"When you disappear - the thoughts, worries, and judgments you have about yourself - Golf as Art shows up." -- Fred Shoemaker

I had the very good fortune of being introduced to the book, "Extraordinary Golf" by Fred Shoemaker, only six months after starting to play golf on a regular basis in 2005. The book came highly recommended by a friend of Fred's, Tony Criscuolo, whom I had just met in San Luis Obispo. Tony teaches yoga for golf classes nearby at Avila Beach Golf Resort and works with the Cal Poly SLO golf team. I was rewarded with a round of 76 the day after I read the book!


Fred Shoemaker and Jo Hardy of Extraordinary Golf

I consider this good fortune, not only because the book helped me break 80, but because Fred's approach inspired me to coach myself by becoming more aware of my own swing, instead of taking the traditional route of learning to play golf by taking lessons, which often creates a dependence on others for ongoing instruction and tips.

I found myself drawn to Fred's approach, not only for the independence it offered, but for the potential he described for golf to be like art. As a person whose creativity is limited to software design, the possibility of making golf creative was appealing. The key to this creative approach requires only that we let go of the "thoughts, worries, and judgments we have about ourselves," and become fully present in the moment - allowing the genius of our body to create the desired shot.

Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting Fred while attending a week-long golf event at Bandon Dunes, hosted by Fred and Jo Hardy from Extraordinary Golf, and The Shivas Irons Society's founder, Steve Cohen! I enjoyed an extraordinary week of incredible golf with very interesting people in a breathtaking natural setting in the Oregon sand dunes along the Pacific Ocean. Playing Bandon Dunes has been a dream of mine. Doing so in the company of this inspiring group of golfers exceeded any expectations!


Bandon Dunes 5th by Joann Dost

This trip was intended more for exploration, discovery and adventure than instruction. Fred didn't hold any formal clinics, but was available for questions each day on the range. In response to a golfer's question about playing shots in preparation for strong winds, it became apparent that Fred wasn't your typical golf teacher.

Without going into detail, Fred's instruction quickly had the group convinced we'd discovered "the secret" to making a perfect swing! By incorporating what I learned, I pulled off a Tiger Wood's "stinger" using a 3-wood to reach the long par 5 12th at Pacific Dunes in 2, into a good headwind. On our last day, an older participant with a handicap of about 14, shot a 39 on the back nine at Pacific Dunes on a windy day by using what he'd learned from Fred. His wife nearly aced the 10th!

I expected Fred to have us throwing clubs, which he is well known for, in order to help you discover your natural swing by swinging at the target instead of the ball. Instead, Fred used a new technique that helped us discover our natural swing and tempo. For many of us, this made revolutionary improvements to our ball striking quality and consistency!

Fred's instruction certainly wasn't limited to ball striking. His main emphasis was about enhancing our performance by helping us reconnect with our love for the game and bringing one's "self" to the golf course by being fully present.

I was placed in a foursome with Fred during the first nine holes of our trip, which we played at Bandon Trails. Our first round took place on Monday, before any instruction had taken place on the range or during our numerous group gatherings. Interestingly, I played my best nine holes of the trip during this round with Fred!

Admittedly, I was a little nervous at first about playing with Fred, but not overly so. Thanks to Fred's book, I'd already made a lot of progress learning to play without trying to impress others or worrying about what other's may think of my swing or ability. I did notice however that I was a little tense on the first hole. I pulled both my tee shot and my approach just a little left of my target, then knocked my very first putt from just off the green a good 20 feet past the hole! I then took a deep breath, relaxed, and 2-putted for bogie. From then on, I stayed relaxed, played my own game, let go of any expectations, and took in all the beauty surrounding me.

I finished the front nine just 1-over! I tallied 3 birdies to help offset my struggles in the bunkers, taking 2 shots to get out of 2 separate greenside bunkers.

Fred recognized that I had a good round developing and encouraged me to stay present by centering my attention in my solar plexus between shots. This helped me to breathe normally, stay relaxed, and prevented my mind from racing into the future, considering the potential for a great round. I have to take some credit for playing well, but Fred did provide a very calming influence.

But then Fred switched to another foursome at the turn while we stopped briefly to eat a sack lunch. On the back nine, I'm not sure if it was Fred's absence, a change in the rhythm of the round from stopping to eat, or that I simply started "trying" to score, but I just kept getting bogies. My only par on the back was on the par 3 17th. After the round, I realized I'd barely looked up to appreciate where I was and who I was with during those last 2 hours. I have to wonder what the front nine might have been like without Fred's influence!


Pacific Dunes 13th by Joann Dost

However, I did experience more extraordinary play in subsequent rounds at Bandon and Pacific Dunes. But perhaps due to the back pain I started the trip with, I never put it together for an entire 18 holes. Nevertheless, that wasn't the point of the trip. I was there to for the extraordinary place, people, discovery and adventure - and I experienced all of it!

If you ever get the opportunity to attend an event or golf clinic with Fred Shoemaker and Jo Hardy, I highly recommend you do so. They are wonderful people whose commitment to empower golfers to step into the very heart and soul of the "gaeme", provides access to new possibilities in performance, enjoyment, and learning.

Thank you Fred, Jo, Steve, all who attended, and all the caddies and employees at Bandon, for a memorable an extraordinary golf vacation!

There's an excellent interview with Fred Shoemaker in the latest (4th) issue of The Journal of the Shivas Irons Society. You can learn more about the programs presented by Fred at www.extraordinarygolf.com.

"Use your time between shots to put the past in the past, create a future that is powerful and full of possibility, and live into that future." -- Fred Shoemaker

Labels: Bandon Dunes, Extraordinary Golf, Fred Shoemaker, Golf Destinations, Golf Vacation, Shivas Irons Society

"Golfing really turned my life around. It exposed me to some really positive influences and gave me a deeper respect for people and the game." -- Josh Warthen

Last summer, I was browsing through a new issue of SCGA's FORE Magazine and ran across an article by Katie Denbo about a young golfer from my own town of Arroyo Grande. I was impressed to learn that Josh Warthen, now 27, had already had so much success after only starting the game 8 years ago at the age of 19.


Josh Warthen, Arroyo Grande, CA

The article also mentioned the names of his parents. I was surprised to learn that Josh's mother happened to be the first person I met when I moved to the Central Coast from San Diego in 1995! Just months before leaving San Diego for a new job here on the Central Coast, a young couple named Daryl and Janet moved in across the street from us in Carlsbad. They happened to be from Arroyo Grande. When we told them we were moving to that area, Daryl told us to contact his mother, a property manager, to help us find a home to rent. It turned out Daryl's mother's name is Merrilee and that she had remarried a man named Rick (Josh's parents). With my name being Richard (my family calls me Rick) and my wife's name being Merrily, I found this rather odd! At the time, I had serious reservations about taking the new job and moving away from family, but I decided to interpret this coincidence as a "sign" to go for it. We contacted Merrilee and she lined up a nice rental for us. Our first stop when we arrived in Arroyo Grande was at her office to pick up the keys to our new home. Moving here turned out to be one of the better decisions I've made.

Josh entered his first SCGA qualifier less than three years after picking up a club and played his first SCGA Amateur Championship in 2002 at El Caballero CC in Tarzana, where he finished tied for ninth. He has qualified for every SCGA championship since and recorded several top 10 finishes including a tie for first in the 2005 SCGA Mid-Am Championship. His amateur titles include the 2002, 2003 and 2004 San Luis Obispo County Championships, the 2003 La Purisma Amateur Championship, the 2004 Paso Robles City Championship, the 2003 Atascadero City Championship, and the 2004 San Joaquin Valley Match Play Championship. In 2003 he was the Southern California Community College Champion, and was a co-medalist at Pepperdine's tournament in 2005. Josh played college golf at San Diego State where he graduated in 2005.

Last year, Josh turned pro and began competing in the newly formed California Player's Tour, set up by Zack King in order to benefit and promote the talented up and coming professional and amateur golfers of the west coast. The Tour's inaugural "Coastal Series" offers 12 events playing on the best courses in the Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo Counties.

After winning last month's event at Monarch Dunes Golf Club, Josh is currently leading the tour's points cup race and is second on the money list. At the end of the season the player who accumulates the most points will receive a $5,000 sponsorship to put the player through PGA Tour Q-School.

But Josh now has a chance to play on the PGA Tour with or without Q-School! Earlier this year, Josh was selected for the Golf Channel's "The Big Break VIII" series which recently took place in Mesquite, NV. This new season begins airing on October 2nd and includes 12 men competing for an exemption into a PGA Tour event. If the rest of the competition is as good at Josh, Big Break VIII will prove to have the best talent of any season so far.



Josh can't, and won't, tell a soul how he did in the event (even his mother doesn't know), but I'm betting he made the top three. There's an excellent chance he won. Not only does Josh crush his drives, like so many of these rising young stars, but the guy can putt like nobody I've seen. He's so smooth and relaxed with his Scotty Cameron putter that he's as confident he'll make a 20 footer as he is a 2 footer. He spends a lot of time on the practice green, and I've seen him drop some amazing putts.

A couple days after reading the SGCA article last year, I was hitting balls on the range at Cypress Ridge Golf Course, and looked over and recognized Josh next to me. I introduced myself and told him I enjoyed the article, and shared the story about his mother and half-brother. Since meeting Josh, I've had the pleasure of a few casual competitions with him on the putting green, which I've lost each time, and gotten some very helpful insights from him regarding my swing. Thanks to Josh, I'm much better about staying behind the ball with my driver now!

A couple weeks ago, after his return from "The Big Break VIII", I ran into Josh, along with a friend and his younger brother Justin, in the parking lot at Monarch Dunes Golf Club. We were all there for a weekly skins game. They asked if I wanted to join them, which of course I did.

A growing number of local pros and amateurs show up every Monday at noon for this gross skins event to try to win a portion of the $1000+ pot. The very first time I played, I was paired with the club pro, and I got my one and only ace on the 140 yard 5th! That, and a skin on 13, earned me enough cash to buy the entire field 2 rounds of drinks! I haven't won a skin since, but I mostly show up just to get some practice from the back tees and to simply enjoy observing some great golf.

On this particular day, it was a pleasure playing 18 holes with Josh, his friend, and brother. Our birdies were rare that day and we failed to win any skins, but I got to observe the great attitude and demeanor, and golf game, that Josh is known for.

Katie Denbo closed her article illustrating his artful attitude, "With interests including music, writing, and spirituality, Josh carries his values off the course to his game. "I think about my mom," Warthen says. "She always had the best attitude when I was growing up. I'd rather play bad and have a good attitude than vice versa. I think the way you see life dictates the way you see the things around you. I am constantly trying to become a better person. We're always learning and trying to become better people."

Enjoy getting to know Josh starting October 2nd on "The Big Break: Mesquite". Here in SLO, we'll all be routing for him!

Beachin' Golfer
FORE Magazine, July/August 2006, Katie Denbo

Blog following Josh's Big Break experience

Labels: Golfers, Josh Warthen, The Big Break

Since creating this blog at the beginning of the year, I've attempted to share information from books and other resources that I've found helpful in my quest to play extraordinary golf, as well as highlighting some successes and failures I've experienced implementing what I've learned on the course. I hope at least a few readers have found some of these resources and experiences helpful in their own efforts to improve.

But going forward, instead of boring you with only stories of my own, I thought I'd begin to share the stories of other artful golfers -- ones who have inspired me along the way. I'll introduce you to some of the the golfers I've played with, along with golfers I've never met, but who nevertheless inspired me.


Fab Foursome by Gerard at flickr.com

Just in the past year, I've already played with nearly two-hundred different golfers. I've probably met nearly four-hundred golfers since taking up the game in 2005. And I honestly haven't met one I didn't like. I've played with a 45 year old who won 6 PGA tournaments but didn't make the final cut at Q-School in 2005, a 70 year old who still throws clubs, a 40 year old who is a retired drug dealer, an 80 year old who shoots his age, a 50 year old who has 15 career aces, a 60 year old who is still hitting 'em 300 yards, a 20 year old who only weights 140 pounds who hits 'em further than anybody, along with hundreds of others who shot rounds anywhere from under 70 to over 140. In some way each of them taught me something that helped my game.

I'll start by introducing you to my friend Russ who got me started playing golf in 2005, and who I still play with several weekends each month. As long as I've known Russ, he's been an avid golfer. He plays to about an 8, which is pretty respectable for someone who picked the game up as an adult and who only has time to play once a week. In early 2005, Russ was between jobs and looking for someone to play with during the week, before getting busy with a new job. I had quit playing hockey about a year prior due to ongoing back pain, and needed a new physical activity to get me moving again, so I joined him. We've been playing together regularly since.

Our approach to the game and individual strengths are entirely different. Russ is a technical golfer who depends on lining up and swinging correctly to make the ball go where he wants. I just focus on the target and visualize where I want the ball to go and trust that my body knows how to make it go there. Russ is long, but inconsistent off the tee, but has an incredible recovery and short game. My strength is my accuracy off the tee. We make great scramble and best-ball partners.

More than anyone else, Russ has taught me how to play competitively. In fact, Russ isn't that interested in playing unless it's competitive, so every round we play includes a low-wage nassau. He used to give me as many as 8 strokes, now I give him a few. But we always seem to take turns taking each other's money. And since the winner buys drinks afterwards, it's essentially meaningless. Our serious matches, along with his British wit, not only make for enjoyable rounds, but have shown me how to play with integrity and by the rules, and how to stay patient and calm when I want to get frustrated and discouraged.

But what's most interesting is that Russ and I have synchronous lives. I was born in California in 1959, just 3 days before Russ was born in England. We both got married in the summer of 1984 and are still married. We started careers in software development soon after, experiencing major career milestones in the same years. We both managed software projects at competing, and later the same, companies, developing the same type of retail software. We both had daughters born in 1987 who both graduated from the same high school and who both went on to UC Santa Barbara to major in Psychology. We both have sons, but of different ages.

When we started playing golf together, I discovered we had the same make and model laptops, the same make and model digital cameras, and the same make and model cars (and color). Even our personal license plates nearly match. One day, I went over to Russ's house to pick him up for a round of golf, and noticed that he had a hole in his front bumper in the exact same spot I did. We both had something fly up and hit our bumpers during the same week while driving on the freeway. The list goes on. I told Russ to be really careful not to get hurt or come down with some disease. Turns out he dropped his motorcycle on a sharp turn yesterday, injuring his shoulder. I'll stay in the house and be careful for a few days!

Next post, I'll introduce you to Josh, an artful young golf pro I met a while back and played with recently, who you'll actually meet soon too, if you watch Big Break VIII.

Labels: About, Golfers