I did not sign up out of desperation, I swear it! But it had been a long, snowy winter here along the Front Range, and my golf game needed to thaw out. When I saw a CGA Women’s Clinic listed at a course I play regularly, Denver’s Overland Park, on a Saturday in May, I read the fine print.
There were to be 45-minute sessions on the full swing, putting, chipping and the rules, with the promise of high-quality instruction and, in the end, lunch. All this at a mere $75 for CGA members and $100 for nonmembers. I had just spent as much on a single lesson to adjust my grip and would have spent the same on a Saturday 18-plus-19th.
But, I’ve been playing golf for 30 years. Would the CGA Women’s Clinic be able to deliver something of value to the wide range of skill levels that most certainly would attend? Could an instructor tailor his or her message so that it got through to me and also to the two newbies at the table next to mine? And, finally, would I have as much fun as I could have had playing 18 holes instead?
The patio behind the Overland Park Golf Course clubhouse buzzed with energy on this chilly May Saturday as 43 students, six instructors and three facilitators prepared for the four-hour program. No wonder the CGA describes the Women’s Clinics as “social golf events”!
A quick, easy check-in process left each of us with a name badge and some swag; I chose coasters with the bright CGA logo on them, and, at the Denver Golf table, purple tees and ball markers along with two mysterious capsules. I would not have won the contest to figure out what these were: the purple one, lip sunscreen, and the bright green one, a reusable straw. Not your husband’s divot repair tool and keychain!
I wandered around looking into bags of clubs that ranged from collections of battered hand-me-downs to out-of-the-box sets to the latest must-haves of the big brands. A few worn blade putters from Mom or Dad, or maybe Grandma and Grandpa, had even made the journey to Overland.
Players ranged in age and came from all corners – Longmont, Castle Rock, even Kansas and Arizona! Some dressed like the women in my golf clubs, others like the gals at the gym. I’d say the vast majority were in their late 20s, early 30s and lived in the Denver-Metro area.
At 8:45, CGA Manager of Member Engagement Hannah House got the crowd to hush for just a few minutes as she explained the plan. Each of us, she pointed out, had a letter in the corner of our badge. That would be our rotation for the day. My group, D, would start on the range in the Full Swing session.
Later, I asked how she’d formed the four groups of 10-11 players each. “It was based on the answer to one of the questions on the registration form: How would you describe your golf game?,” she said. The choices: I’m a brand new golfer, I play a couple times a year, I play a couple times a month, and I play once a week. “Also,” she added, “some players wanted to be together so we had to do some mixing.”
As with seating a dinner party, these assignments turned out to be key.
Lynette Martinez, the head professional at Overland, knows how to simplify the golf swing with visuals we can all understand. Well, some younger women might wonder about the “phone booth” swing thought. But “turn the shirt, turn the skirt” and “make a rainbow” provide relief from overanalysis paralysis.
Lynette first talked briefly about the grip, then she and her assistant pro Logan Lee inspected ours. Then she talked about the toe of the club and introduced “turn the shirt, turn the skirt,” the same concept as “turn the shirt, turn the pants,” but rhyming and feminine. And she and Logan took time with us on that.
Next was swing path and I now have in my head “rainbow, not smile.” For more detail on any of these concepts, book a lesson with Lynette at Overland.
As we practiced and relaxed into the format, we began getting to know each other. Several D players had gotten hooked on the game during the pandemic. Some were introduced to it by Dad, others by Mom, and one by her father-in-law.
We morphed into quite a chatty group.
Scott Rethlake and Kelly Hodge refined their joint session after one go-round. They had realized that Scott had more to share about putting feel while Kelly is all about mechanics, so they split us into two groups and delivered their information separately.
Wow, you’ve never seen two such divergent putting schools on one green! Scott emphasized the pendulum and had us working on distance control on long putts. He couched his critiques with “and that’s OK, but…” before making a small suggestion or two. Several of us will be visualizing his finger at our left temple next time we putt.
Kelly had stations where we were to work with keeping the putter low and straight, using common objects to vary the setup. Try putting along a yardstick, or between two club shafts, or from drink coaster to drink coaster. Her emphasis was “practice with purpose.” Most of us do not practice putting other than as a warmup to our round, so I am hoping that just the idea of “practice” sticks.
CGA rules official Rick Rosemeyer made his presentation debut at the Women’s Clinic. He prepped by reviewing Rules 101 on the USGA website and started at a makeshift teeing area between two markers. Our D group prepared to be bored.
But Rosemeyer quickly got our attention by creating a teeing rectangle, with the markers and imaginary spots two clubs behind them as the corner points. We learned that if we teed off and our ball hit a tree and landed in that rectangle, we can re-tee rather than playing the ball off the ground. Same if we take a big swing and the ball falls 6 inches sideways.
Then he moved into an imaginary fairway and we followed, exclaiming “Really!” and “I had no idea” and “You’re kidding” as we also learned that we can move a red penalty area stake but not a white boundary one, that a lateral drop doesn’t have to be measured, and that we can put our ball back where it was if a fox runs out and takes it.
I guarantee you we’ll remember that last one. “Did you give the same presentation to every group?” I asked Rick the Rulesmeister. “Well, yes,” he said, hesitantly. “But this one had a lot more questions.”
OK, admittedly, our merry band of 11 had become a bit chippy after battering Rules Ricky with our barrage of questions. Not to mention hungry and thirsty. So a few snacks came out, with one player offering around sesame crackers. Chipping instructor Gavin Puleo got into the spirit of things quickly, engaging us in tossing a ball toward a practice hole.
First, he suggested we use that technique when we can’t get out of a bunker – in recreational play, of course, not in league. Then he asked us whether we thought about our weight shift, our wrist angle, our tempo, how tightly we held the ball, and so on.
All the answers were no! We agreed we hadn’t thought about any mechanics at all!
“Exactly!” he exclaimed.
I couldn’t resist. “You mean we can go now?” I asked. We all laughed because, of course not. Gavin went on to teach us what he calls the three L’s of chipping, adjusting them to three R’s for our lone lefty. As I did with Lynette, I’ll hold the details: You’ll just have to schedule a lesson with Gavin at Wellshire, another of Denver’s wonderfully maintained and historic munis.
His three L’s are designed to simplify chipping for recreational players. As with the other instructors, he rotated around, answering questions and critiquing technique. In closing, he entertained us with a chipping demonstration that ended with a lefthanded lob over a bunker.
Hannah and her intern, Nevaeh, surprised us with drink tickets as we headed for the clubhouse to line up for sandwiches. Beer here! Three women from the Littleton Golf and Tennis Club invited me to join them at their table. One of them, Ann, had come to the clinic last year and was impressed with the affordable, high quality instruction. “And I just love being around other golf women,” Brenda said. Pam was excited about a new putting grip Scott had given her to compensate for arthritis in her finger.
I circulated and wasn’t surprised to hear that every single woman I talked to had her own personal takeaway, a tidbit or two she was sure would help her game. “The tips were amazing,” said Robyn, who works in banking in downtown Denver and is hoping to make golf a business tool.
All of us were impressed with the level of individual attention we received in such a large group. I don’t think we expected to have one-on-one conversations with instructors, an opportunity that added even more value to an already sweet deal.
I went away looking forward to my next round of golf, making a rainbow instead of a smile, feeling Scott’s finger on my temple, counting out all three L’s. And if a fox takes my golf ball, I’ll laugh.
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Journalist Susan Fornoff does not live on a golf course, but she has written about golf for publications including the San Francisco Chronicle, ColoradoBiz Magazine and her own GottaGoGolf.com. She belongs to the Overland and Links at Highlands Ranch ladies’ clubs and ghost-writes as “Molly McMulligan,” the CGA’s on-course consultant on golf for fun. Email her at mollymcmulligan@gmail.com.