On the Hotline, golfers connect with PGA Professionals

By T.J. Auclair, PGA.com Interactive Producer

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- The phones buzzed for 12 straight hours at the PGA Learning Center on Thursday, as PGA Professionals fielded questions from the public on how to improve their games via the PGA/USA TODAY Golf Tips Hotline.

Along with the Hotline, which was flooded with hundreds of calls, the public also had the option of submitting questions through PGA.com based on categories that included handicap, age, irons and drivers, among others. The most popular area for emails came from the high-handicappers, who accounted for 36 of the 130 total emails.

The Hotline -- the ninth of its kind -- helped kick off the 11th PGA Teaching and Coaching Summit, a biennial event hosted by The PGA of America that brings together teaching professionals from all over the country.

Suzy Whaley, a co-Master of Ceremonies along with Pebble Beach's Laird Small at the PGA Teaching and Coaching Summit, spent time on the phone and on the computer answering various questions. Many people were interested in learning about how to cure the dreaded slice, while others in colder parts of the country just wanted to talk some golf.

"The Hotline is an awesome tool, because we can tell people who we are, what The PGA of America is about, that we're interested in them playing golf, we want them to play better golf and we're here to help," said Whaley, who in 2003 became the first woman in 58 years to qualify for a PGA Tour event when she earned a spot in the Greater Hartford Open after winning the 2002 Connecticut Section PGA Championship.

With golf instruction being such a visual practice, one might think it would be difficult to explain how to cure quirks over the phone. But not so, says Whaley.

"We have so many students, especially juniors, who call from tournaments and the only connection you really had used to be the telephone," she said. "Now with iChat and Windows-based programs with cameras we can talk to them with video instead of over the phone.

"Obviously tonight that wasn't an option. Honestly though, if somebody can describe their faults -- as teachers we're used to teaching audio/visual people, kinesthetic people who only learn through feel and auditory people --
it's pretty easy for us to make the pictures back for what the people are telling us they do. If someone has a fault, we try to turn it into pictures for them and it works."

Ron Philo Jr., winner of the 2006 PGA Professional National Championship, was one of 60 PGA Professionals who volunteered two hours of his time to participate in the Hotline.

"I think the Hotline provides a great starting point," Philo said. "This game poses so many issues for so many people. We all want to compare ourselves to what the guys on TV are doing. To be able to get just a little bit of help and kind of break the ice on the Hotline, can probably lead to some more personal time with our members and their home locations."

While he didn't receive any off-the-wall questions, Philo did say some of the calls made him realize what a small world it is.

"You know, the six degrees of separation," he said. "I've been fortunate enough to have some exposure, so people will call and say, 'Hey, I recognize your name. Don't you have a sister that plays (Philo's sister is LPGA star Laura Diaz)?' I grew up and worked in upstate New York and I'll be talking to someone from there and then the next thing you know, we know someone in common. It's just amazing how small the world is. You can find that out over the phone line with a total stranger in just a few minutes."

Philo said that many of the calls he received were from people living in the Northeast, wondering what they could do to keep their game sharp over the winter months when the clubs are stuffed in the closet and the courses morph into a winter wonderland.

"I referred at least a couple of people to the MyTPI site," Philo said. "A big focus on what we're talking about at the Summit is fitness and training for golf."

The Titleist Performance Institute's Web site -- MyTPI.com -- says it provides the largest collection of golf-specific health and fitness information from the world's leading experts in the game.

"I think training is something that may have been lost for a long time, or maybe just neglected," Philo said. "Obviously, Gary Player was extremely fit. That was the foundation of his longevity in the game. Concentrating and bringing the focus to that, especially in the offseason, and trying to prepare you're muscular skeletal system to be effective when you utilize it for golf swings is very important. So that's why I'm referring people there."