The PGA of Sweden holds an annual teaching summit and brings in speakers from around the world. The Swedes are on the cutting edge and this summit keeps them there. The presenters were the TPI co-founders - Dr. Greg Rose and Dave Phillips, Christer Olhsson and me. We took the train from Copenhagen to Halmstad on Wednesday, the summit started on Thursday morning. Little did I know, I was in for a great ride.
When we arrived in Halmstad Sweden, I was amazed at many things. The town itself was founded in the 1300’s and where we stayed was the top resort in Sweden, the Tylosand. It’s right next to the Golf Klub of Sweden and the Klub and the resort were home to last year’s Solheim Cup. The hotel is literally on the beach and the dunes remind me of Kiawah here in the states. The only slight bummer was the weather was a bit chilly, around 35-40 F. The Swedes were just arriving for the Summit and they look just like many of the Swedish players you see on the PGA Tour: Sharp dressers, euro-styling, and they all speak English. We had dinner on Wednesday night with the other speakers and members of the PGA of Sweden’s Board. That night at dinner I spoke at length with Greg about Long Driving, he’s worked with many long drivers and he has developed tests and workouts for them. It was a blast for me, to have someone to talk to that was an expert in the physical demands of long driving. Later in the evening, I was introduced to a Swede named Kjell, he was the mental coach of Bjorn Borg and also coached Annika and Nick Faldo. We talked about Tour Tempo, and he really summed up why Tour Tempo works, ”most golfers just have parts, set up-mechanics-etc…- they’re all just parts – the tempo is the glue that makes the parts whole”. That makes so much sense, Tour Tempo synergizes your parts and I think that is why so many golfers improve so quickly. He also had a very interesting story about a psychologist that would give his pupil’s many things to do at once, and this would take the left brain and engage it. Then, while the left brain was “busy” he would say and do things to “get to” the right brain and had great results. We both agreed the Tones of Tour Tempo did a similar thing. When your left brain hears the tones (for those of you who have read The Inner Game of Golf by Timothy Gallwey, I’m talking about Self 1), he thinks “oh, I must listen and obey the tones”, he becomes busy and absorbed, then while he’s not looking, the right brain (aka the body or Self 2) can do it’s thing! I think this is the other big benefit I constantly hear about from Tour Tempo users: “I don’t have time for other thoughts, I can swing freely” and this produces great results. My host, Johan Hampf, was amazing and such a gracious ambassador for the PGA of Sweden and for that matter all of Sweden. He had help from one of the top teachers in Sweden, Matz Evensson. Johan and Matz are ahead of the curve when it comes to teaching and they keep their members on the cutting edge of golf instruction. They’ve instilled a desire for more information and an openness to new ideas. They are my kind of guys.
Saturday morning came around and it was time for my presentation. I was slightly nervous, you could call it excited, but the Swedes were such gracious hosts and I had met many of them, that made me feel better, plus my dad and I can talk for hours about golf, training & tempo. I went on for nearly 3 hours about the in’s and out’s of Tour Tempo and I think they enjoyed it. Funny story, as I was giving my presentation, I would try to make eye contact around the room and I noticed a Swede in the front who was constantly shaking his head in the affirmative. I’d say something and then happen to glance at him and there he was in total agreement. He came up to me afterwards and purchased all of our products and is going to become a certified Tour Tempo Instructor. We’ve had quite a few of the attendees contact us in that regard. They also really loved the Tones and I could tell the Tones must have set in because afterwards at lunch, when I would walk by them they would sing, “dun….dun.dun”. My big moment was over…so I thought…….
On Thursday, Johan had just got word that the final speaker, Jane Story, was ill and could not make it to Sweden. Jane was scheduled to speak after my presentation on Saturday. So, we all decided we would fill that time by doing a “hands on” with Tour Tempo and the TPI. So we took 2 golfers and went to the Halmstad Golf Club (home of last year’s Solheim Cup) and filmed the “before”. Then in the afternoon session on Saturday we’d work our magic, or that was the plan anyway. Our first student was a 35 year old Swedish pro with a 3 handicap. She is a teaching pro in Sweden and when you first see her swing you think, “it looks pretty good.” So, we brought her up on stage and before we showed her swing, Greg took her thru a series of screens/tests and gave her exercises and drills to improve her physical weaknesses. It was now my turn and I counted her swing frames for the entire group. She was a very slow 38/13 tempo, taking her 1.67 seconds of elapsed time. The ratio was close, but she was WAY to slow. We put her on the 24/8 Tones and she immediately improved. We had her swing again with the Tones of 21/7. Her frame counts improved to 21/8 and she was swinging with so much more power. She truly transformed her swing before our very eyes. The crowd actually cheered! (Click here to see her swings before and after, as well as a photo of the trip) The 2nd test subject had good tempo, but was very stiff. I think he’ll improve also, but he needs to maintain his same tempo even when he lengthens his swing.
Did I mention the hotel was incredible and right on the beach? I celebrated the trip with a visit to the spa and a walk on the beach with my wife. The Swedes really took care of us and we look forward to going back one day. We’ve received many emails and Johan has received feedback that this was the best conference they’ve had in the 15 plus years they’ve been doing it. One of the emails was from Matz and he told me that the leading golf psychologist in Sweden had been studying Tour Tempo since last fall:
“John,
Hope all is well. I just received a copy of the latest edition of the Swedish Golf Digest and sure enough, at the very end there is a piece on you!!
Our premiere sports psychologist, Fredrik Wetterstrand, writes a page in Golf Digest every issue. He is very, very good. Anyway, he started to study Tour Tempo this fall, and wrote the piece before he listened to you at our conference. He was very pleased with what you talked about and extremely impressed with what happened to Helen on stage. The whole thing is in Swedish and I will translate it for you in detail, but for now, what he says is basically that you found this 3:1 relation between backswing and downswing and that this is really contrary to what most average golfers believe to be true. More importantly, this could forever kill the myth – “swing slow” and he really thinks this will help every average golfer out there. He writes that you claim to have found “the last secret of the golfswing”, and he thinks that you actually might be right!”
(Click here to see the article)