Endorsement by Mike Hebron - Excerpt from Mike's new book "Golf Swing Secrets and Lies - Six Timeless Lessons".

Endorsement by Jack Kuykendall - The world's leading scientific teacher.

ENDORSEMENT BY CHUCK HOGAN

Chuck Hogan talks about the revival of the oral story telling tradition. Chuck Hogan has a national reputation as a golf guru and educator. He has mentored both male and female touring pros, which include Colleen Walker, John Cook, Johnny Miller, and Raymond Floyd. He often heads educational seminars as moderator or consultant. His comments follow:

I like "The Country Where Golf is King" for a lot of reasons. Least of all because my name is mentioned. Frankly, I take some offense as being named as a piou know it all. What I do like a great deal is the imagery, the independence of thought, the oral tradition and the break from tradition.

Imagery is the language of our brain. Our verbal interpretations -- the words of our vocabulary -- are but descriptions of our images. In the beginning was not the word. In the beginning was the image. The "word" that followed is a weak transcription of the real event -- the image.

Mr. Einstein who said that imagination is more important than science, and said that science points out what was, imagination points out what will be. Imagination is the long version of imagery.

Imagery is responsible for everything there is. Look around you. Everything that you see is the result of someone's image. The chair that you sit on was originally an image in the inventor's mind. The golf shot that you play, good or bad, is the result of your image. YOU CAN ASSIGN THE SHOT TO YOUR PHYSICAL ELEMENTS, BUT THE IMAGE IS WHAT IS BEHIND THE PHYSICAL PORTION AND WHAT DRIVES THE SYSTEM.

Unfortunately, our culture has suppressed the imagination. In about the fourth grade we are taught to forfeit our imagination to a more highly favored skill called articulation. We are rewarded not for art or dreaming, but for telling the teacher what he told us. The more we match the teachers description, the more we are rewarded with A's and the esteem showered on us for the good grade. Good grade and "good" boy or girl quickly become one and the same. What we call learning isn't learning at all, it is actually conditioning.

Most golfers are the result of conditioning.. They don't play by imagination , in fact they don't "play" at all. MOST GOLFERS GO THROUGH A LITURGY OF VERBAL COMMANDS FROM THE CONDITIONED INPUT OF THE INSTRUCTION INDUSTRY. For the most part, imagination has been systematically suppressed which not only victimizes the golfers, but their children as well.

I APPLAUD THE EFFORTS OF ANY LITERATURE THAT BRINGS BACK IMAGERY, IMAGINATION AND THE ORAL TRADITION THEREOF. When the little girl says, "I like radio better than television because the pictures are brighter," she has said it all. Here is a creature of imagination and the child of imagination is never lacking in options. The child bound to description can only win or lose.

THE RECENT TRADITION OF GOLF INSTRUCTION HAS DEPRIVED GOLFERS OF THE RICHNESS OF THE GAME. The game is really the game between the ears. By reducing golf to a bunch of angles and positions, golf ceases to be golf, instead it becomes a technique. Hence, golf follows the disaster of the technical approach to humanity.

The idea that technology is going to make our lives better and more enriching is mankinds greatest failure. With the advent of the internet, we can now "communicate" totally without the human element in place. Words on a page without inference, body language, and eye contact is not "communication.", it is just words on a page. The great void is not noticing how you say what you say. AS A RESULT LIFE CHEAPENS BECAUSE ANOTHER'S EMPATHY FOR YOU IS LOST.

I happen to be a great fan of "The Country Where Golf is King". I'm not talking about the title. I AM TALKING ABOUT THE REAL EXPERIENCE. HELL I CAN HARDLY FIND GOLF ANYWHERE TODAY. What I find is golf carts, cement paths, onboard distance computers and beverage cars. This is all fine, but it isn't about golf , it's about money. I'm not oppossed to money until it gets in the way of golf and it certainly is in the way of golf. If you don't understand that statement than you certainly are not going to understand this book.

Finally, I am a fan of the Moe Norman motion. Why? Because it is simple. It has fewer moving parts than the traditional golf swing. Therefore it is easier to execute. I am not saying that the traditional swing can't be learned, it is simply that it takes more time and discipline to learn it than the Norman motion. It is as simple as that! It is interesting that every instructor in America will say "keep it simple" yet none of them seem to be able to follow their own advice.

I hope that the readers of this book get confused, then lost and then finally absorbed. I hope that it rekindles their imaginations.

Chuck Hogan... May 1999.

Awesome, huh?

PS. Chuck is an NG spokesman and appears on their "Lifetime of Better Golf" tapes and has made an awesome audio tape for Natural Golf. For CGers being in the "zone" is a mystical experience. But at the end of his audio tape he defines "the zone" in words you can understand.You can order it at naturalgolf.com