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Dang Nguyen, 29, is a novice golfer in search of a better game. He’s receiving regular instruction from Jason Taylor, the Southern California PGA’s Golf Professional of the Year. We are monitoring his progress. he wasting of shots around the green has continued for Nguyen. Taylor took him out for a playing lesson but returned him to the practice area after only five holes. Month 6 assessment: “He’s really starting to get it in terms of getting the ball from tee to green,” Taylor said of Nguyen’s progress. “We have eliminated the wild shots and now he is getting the ball around the green in regulation on a consistent basis. Dang’s problem continues to be around the green. He’s just wasting too many shots and you can never score well by doing that. I noticed that it seemed like he had 17 swing thoughts in his head every time he got around the green and it showed in his performance. He seemed paralyzed. I took him off the course because he was just not doing it. I needed to loosen him up. Dang plays basketball with a nice rhythm. I’m working on helping him find that same rhythm on the course.” What they worked on: Nguyen had been given a lot of information in a short period of time and was having trouble deciding what he should be doing. Taylor noted that it appeared Nguyen was “grinding” over short shots and that his over-analysis was not allowing him to react naturally on the course. Keeping it simple was the main goal. Nguyen’s take: “It’s definitely a case of not being able to see or feel the shots around the green and that’s killing me right now. When I visualize the shot in my head first, I do much better. When I don’t see it, it can get pretty ugly. Unfortunately, I’m new at this, so I still get in situations where I’ve never experienced certain shots before and I just don’t know what to do. Jason’s advice for short game practice has helped a lot. He has me experimenting with a lot of different clubs around the green, so I’m learning how all the clubs react differently. He’s also got me putting balls around the hole in a 4- or 5-foot circle and I practice those so I see all the different angles and breaks. It’s helping. I can feel something good coming. I can tell I’m close to breaking 100.” Taylor’s final thought: “Most beginners don’t add their score very well. They forget a stroke here or there, but Dang is great about it. He shot his best score recently, a 107 at Trilogy and he knows that he can continue to shave strokes off his score by working on his short game. When I played with him, he hit a 5-iron into the wind on a tough par 3. It was a shot that a player would hit. He’s gaining distance and doing it with less effort.” Jason Taylor can be reached at Jurupa Hills Country Club at (951) 685-7214. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT New teaching center has Creste Verde owner beaming about renovation changes at the historic course The transformation of Creste Verde Golf Course continues, with management unveiling a new practice center and golf school in May. The practice center is at the top of a 70-foot hill at the end of the facility’s 270-yard driving range. It will be used for public lessons as well as students of the Get A Grip Foundation. The center, designed by owner Jay Miller, includes a 50-yard golf hole, a sand bunker with a synthetic green, a chipping green with fringe and rough, putting greens, 25 hitting stalls and a video trailer to tape and show golf swings. “I think you could put this practice facility against any other in the Inland Empire and we’d come out on top,” said Miller, who hired Pat Burke, a 12-year veteran of the PGA and Nationwide tours, as director of instruction. The teaching center and golf school are the latest ways Miller is changing the course, which is one of the country’s oldest. Originally designed by actor Randolph Scott in 1926, the course was a hangout for Hollywood stars in its earliest days. But over time, as the area around it grew, the course began to deteriorate. Miller, who bought the course in 2002, has spent more than $2 million upgrading the course, clubhouse and practice facilities. “When I bought this course it was the worst golf course I’d seen or played in my entire life” Miller said. “And now I’m getting comments all the time from players who can’t believe this is the same course they used to play.” — JOEL BEERS |
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