Soon I developed a reputation as both an accomplished club fitter and a skilled club maker. I took pride in my ability to custom build frequency matching golf clubs to the most exacting specifications.

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While it was a fun and exciting time in the golf industry, I soon became aware of something that surprised me. While most golfers were now playing with far better equipment, they weren’t scoring any better.

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Despite all the technological advances in golf clubs and the new widespread use of video cameras and launch monitors, the average handicap never dropped.  Year after year, it stayed the same.

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In 2004, I visited friends in the Los Angeles area and played several of the golf courses I grew up playing in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  On that trip I had a “light bulb moment”.

 

I remembered that when I was growing up no one was ever fitted for golf clubs. In fact, club fitting was not even a thing.

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Yet, the average golfer back then scored just as well as the modern average golfer. The modern player, however, played with fitting golf clubs, oversized adjustable driver heads, ultra-light graphite shafts, oversized forgiving iron heads, hybrids, a range finder, a GPS system, and a vastly superior golf ball!

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How was this possible? 

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It became obvious to me that, with regards to improvement, the golf industry was leading the average golfer down the wrong path.  While there was a lot of money to be made selling “high-tech” golf clubs, golf was not about technology. 

 

That realization led me to publishing my first book on golf in 2007, The Mad Science of Golf: on moving past golf industry hype and learning to play better golf.

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Wanting to be honest and help golfers better understand the game, I gave a free copy to all my customers and every golfer I met.

  

As my book sold through Amazon, I started to be contacted by golfers around the world. Golfers who had grown tired of continually buying instructional videos and golf clubs that never lived up to the hype.

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While everyone enjoyed my book, it only served to stop them from traveling further down the wrong path. They still wanted to know how to lower their average score. What, they would ask, was the true path to improvement?

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Searching for an answer led me to understand the game differently. For the first time I understood golf to be a “game” that was “played”; and there was only one way to improve, you had to become a better “player”. 

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It was now obvious that neither golf clubs nor swing changes made the golfer a better player. While those changes may provide short-term improvement, ultimately the player would always revert to their original level of play.

 

This is because they hadn’t improved their “playing ability”. They were simply the same player with new clubs or a different looking swing.

 

So how would a golfer become a better player?

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With that question in mind, I studied the greatest players throughout the history of the game. I wanted to understand how their approach to the game was so different. What made them so much better than everyone else?

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I also studied instructors who achieved great success working with average golfers. Legendary instructors like Ernest Jones, Manuel de la Torre, and Harvey Penick.   As well as the coaches I believed to be the most respected at that time.  Coaches like Lynn Marriott & Pia Nielson, Fred Shoemaker, and Tim Gallwey.  How was their approach to teaching so different?

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I discovered that significant long-term improvement was not related to external transformation - changing your clubs and swing; it was related to internal transformation - changing your mindset, belief system, and understanding of how the game is best played.

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In an effort to share my findings, in 2012 I published my second book on golf, Understanding Golf: learn to significantly lower your average score without hitting the ball farther, changing your swing, or buying expensive golf clubs.

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That year I also opened Phil’s Custom Golf Shop at the beautiful Goose Creek Golf Course in Mira Loma, California. I still wanted to help average golfers grow their game, but this time I took a more holistic approach.

 

With this new understanding, I moved from being a club maker, club fitter, and swing instructor, to becoming a true golf coach.

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While still helping my students develop their ball-striking skills, I stayed focused primarily on developing their inner skills.  I made it a priority that each of my students acquired a far better understanding of both golf as a game and themself as a golfer.

 

Searching to continuously improve my skill as a golf coach, led me to meet British PGA professional Brian Sparks in 2017. He had named his coaching philosophy Easiest Swing and I relate to it immediately.

 

For me, Brian provided the missing pieces of the puzzle. His Easiest Swing approach to coaching perfectly complemented what I had discovered when researching my second book

 

I worked with him for years, took his extensive certification course, and proudly became a certified Easiest Swing Instructor. To date, I’ve taught the Easiest Swing principles not only to golfers throughout Southern California, but also to golfers flying into California from over 20 states.

 

I work with golfers at every age and skill level, but in recent years I’ve become known as a senior golf specialist.  Being a senior myself, allows me to better understand Senior Golf Instruction as well as Senior Golf Club Fitting and Building. 

 

As we age the game starts to present new challenges. These challenges, however, are easily overcome through simply adjusting our priorities and style of play. I believe, with regards to golf, getting older is only a problem for those who resist change.

 

I still build custom fit golf clubs, but I’ve moved past the hype. I no longer work with brand-name companies that sell mass-produced golf clubs.

 

For years I've worked exclusively with a small golf club company named KZG. I believe in the quality of their products and I've developed a great relationship with the owner, Jennifer King, and her highly dedicated employees.

 

Ultimately, I just want my students to play with golf clubs that are easy for them to use.  With that single goal in mind, I help them discover the set composition and club specifications that best complement their game and natural swing motion. Very often all I do is make slight adjustments (if needed) to the set they already use.

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To provide golfers with a better understanding of golf club design and fitting, in 2019, I wrote my third book on golf, Rethinking Golf Clubs: an inside perspective on the confusing and very misunderstood world of golf clubs.  I give a free copy to everyone who visits my shop.

 

My golf shop is in “The Nest” building on the Goose Creek driving range.  I coach Thursday through Saturday.

 

The next time you’re at the course, stop by and say hi.  I look forward to meeting you!