, Ladd does his best to disabuse the notion that it’s a new age “airy fairy” (his words, not mine) thing.

There is definitely a serious method involved here. You identify the problem—say, tension on the first tee—rate its intensity, develop a reminder phrase and then tap a key area while reviewing the phrase. It’s all very systematic, and the book offers a plethora of examples.

Perhaps the most useful—or at least, the most grounded—thing in the book for me was the chapter on proper breathing techniques. I believe that I can speak somewhat authoritatively on breathing, as I play most of the brass instruments, and in high school was all-state choir (I sang bass). Music teachers preach that to get the proper wind, you need to breathe through your diaphragm. Most people, however, seem to breathe upward through the chest.

So does Tap In Golf work? I don’t know. I do not personally have tension or attitude problems with my golf game. The game is a joy for me and each shot—good or bad—is just an opportunity to make another. Sure, I’m not a great player, and I of course would like to get better, but I am always very positive on the course.

I also think that my natural resistance to such things would negate any positive effects that Tap In Golf could have.

But if you already find that this sort of thing works for you, then you should give this book a try.

The Pro: Lessons from My Father About Golf and Life by Claude “Butch” Harmon, Jr.

At its core, “The Pro” is nothing more—or less—than a son’s touching memoir of his father. Like all sons, the author has stong memories of his father and of the life lessons that he taught.

What makes the memoir different is that the father in this case is Claude Harmon and the son, Butch (Claude Jr.)—two very recognizable names in the world of golf.

For the uninitiated, Claude Harmon was a well respected, lifelong club and teaching pro who has the distinction of being the last club pro to win a major (the 1948 Masters). Son Butch also is a well known teaching pro who is perhaps most famous for guiding the game of the young Tiger Woods.

The book is not a linear biography, but rather a collection of vignettes that tell the reader much about the life and times of Claude Harmon, Sr. Butch details his work as a pro, efforts on the Tour, business failures, his ousting as the pro at Winged Foot and resurrection at a club in Texas and of course, his relationshiops iwth family and friends.

Claude Sr seems to be a guy that I very much would liked to have knows: honest, forthright, and generous to a fault. Butch clearly has the utmost love and respect for the man.

The book also is interesting for the role that Ben Hogan plays. Claude, Sr. and Hogan were close friends—so close that Hogan apparently cried upon hearing of Claude’s death. Hogan comes across in the book as a much different fellow than the man of legend—a kind man who loved children. (Another interesting point: Like anyone who ever met him, Butch refers to Ben as Mr. Hogan.)

At the end of each chapter, Butch summarizes his father’s lessons by offering a page of “Claude’s Pearls,” such as “Improvement requires taking a long term approach.” There are no actual golf lessons here, but anygolfer would do well to heed the pro’s wisdom.

It’s a good book, and one I recommend.