Ladies golf clinic gets duffers back to basics

I began golfing last spring as a way to get outdoors during the warmer months when I was living in Seattle and golf courses seemed to be one of the only stretches of green I could get to in under an hour. That being said, I definitely haven't been able to spend much time working on my game since then. However, a couple of week's ago I heard that Tom Seaward, one of the assistant professionals at Eagle Bend Golf Club was offering women's golf lessons, so I decided to check out Monday's class.

I was a little intimidated with the idea of attending a class, as Tom had told me that they were filled with repeat students who I was sure put in more time on the links in a week than I do in a month. When I arrived with my barely used clubs that were purchased from a sporting goods store wearing a T-shirt and capris I felt a little bit out of place with the women who were mostly members and avid golfers. But that lasted about five seconds, until one of them turned to me and said, "Are you new here? I don't think I've met you yet" and introduced herself, and all of the others followed. My fear of being the outsider was quickly diminished and we all turned our attention to Tom's lesson.

There were eight other women at that day's lesson, though Tom mentioned that he was expecting 12 or so, but an 80 degree day in the Flathead is full of distractions. To start things off we were split into two groups. One of us started with Tom and the other went with Dan Shull, another assistant professional at the club who helps Tom with the classes. The group I was in started working through four stations focused on different scenarios where you have to hit your way out of a less than ideal situation — hitting over a bunker, getting onto the green when there is rough turf between you and the hole, chipping up a hill and getting your chip shot to land where you want it.

Tom walked us through the stations describing their purpose and then demonstrated what he wanted us to do. A few of the women had questions during his demonstrations and I was relieved to see that he answered them completely without talking down to them or seeming frustrated by them, and all the other women were equally understanding of the interruptions too.

Before he sent us off on our own he asked us all to show him our chipping swing, which he had worked on with the ladies in a previous class. Since another lady and myself had not been a part of that class, he took a few minutes to help us with some techniques for our swing while the others began working at the stations.

I was the only one totally new to the class, and showed my inexperience quickly, so Tom had me work on a few things with him before heading into the actual stations. At first I thought that it was a direct indicator that I was in over my head, but after Tom gave me a few pointers I was hitting the ball as if I actually knew what I was doing.

We were given about 10 minutes in each of the stations and Tom circled through them giving us all pointers. I appreciated that he didn't try to give us too many things to work on at one time, and that he tailored his advice to each of our skill levels. A few of us had some of the same issues, particularly not keeping our head down throughout our swing. He also helped me with my wrist and shoulder movements and shifting my weight.

My favorite piece of advice he gave was that you have to keep working on your mistakes and can't just say that it's something you just do or make up excuses.

When about half of the class was over we switched with the other group and went to work with Dan on teeing off and hitting drives. He helped me realign my grip and stance and helped many of us adjust the height of our tee. Dan also invited us to ask any questions we had about our swing. He explained things to some of the women that had questions about golf advice and technique theories they had heard from their husbands and golfing partners. It was helpful to have some things cleared up that I had been misguided about and hear some things other people were struggling with.

All in all it ended up being a good environment to learn some better techniques, and have some fun too. I can see why Tom said that many of his students have shaved several strokes off of their game and why they enjoy attending the classes.