Q. Tell us about how you came to work with Stan.
T. Well a few years ago, my golf game had gotten to the point where playing golf was the only time I wasn’t happy. I’m generally a pretty happy guy. So my wife tells me that I needed to find someone to help me get better or I should quit and find something that made me happy. I found an instructor who took me from a 4 to a 12 in just a few weeks. Needless to say that didn’t help. I was introduced to Stan about four years ago and we hit it off immediately. We had a lot in common even beyond golf.

Q. How did he help you?
T. In simple terms, he gave me permission to be an athlete. He taught me how the club is supposed to swing. He has an incredible understanding of the golf swing, and an even better method of communicating that knowledge. His encouragement got me interested in competing again. (Editor’s Note: Tom is the newly crowned Club Champion at Mirabel in Scottsdale, defeating the prior two Club Champions over subsequent days in the match play format. He also reached the finals of the Club Championship at Chicago Golf Club.)

Q. When did you start playing golf?
T. I started golf when I was four. Growing up, I also played baseball and basketball. I played golf at the University of Illinois – Chicago but didn’t play in law school. We started coming to Scottsdale in ’86 and I was a member at Desert Forest for about 10 years. Now I play at Mirabel and Chicago Golf Club.

Q. What is your handicap and what is the lowest it has ever been?
T. Right now, I’m a 2. I’ve been as low as a +2.

Q. What is the one thing Stan always tells you?
T. (Laughing) The ball doesn’t know how old I am!

Q. What do you practice the most?
T. I spend most of my time working on putting. I hit hundreds of putts from 2 ½ to 3 feet. It’s a great confidence builder to see the ball go in the hole. One drill I like is to place balls at 3’, 5’ and 7’ from the hole. I have to make three in a row from each distance or I have to start over. As you can imagine, my putting has improved.

Q. Thanks, Tom and good luck in your events this season.

I wish that 8 or 9 years ago, the governing bodies of golf would have disqualified any putter, or club for that matter, that is anchored to the body. This includes, the belly putter, the “broom”-style putters and others. I guess that is the traditionalist in me.

However, having said that, these long putters actually cause the player to make the exact same stroke that I teach with a short, or traditional putter. The putter swings on the proper plane both back and forward. I believe the face will then swing perpendicular or square to the path of the on plane stroke. This motion allows, or causes, the putter head to release properly. When you anchor the grip end to the body, you simply cannot manipulate the grip in a way that pulls the top of the handle back in the take away or toward the target in the through swing– which is the biggest mistakes I see in my teaching. I teach people to “swing the end of the club that hits the ball.” My new book The Art of the Swing is all about proper sequence in the swing, (putter to driver). If the grip end of the putter is anchored the putter head has to swing the greatest amount which also allows for proper sequence all the way up the chain of movement.

In fact, The Art of the Swing features a scanning technology called Microsoft Tags that allows you to see a large library of swing-based videos that I shot for the book. I thought I’d share one of these videos with you because it demonstrates the exact putter motion that I teach – and that the belly putter requires – to make the putter work for professionals and amateurs alike.

So, do I like the long putters? Not really. But do I like to see people releasing the putter head, making putts and shooting low scores? Absolutely. I love tradition, but I love truth more.

After qualifying on the Monday prior to the tournament, he finished T12 in the event. We grabbed him for a few minutes to hear about his experience.

In addition, we were able to have a sit-down with Stan’s son Jake, and asked him a few questions about what it was like to caddy in his dad’s debut on The Champions Tour. Click here to read Jake’s comments.

Q. You had a physical obstacle to overcome. Tell us about that.
Stan: I played great and felt great all week, for the qualifier, the practice round and the pro-am. Then an hour before my tee time for the first round, I went to the practice green to hit a few putts and my back seized up. I literally could not bend over to putt. My goal on the course was to get to the next shot and get it in the air. So I spent the whole tournament in survival mode. I don’t know maybe that helped. Plus, I leaned heavily on my routine when I was putting. That and a tip that my dad gave me in January. That really helped. Plus, my caddie picked the ball out of the hole for me on all 54 holes.

Q. Yes, you had a special caddie for the tournament…
Stan: My 14-year-old son, Jake. He was on spring break so we spent the week together.

Q. What was that like?
Stan: Very cool. He had a blast. Before we started, he was only nervous about making a mistake. He REALLY didn’t want to mess up, read a putt wrong or something like that. I told him that every caddie out there was going to do that and reading putts is a guess anyway. So early on we agreed to smile no matter what happened. I have to admit he was better at that than me. He hustled and he quickly gained the respect of the other players and caddies. He only got mad when I missed a 6-footer for par on the 53rd hole. But on 18, I had a birdie putt to finish the tournament and he said, “pour it in, Dad.” His confidence was really cool.

Q. You have become known so much as a teacher, did any of the other players want lessons between rounds?
Stan: I worked a little with Jay Haas, an old friend before the tournament. Curt Byrum and Peter Jacobsen asked for some help between rounds but I was in such pain, I didn’t stick around when I was finished playing. I tried to get some relief for my back.

Q. You finished T12. Does your good play change your goals for playing this year?
Stan: A little. My goal was to play about 6 events. What I realized this week was that taking a week off of teaching to play an event is not as big a risk as I might have thought. If I’m not teaching, I’m not earning a living. To give up a week and not be able to make some money was something that was on my mind. I’m not as worried about that anymore.

PGA TOUR photos courtesy of Stan Badz

Q. Did you ever call him off of a club or a read?
Jake: We talked about every club, shot and putt. I just tried to encourage him.

Q. Were you mad when he hit it in a bunker and you had to rake it?
Jake: Yes. (pretty matter of fact, no elaboration)

Q. Besides your dad, who was the coolest person you met this week?
Jake: Everyone was really nice to me. Doug Tewell especially. (Editor’s note – Doug was the first PGA TOUR pro that Stan ever met when he was a teenager.)

Q. Do you think being a caddie would be a good profession for you?
Jake: No. Some of them are a little weird.

Q. But would you do it again?
Jake: Yes.

Q. We have to know, did you get standard wages or a little extra?
Jake: Less. And 2/3 of what I got goes into a savings account

Q. What did you learn?
Jake: I learned a lot about how playing conditions affect your game. Plus watching the other players, their attitude was really good. They didn’t get too up or down when good or bad things happened.

Q. What was the best advice you gave your dad?
Jake: Slow down. Don’t get in a hurry.

Q. What was the worst part of the week?
Jake: No question, fighting the umbrella in the wind and rain.

PGA TOUR photos courtesy of Stan Badz

The evolution from player to teacher has been seamless for Stan Utley. His niche as a player always has been the short game and, in a game full of mysteries, there is nothing ambiguous about the value of the short game.

After years of grinding on the professional golf tours, Utley has taken his area of expertise and turned it into something very rewarding. He has emerged as one of golf’s gifted and most in-demand instructors.

This week, Utley returns to his roots as a tournament player when he tees it up for the first time on the Champions Tour. He qualified Monday for the Toshiba Classic at Newport Beach Country Club, where Nick Price will defend his title.

“It’s certainly exciting,” Utley said. “I have completely focused on teaching golf and have played maybe two events a year. As this year rolled up and I became age-eligible for the Champions Tour, I kind of sat down and made a goal. Initially, I’d like to check out my game for about six events and continue with my teaching and corporate outings.”

Utley celebrated his 50th birthday in January. The Toshiba Classic is the first event for which he tried to Monday qualify, and he made it. Utley shot 67 at Goose Creek Golf Club in Mira Loma.

What happens after Utley gets his feet wet in those first few Champions Tour events?

“I would have to play really well,” he said. “I’m not going to predict anything. I love the teaching side of my career. And I have no big anticipation of how I might do. People ask me, ‘How are you playing.’ I haven’t kept my score for a long time and until you play, you don’t know.”

It’s not a defense mechanism against any potential disappointment.

“It’s a big taste of reality,” Utley said. “For lots of us who had a career like mine, so many hard times as a player, I feel overwhelmed and blessed to have a career now teaching golf. I’ve been far more successful with my teaching than with playing.

“For a long period of time I said I was a player who taught. I think I grew out of that and realized it’s likely I’m much better at teaching than playing. I love the teaching side.”

Utley, a Missouri native, turned professional in 1984. He won the 1989 Chattanooga Open on the PGA TOUR and three times on the Nationwide Tour — the 1993 Cleveland Open and the Louisiana Open and Miami Valley Open in 1995.

Utley’s strength was always in the short game. He is a whiz around the greens and holds the PGA TOUR record for fewest putts in nine holes — 6 — at the 2002 Air Canada Championship.

What he discovered along the way is that he is as good as relating his ability and knowledge to others. That’s not something easily done. It takes a certain intellectual capacity and talent to convey the message. Utley has it. His list of students over the years has been impressive, including Champions Tour players Jay Haas, Craig Stadler and Peter Jacobsen; and Sergio Garcia and Darren Clarke among others. Haas credits his resurgence as a Champions Tour major winner to Utley’s help.

In the process, Utley has gained a well-deserved reputation as one of golf’s top instructors.

As an author, Utley has produced four excellent instructional books: The Art of Putting, The Art of the Short Game, The Art of Scoring and The Art of the Swing.

The Art of Putting, published in 2006, was the first. In it, Utley breaks down the putting stroke and teaches how to attain and keep a repeatable stroke. He does it in a straightforward way and in his typically unassuming manner.

“The biggest thing I would say that has helped my game is my friends now are some of the best teachers in the world,” Utley said. “Meeting Jim Hardy radically improved my swing. Hanging out with Mike Adams a lot over the past three, four years has radically improved my knowledge. I’m rubbing shoulders with the best teachers. I sit and hang out and chat with Butch Harmon and realize he coaches the whole game, he doesn’t just coach swing.

“Being around guys like that makes my teaching way better but also has enlightened me as a player. It’s been huge.”

As Utley embarks this week on his Champions Tour career, he is likely to find out just how huge it has been.

Tell us something meaningful about the first time you met Stan.
Paige: “He said, I always thought your brother would call me first.” (Paige’s brother Brock plays the Nationwide Tour.)

Stan has an “aw shucks” demeanor and delivery. When you first met, did you think he was just a good ole country boy?
Paige: “Wait, I still think he is…”

Everyone remembers the best shot they ever hit. What was yours?
Paige: “A skinny 3-iron for a hole-in-one when I was 13. It was 139 yards. Just goes to show that everyone needs a little luck now and then.”

What is the one thing that Stan tells you every time you see him?
Paige: “You are a great putter.”

He is indeed a great encourager. But enough about Stan, this is shaping up to be your best year on tour. Congratulations. To what do you attribute the success?
Paige: “Confidence. In myself but also the process. I worked really hard on a lot of changes in the last 3 years without immediate results, but stuck with it because I had faith that it would pay off. I think it has…or at least started to.”

You’re a Washington Husky. How did you end up in Scottsdale?
Paige: “I knew that I wanted to stay on the west coast and I had heard they have great summers…I mean winters.”

Most people ask what is the most played song on your iPod. We want to know which song causes you to immediately hit skip?
Paige: “Why would I have it on my iPod if I was going to skip it? But radio, almost all Lady Gaga songs…I hate that I like her latest.”

Yeah, we apologize. That was a lame question. Apparently we’ve downloaded songs that we really don’t like and thought everyone did. Paige…? Where did she go?

Here’s a small lift from the interview:

Your previous books have focused on the short game. How far into the full swing does your new book go?

I have tipped over into the full swing with this book, but most of it is still about my short game principles. A lot of the principles that apply to short-game shots also apply to the full swing. The impact area is the same, the full swing is just bigger.

When it comes to what I’m looking for and what I share with players, one of the core things I want people to do is to hit a shot and ask, “Ball, what happened?” The ball tells us so much based on how it flies, as long as we know how to ask it the right questions. [...more]

You can read the entire interview by visiting Putterzone.com, or you can jump directly to the interview page by clicking here.

I hope you enjoy reading the interview. Drop me a comment with your thoughts.

First, while my earlier books focused on specific shot dynamics…putting, pitching and other parts of the short game, this one encompasses all of those PLUS covers one major factor that makes these things work…the sequence of the swing itself.

The other thing that’s important in this new book relates to technology. I really appreciate some of the benefits that technology has brought to the game of golf. Titanium, space age composite materials, graphite & steel derivative products and other interesting materials have all enabled good players to play better.

But, the technology I’m talking about here is different: the Internet, small HD digital cameras, super slo-mo techniques, visual overlays, Smartphones and a whole bunch of other technologies that I can’t hope to fully understand, but which are useful in both teaching and learning.

Take My Teaching Techniques to the Range

When Matt Rudy and I began talking about writing The Art of the Swing, we both realized that writing the book was not going to be the hard part. We also agreed that the concepts in the book could be demonstrated through sequenced photos, but even well-done photos might not quite convey the new ideas in an easy-to-understand form for the readers. Video was certainly the ‘a-ha’ solution, but do we put a CD-ROM or DVD in the book? Or, could we sell the book and separately price a DVD that you could purchase after reading the book? We kicked those ideas around and finally came up with a very unique solution…and, it’s another technology that is changing things in a big way: Microsoft Tag.

If you’ve ever seen a bar code on a can of soup in the supermarket, then you get the basic idea of what scanning these codes is all about. Computers at the check-out stand accept the bar code scan and interpret these codes and ring up a price. Microsoft Tags embedded on some of the book’s pages will allow you to scan the tag with your Smartphone and then you can play a video at home, at the office (don’t tell the boss!) or on the practice range right on the phone. These video instructions are part of the book’s price, so you don’t have to pay extra for the video tips!

We’ve shot over 25 short sequence videos in High Definition (HD), each about 90 seconds in length. The videos are hosted on the Internet and can be downloaded and played after you scan the Microsoft Tag on the page. We believe this is the first time this technique has been used in golf instruction book publishing, and we’re very excited about this “extra” benefit for my readers who are really serious about improving their golf games and increasing their fun on the golf course. If you’d like to see what one of these videos looks like, click on this video link and then let me know what you think.

We are set for a May 12, 2011 publishing date through my publisher Gotham Books, an imprint of the Penguin Group. The book will be available at your local bookstores, or you can pre-order on the various electronic book buying sites. A list of the online buying sites are shown below.

If you buy the book and use the videos, please don’t hesitate to give me your feedback on the website or on my Facebook page. And, if you see improvement in your golf game, then I’d like to share some of those stories with others as well.

The brain is responsible for processing all these external signals, and while it seems overly complex to even talk about it, there’s something to be said for allowing the mental side of your game control the physical things that help us all be more athletic. Our abilities to see, feel and hear help reinforce some of the things that make a great putter: perception of distance, slope and breaks in the green; touch to “feel” the ball hitting the head of the putter, aural feedback of putter head striking the ball and the tactile feedback that goes from the head of the putter and up the shaft to your hands, and then up to your arms and to your brain; and your ability to trust what you see, hear and feel so that instinctively you KNOW the ball is going into the hole.

In this day and age of iPods, iPads and a host of other very small and portable devices, I’m certainly beginning to embrace the idea that visual learning tools can help with the interactive learning process. This is especially true if these visual cues are repetitive, accurate representations of what I believe makes a great stroke.

I recently did some work on a very intriguing new audio/video aid from a Phoenix-area company called seeitgolf that may benefit your putting stroke and hopefully help you get the ball in the hole in fewer strokes. Developed by Danny Orr, a former professional baseball player and major league scout, the aid is an app that will run on an iPhone 4, iPad and iTouch. Aaron Baddeley and I combined our efforts to include video and audio tracks for the app backed up by some pretty cool music. The longer-form 15- minute video and the shorter individual tracks captured from different angles, were shot with 4 “Red” cameras for an incredible lifelike feel. Danny’s team used super slo-mo effects in the app so you can literally see the dimples of the ball as it bumps and rolls successfully toward and then into the hole.

The app helps you create positive mental images so that you can not only see and hear what a great putt should look and feel like, but ultimately enables you to trust what all these outside signals are sending back to your brain. A lot of very scientific study went into the development of the app, and much of what Danny has produced is reinforced by Dr. Debbie Crews, one of Golf Digest’s Top 10 instructors, and a leading researcher recognized as well by Golf Magazine for her work.

You can find out more about the app by visiting the company’s website at seeitgolf.com. Or, if you just can’t wait to try out something new, you can visit the Apple iTunes App Store and purchase the app for download onto your Apple device.

If you try it, let me know what you think.

First, the beneficiary was Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center. The Child Life services group does wonderful work with kids by healing them and also making them feel like kids – not just patients.

Enjoying Time with my Playing Partners

The event also was very creative in how they used my time there. I gave a short clinic to their Host Committee and played eight holes with folks from their Gift Sponsor, Bennett Electrical. That was fun, but the real creativity was in the raffle. At registration, they sold raffle tickets to win a chance to play three holes with me throughout the day. There were three different winners and I got to spend time with each of the three groups. I got to help at least one player in each group improve significantly. And that is always the highlight of my day. Also, Ed Pitts from Tufts Medical Center was a terrific host as he chauffeured me around and introduced me to the different groups throughout the day.

Chatting with Attendees

Finally, I can’t say enough about Salem Country Club. This Donald Ross classic has hosted multiple USGA championships and it is truly a treat to visit.

Thanks to my friends at Huron and the folks from Tufts Medical Center for including me. If you’d like to learn more about the Floating Hospital Golf Classic, visit Floating Hospital for Children Golf Classic