Golfellows-The
Story of A Group of Struggling Golfers
This is a long story. So
be patient! If you don’t have patience,
heck, you don’t have to read this. Just
enjoy the site.
We are a group of medium to high handicap golfers
who are seriously hooked on the game. We also have swing problems! But
we are determined to get better. We also want to learn the game more
intelligently. In short, we want to have more fun playing golf!
Look, we have all been
there. So don’t be surprised if this sounds like
your story. One day, we decided to take up the game.
We messed with a friend’s clubs a few times on
a driving range; and suddenly, we started to hit the
balls up in the air. Occasionally, we even hit the balls
really straight and far. Then we started dreaming. “Maybe,
I am a natural…” Unfortunately, this was
a short-lived dream. We then ran into all sorts of problems.
Slicing, hooking, shanking. You name it. Worst of all,
the occasional good shots only happened on a driving
range when nobody was around!
Then we got really frustrated
and started relentlessly searching for the answers to
our swing problems from any golf magazines, books, and
videotapes. We took private lessons. We even video-taped
our own swings and then watched ourselves side by side
with Tiger Woods!
However, it seemed that no matter how hard we tried,
our swing problems, in one form or another, always stayed.
Too many times, we cried to ourselves“Give
me a tip that would work! I just want to get rid of that
big
old slice!”
Of course, just as we
were ready to give up, a friend invited one of us, Ben
to play 9 holes. Ben did not want to go…but he
went anyway. He swung terribly during the first 7 holes…and
the scores were too embarrassing to mention. “Ben
you are such a good tennis player...during the down swing
just think about that little loop you make in tennis..” the
friend said casually, as Ben stood in front of the 8th
tee. What happened next
was magical. Ben bogeyed the 8th hole and parred the
9th! First par in almost 3 months!
Here is the problem. Many
of the swing tips we get from books and magazines are
based upon the analyses of the swings by top golfers
such as Tiger Woods or Jack
Nicklaus. And many swing tips we get from our local
pros are
based on the coaches’ experience with
the so-called average golfers, i.e. the average of
the pros’ prior students. But most
of us are neither Tiger or
the theoretical average golfer. We are who we are and
we are all different in body type, athletic abilities,
and the mental images we tend to conjure up while forming
a swing thought
One
of us remembered to have heard in a college philosophy
class that the Chinese philosopher, Confucius once
said something like “Among any crowd of three on
the street, you are bound to find someone who can be
your
teacher!” What
the sage was saying, to us, means one can always learn
from his fellow common men. So why can’t we do
just that in golf? Ben has certainly benefited from
that. What we want to do is to provide a platform for
common
golfers around the world to share with one another
the
swing tips that have worked for them. During the Dark
Age (i.e. pre-internet days), it was probably not feasible
for any golf book writer to explain a swing thought
in a way that would be meaningful to everyone. Hence
the
famous “grip pressure should be equal to the
pressure you apply in holding a little bird” doctrine
is still being faithfully preached by many teaching
pros.
But seriously, how many times (if ever) have you held
a small bird? (Sam Snead, bless his soul., hid silk
smooth swing is well respected!)
In the short run, we would
like to make Golfellows..com a central information depository
for the average golfers to share their ‘tried and
true” swing tips. We know many of you may still
not find “the cure” to your swing problems. But
over the longer term, we hope to develop this site into
a large data base for all kinds of swing thoughts
and drills. And we are going to take advantage the web
(Confucius would not be able to do this) to customize
cures to match your handicap, age, and body type etc.
In other words, we envision a day when say, a 15-handicap,
55 years old, short and big, male golfer can get tips
from Golfellows.com on how other golfers with
similar personal conditions conquer a recurring pulling
problem. Obviously, we cannot make this
happen alone.. We absolutely and positively
need your
help.
Please share
with you fellow golfers the swing tips that have worked
for you.
We are also working on
a couple of other projects to make playing golf more
fun. One project scheduled
to be launched in mid September is Golfellows
Wise Scoring Strategy © which
will feature OUR WEB VISITORS' advice on scoring strategy
with the thousands of golf holes on many of the world's
premier golf courses
. Say you are treated with a round
of golf on a premier course, but you never played there
before....Yes,
many golf courses have well written course descriptions.
But nothing beats a sound piece of advice from a golfer
of similar handicap who may have just played there
a week
earlier!
Currently we are paying
for the site completely out of pocket, but hope to offset
the costs soon. We are planning to do so by placing some
coupons from a few online golf merchants (a couple of
us are pretty cheap and they are always searching for
coupons....Hey,how can you not be cheap? Golf is an expensive
hobby). We are also going to place relevant advertising
by 1 or maybe 2 leading search engines (though no pop-ups
or flashes).
Phew… this is indeed
a very long story. Thank you for your patience. Please
feel free to send in any questions, comments or suggestions!
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