Will snaps up Fota opportunity

RIGHT, here’s the deal: take a high-handicapper — a hacker, a novice — and in a matter of weeks, on a strictly part-time basis, turn him into a golfer.

That was the challenge taken on in September by Jamie O’Sullivan and Brian Kelleher, the two young teaching pros at the new Fota Island Golf Academy. Their victim? William Morrissey, a strapping young hurler from Waterfall, a guy who already had a good eye for a ball, but a guy also who brought all his hurling tendencies — including his grip and his sideline-taking style — on to the golf-course with him.

On day one, out at this state-of-the-art new Academy, I saw first-hand Will’s existing “style” — if it could be labelled as such — and thought: Lads, do ye have any idea what ye’re after taking on here?

Seven weeks later, just a couple of weeks ago, I was back — the improvement was dramatic. What had happened, in those seven weeks? We’ll let the lads themselves explain, starting with the man at the heart of the experiment, Will Morrissey.

“I was nowhere as a golfer,” he admits, “I had a hurling swing, no posture, no stance, no nothing, just slap the ball. On the few occasions I got to play, I was scoring 95 to 100, which isn’t bad, but that was just hand-eye co-ordination.”

As Jamie explains: “He had no grip to speak of, left below right, hurler’s grip for a right-hander, he stood into the ball very close, didn’t have any golf posture, any golf swing.Because of his hurling background he was able to hit the ball using just his hands and arms, and fairly consistently, but it was only a pop-out, 80 yards or so with a six-iron with a big high cut.

If you were on a tee with him for the first time, you’d have laughed at him, the way he stood up to a ball, you’d have thought ‘This is going to be a long day.’ Now he actually looks like a golfer, and to be fair to him, he has developed a nice, consistent swing, hitting balls that are quite straight and long, and with the driver, he’s ripping it out there well over 200 yards, which he wasn’t doing at the start.”

So how did this transformation occur?

Jamie: “We put him on the GASP computer system we have here — videotaped him, showed him, this is what you look like. We have four cameras on full-time, one overhead, one on the wall behind, one in front, one to the right, so there’s no escape, we capture everything.

“We need to see the ball flight also, that’s very important. First thing you do when you break down the swing on the video is look at the fundamentals, how he’s holding the club, how he’s standing to it.

“If you have a bad posture, you can’t have a good golf swing, simple as that, you must correct that first, or your body simply won’t be able to move as it should. To assist in that, we use the Explanar, a kind of weighted rolling bar that encourages you to move your body in the correct plane, from the backswing to the forward swing.”

All of this sounds very technical. In Fota, however, using this new system, it’s all very simple in practice, as Brian explains. “You can read all the golf manuals in the world, but if can actually see your own golf swing on a screen, compare it with a pro, how it should be done, it makes a huge difference.

“Trying to explain something as complex as the golf swing without actually being able to show it is very difficult.

I’ve known Will for a few years now, played a few rounds of golf with him, tried to show him what he was doing wrong — waste of time. Using this system, however, you could see the improvement almost instantly.”

“Generally speaking,” continues Brian, “When something breaks down in the golf swing it’s the fundamentals — grip, stance, alignment, posture, ball position, any one of those five, and any one can knock the other out.”

“There are different ways of learning,” says Jamie, “You can take it in visually, you can take it in by listening, but there’s also getting the feel; if you can get all three in combination, now you can go away and work on it on your own.

“That’s what we try to do here, give the golfer just enough to work on between lessons. But — and this is the key — they must work! If you just go from lesson to lesson without practice it’s a waste of money, to be honest.

“I enjoy seeing people getting good results, that’s a reflection of what we’ve done here. It gives me great pleasure to see a person hitting the ball correctly after a half-hour lesson, but if they don’t do the work during the week, come back next week for another lesson, we’re back where we started.”

You must do the work.” It’s not excessive either, that work — in Will’s case, one lesson a week, two driving-range sessions, nothing on the golf course but only because he didn’t have the time.

Brian added “If you spend too much time at the driving range, you can become too technique-orientated, but ultimately, it’s about putting the ball in the hole, you have to have a target.”

So, after his seven weeks, how good is Will? Impossible to say, reckons Jamie, but where he would have been a mid-20’s handicapper, he should now be able to play off 18 fairly consistently. More importantly, however, he has set himself up, put himself in a position where he can now really begin to improve as a golfer. Anyone with even minor ambitions can do the same.

Fota Island Golf Academy is currently offering a six-for-five deal, six lessons for €250 euro, using all that equipment (not mentioned yet in this article is the indoor putting practice green — has to be experienced to be believed!).

Considering what people are prepared to pay for their equipment (drivers costing in excess of €500), sounds a very sensible investment.