I can scarcely remember when I didn’t play golf.  Certainly, my junior high school and high school summers were partly, then mostly, spent on the Sea Island Golf Course.  When I was 15 I was at the golf course so much that the golf professionals gave me my first job working in the pro shop straightening merchandise and running golf tournaments.  This had two benefits.  I was exposed to the wonderful people that were associated with Sea Island golf at that time, from the pro shop manager and the professional golfers, to the caddies, the caddie master, the clubhouse workers, and the golf course superintendent.  And I got to eat lunch in the kitchen with the other workers.  Their hamburgers, with the large patty hanging out from between the buns, never had a bigger fan. 

            When I wasn't working, I spent my time working on my game.  I rotated practice time between the driving range, the practice green, and the putting green.  In the late afternoon I would play.  When I wasn't practicing or playing, I was thinking and reading the methods of instruction based on the swing concepts that were in vogue at that time.  I spent a lot of time attempting to apply these concepts to my game.  If I missed a shot, or had a round where I thought I hit the ball poorly, I set out to discover the cause and implement the necessary changes.  I did not have a swing concept that I was trying to learn to execute, and I had no way to measure my progress if I had.  If I hit the ball well, my swing was good, and if I hit the ball poorly, something was wrong with my swing, and I needed to find the remedy. 

My round numbers fluctuated with my workload in school.  My handicap was consistently around 12, and my low round was a 76 while playing with my dad and older brothers.  When I graduated from Veterinary College, I played about once a week until my son was two.  At that time, I determined that my golf addiction needed to yield to my family.  My golf clubs went in our storage room for the next 20 years, until my youngest daughter was ten and showed interest in golf.  My clubs came out of storage and I began to work on my game.  

            While on vacation, I visited a bookstore and picked up my first new volume on golf in 25 years, How to Feel a Real Golf Swing by Bob Toski and Davis Love Jr. As I began to implement the ideas in that book, I also sought out Kurt Sokoloski, a golf professional who was giving free golf lessons at nearby Fort Stewart, Georgia.  As we worked on my swing, I began to understand that the concept of the swing I had learned in my first golf life had changed substantially.  I worked as hard on my golf swing as private practice would allow, and managed to reach one of my goals, which was to break 80 before I turned 50. I was not a consistent ball striker, though, and despite my best efforts, I found that swing changes which felt substantial actually produced only slight changes when my swing was viewed on video.

            I later acquired video clips of the swings of Davis Love, III and Ernie Els during golf lessons.  In viewing those videos of those two great swings, I noted the simplicity of motion and the similarity of position at key points in the swing.  Despite watching the swings over and over, I was unable to find a way to incorporate what I was seeing into my swing.  Then, one evening when I was watching the swings before bed, I noted something both swings had in common that I had not seen before.  

            I began working to incorporate my discovery into my swing, and found that the changes produced a significant difference in my ball striking ability, my consistency, and my distance.  When viewed on video tape, I found the changes finally produced a noticable difference in my position on my downswing and at impact.  With one additional change in my downswing my swing was totally transformed.  This convinced me that I had been able to find the similar moves in both swings that I feel is the key to their golf swings.  I think that it can transform most swings if effort is put forth in applying these principles. 

You may order the book by contacting me by email.
You may contact me at the following addresses with requests or questions.
Peter Winn Martin, D.V.M.
birddogdoc@aol.com
833 Elmer Phillips Rd.
Statesboro, Georgia 30458