Jim Hardy is on most short lists of great golf instructors, and any such roster that does not include his name is incomplete. Few people wear as many hats in the golf industry, and none wear them as well.

"He's the reason I'm in golf today," said Jim Murphy, another regular on those lists of "golf's top teachers." "He was the pro at Exmoor Country Club (in Highland Park, Ill.) when I was coming up. He's the Einstein of golf instruction."

In The Plane Truth for Golfers, the nation's best-seller in its category during the three weeks it has been in bookstores and available online, Hardy shares a critical fundamental of his teaching philosophy.

Golf swings can be quite dissimilar, he says, so long as they produce a repeatable impact. That repetition either can be achieved through miraculous athletic ability, which few golfers possess, or by beginning and executing each swing in similar fashion.

Two types of swings

At their cores, Hardy says, all swings can be classed as either one-plane or two-plane, and that relationship refers to the positions of the torso and shoulders. A one-plane swing requires more athleticism and greater flexibility. The two-plane swing is more upright; it allows the shoulders and arms to work somewhat independently from the torso.

A golfer since his teens, Hardy played on the PGA Tour from 1968-1973. If he had been a better putter, Hardy says in interviews, he might have stayed out longer.

"His `secret' is that he came out and said there's more than one way (to swing a golf club correctly)," said Murphy, who was at Redstone Golf Club on Tuesday to work with one of his students, Tom Byrum.

Hardy has five thoroughbreds in this week's race: Peter Jacobsen, Tom Pernice, Scott McCarron, Olin Brown and Paul Azinger.

McCarron played extremely well through much of his career but "nearly lost his card" during a recent slump, Murphy said. Since coming to Hardy , McCarron has regained his championship form and through just eight events this year has three top-25 finishes.

Jacobsen is Hardy 's student and business partner, and he has parlayed Hardy 's knowledge of the golf swing into a professional career that has lasted nearly 30 years.

Jacobsen took his game to the Champions Tour this past year, winning the U.S. Senior Open and picking off more than $1 million in prize money.

"Jim Hardy is the most knowledgeable golf-swing scholar you've never heard of," Jacobsen writes in the book's forward. "A self-promoter he is not."

Indeed, Hardy is the last to raise his voice in a room full of golfers. When he does speak, however, golfers pay strict attention. And now that he's written, people are reading his thoughts on the golf swing.

High praise
"That book is incredible," Murphy said. "It ought to be the handbook for all of golf instruction."

Jacobsen agrees on the importance of The Plain Truth for Golfers: "Jim 's book will be the most influential teaching book since Ben Hogan's Five Lessons," Jacobsen said Tuesday from Redstone Golf Club.

As good as he is at teaching the game, Hardy also has found time to design golf courses.

With help from Jacobsen (in Houston-based Jacobsen Hardy Golf Course Design), he created the 7,508-yard beast at Redstone Golf Club on which the Shell Houston Open will be played this week. It was a Jacobsen-Hardy collaboration also that shaped both tracks at BlackHorse Golf Club.

With layouts also in California, Oregon and Florida, Hardy and Jacobsen incorporate varying levels of difficulty into the holes on their courses.

The objective, Hardy said, is to have a couple of holes on each side that play about a half-stroke tougher than par and a couple more that play about a half-stroke easier. The rest should play roughly to the number.

The trick for golfers on a Hardy course is to determine which holes are which. That's not always easy.

"He's been successful in every part of the business," said Dick Harmon.

When the best in the business sing a man's praises, he must be doing something - or many things, as in Hardy 's case - right. . . .

AUTHORS, AUTHORS

Course architect and former PGA Tour player Jim Hardy and Houston attorney Jeff Kuhn will be at the Shell Houston Open on Friday from 1:30-2:30 p.m. to sign copies of their books. Hardy , who designed the course at Redstone and both tracks at BlackHorse Golf Club with his partner and friend, Peter Jacobsen, wrote The Plane Truth For Golfers. Kuhn, a USGA rules official, wrote The Rules of Golf in Plain English.

What a difference a year makes. First came surgery on his elbow, to clear up injuries caused by beating thousands upon thousands of balls in search of a repeatable swing.

Second was the search itself -- a quest shared, of course, by every person who has ever played the game, and one that, for the 46-year-old from Washington D.C. now living in Hobe Sound, Fla., had turned into a frustrating, and lonely, pursuit. "I resisted for years and years and years working with anybody in particular on my golf game," said Browne. "I had a guy that I worked with up until '97 ... but from '97 on, I was taking bits and pieces from here or there or watching somebody on the range or asking questions, but mostly I was doing it on my own."

The goal of all golfers, adds Hardy, is to first determine which swing type you use, then to practice and ingrain the fundamentals that pertain to your swing method. "When you learn to discard those elements that do not fit your style and adopt those that do, you can begin to practice effectively. If you are practicing only those things that will be successful for you, then you cannot fail to improve."

Browne's search for a consistent swing lead him first to Peter Jacobsen, a close friend and business partner of Hardy's. Jacobsen, whose own swing was remade with help from Hardy, told Browne to pay a visit to the Houston-based former PGA player, who now juggles teaching a handful of PGA players with his day job of designing and managing golf courses.

"I went down and saw Jim and made a commitment to revamping my swing," said Browne on Thursday. "I certainly owe him a great deal of the credit here because you have to make a commitment to doing something like that, but you also have to get good information. There are plenty of teachers out there, who for whatever reason may give the information but their communication with the player doesn't work, and Jim made me understand the things that he wanted me to do."

"Olin was a big mix of one- and two-plane elements and only made it work through a lot of athletic ability to find a correct impact," Hardy recalls of Browne's makeshift, injury-ridden swing at the time. "He was convinced that he could never make the old swing function to the level of the Tour, and if he ever played in another tournament, it would be with a different swing; one that was less dependent on athletic recoverability and was more fundamentally correct."

Says Browne: "He looked at me and said, 'It's simple.' My job is to give you the information, your job is to try and do it better." After a dispiriting '03 season in which he missed 12 of 34 cuts to finish 130th among money leaders, Browne began the process of mending his body and purifying his swing.

"We set about substituting the two-plane elements with one-plane moves (posture more bent over, backswing arms more in and around him, downswing more unwinding of the upper body) in his swing, and by midsummer last year he was a better hitter than ever," says Hardy.

"I've taken his swing theories and tried to apply them to me and my game," says Browne.

A year ago this coming week at the Booz Allen Classic, Browne finished T7, his first top 10 since the SEI Pennsylvania Classic in September, 2002. Three weeks later in Milwaukee he posted a T4, and rounded out the '04 season with another Top 10 by going 68-65-62 at the Franklin Templeton Shootout. For the year, despite ranking 8th in driving accuracy and 12th in greens in regulation with his new one-plane swing, both big improvements over his performances of the past two years, Browne finished just outside the magic top 125 in earnings, taking home $597,034 and 128th position.

"Last year in the mid to late summer I played pretty good golf for an extended period," Browne, says. Now, "I feel like I have a reasonable amount of confidence when I'm doing the things that he has told me will benefit me that I can pull off the shots I'm trying to hit."

Going into this week's play at Pinehurst, Browne is 7th in driving accuracy, 8th in GIR, and in 142nd place among money winners. Putting has been a weakness. He ranked 151st in putts per round in '04, and so far this year is 129th.

"It has taken a while for the playing part to catch up with his swing improvements," says Hardy, who spend Monday and Tuesday at Pinehurst working with Browne, Peter Jacobsen and other plane-minded players. "Olin is a streak putter, and right now he is on a hot streak with the putter. He is also a tough guy competitively and isn't scared of going out and giving it his best shot."

You can't argue with a 59 to make it into the U.S. Open, which Browne shot last week. As Browne told Golf World's Tim Rosaforte following his 73-59 two-round qualifier at Woodmont C.C. in Rockville, Maryland, "The thing I like working with Jim is that I go to the course with a similar thought on a daily basis. He has just a simple philosophy on the swing. He believes in a one-plane swing. It's very simple."

Nor can you argue with a 67-71-72 to be in the penultimate pairing on Sunday at the 2005 U.S. Open. Through three rounds, Browne is in the top 10 in percentage of fairways hit and top 15 greens in regulation. He's averaging just over 27 putts per round (versus Tiger's 33), tied for second with Jason Gore in that key stat category.

"Between his improved hitting, his suddenly good putting streak and his competitive toughness, Olin is hanging in there at the Open," says Hardy. "It couldn't happen to a better guy."

WE NEED TO STOP FLAT-LINING GOLF COURSES

Hardy and Jacobsen formed Houston-based Jacobsen Hardy Golf Course Design in the early 1990s and together they're responsible for more than 15 original designs, including Redstone Golf Club (Dec/Jan 2003), host to the PGA Tour's Shell Houston Open, and Moorpark Country Club (Oct/Nov 2003), which was recently named one of GOLF Magazine's "Top 10 New Courses You Can Play" for 2003. Few course designers come at the craft with Hardy's unique background and perspective. His experience gives him strong feelings about architecture topics, and he shared his vocal views on golf course design with The Golf Insider:

As course architects, Peter Jacobsen and I have our share of pet peeves and right there at the head of the list is something we call "flat-lining." We see this a great deal in our course renovation work: Well meaning green committees identify holes that play too hard, so they tweak them to make them play easier; or they identify holes that play too easy and make them harder. Pretty soon all the holes play to the same level of difficulty and you've "flat-lined" the patient.

As you may have guessed, Peter and I are dead set against flat-lining, as it pertains to both course difficulty and appearance.

In terms of how a course plays, we prefer a combination of defensive (difficult) and offensive (potential for birdie/eagle) holes. Difficult holes from start to finish -- like all work and no play -- make a golf course dull. When I first played Firestone, it was clear to me the course had been flat-lined.

Think about the Masters vs. the U.S. Open and the type of golf those tournament courses invariably produce. The Open is all about defended par on each and every hole, at all costs. If an Open layout happens to include a short par-5, the USGA makes it a par-4. This better defends par, of course, but the resulting golf can be something of a death march. At Augusta, Amen Corner is so-called for a reason; holes 10-12 are very difficult. But 13 and 15 are redemption, or offensive, holes. This combination of offensive and defensive golf is exciting -- for touring professionals and amateurs alike -- so that's the sort of course design we practice at Jacobsen Hardy.

You can see the results at places like Redstone GC, which plays host to the Shell Houston Open this month (April 22-25). Redstone's finishing trio, all par-4s, measure 474, 475 and 448-yards from the Tour Tees. That's our Amen Corner right there. But we designed fairly redemptive holes at 14 and 15, a short par-4 and short par-5. For both the Tour player and the average golfer, holes 10-13 play to a standard of par, but you need to score on 14 and 15 because the last three are tough.

This aversion to flat-lining applies to the look of our golf courses, as well. How many times, for example, have you heard architects boast about the "overall" style and/or design theme of a new golf course? Well, Peter and I don't worship the conventional wisdom. We purposely design our courses without a single unifying style, much less a consistent set of design characteristics.

At most of the new layouts I see today, once I've played two holes I pretty much know what the green settings and bunker styles will be for the next 16 holes. We don't do that. We consciously vary the visual and playing experience on our courses. We have greens absolutely dead on grade; we have some up the in the air; we have some with backstop mounding and some without.

Last year we unveiled an 18-hole semi-private layout north of Los Angeles called Moorpark CC. I defy anyone to play that golf course and pick out a unifying theme. For example, we consciously varied the appearance and depth of our bunkers: circles and ovals, capes and bays, peanuts and free-form waste-area bunkers. Some are so deep you have to wedge out; some you can putt out of. Bunkers should work within the context of each golf hole, and every hole we design is different. That's part of the reason Moorpark has been so well received.

Peter and I are sensitive to flat-lining because we see it a lot on Tour. In an effort to keep scores from getting "too low", redemption holes are toughened, fairways are narrowed and pins are tucked. Pretty soon, the course is flat-lined and that's bad enough. What's really scary is that many architects today are designing new golf courses the same way, without the variety -- in challenge and visual appeal -- that makes golf so enjoyable.

John Davis
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 31, 2005 12:00 AM

Golfers usually turn to club pros when they need help with their swing, but where do the pros go when they need help in teaching?

In growing numbers, they are sitting at the feet of Jim Hardy, a former PGA Tour pro whose "plane and simple" theory might provide the answer to why most golfers struggle to improve.

After nearly 30 years of studying hundreds of golf swings and observing dozens of instructors, the swing guru from Houston has adopted the theory that all golfers use a one-plane or a two-plane swing - and that the concepts of those two don't mix.

"You can use either one and you can be successful with either one, as long as you don't mix and match," Hardy said. "The elements are not compatible and, as a result, there are probably more people being hurt by instruction than at any time in history.

"If you look at guys like Seve Ballesteros, Ian Baker-Finch, Chip Beck and David Duval - they have been taught right out of their business. They have lost their game. Duval was the No. 1 player in the world, and he didn't just fall out of bed one day and forget how to play. What happened is he has mixed two-plane issues with a one-plane swing."

The basic principles, Hardy contends, are these:


• One-plane swing: Golfers turn their shoulders around a bent-over spine and swing their arms around their upper torso onto the same plane as the shoulder turn. Arms swing around the body like a baseball swing, but bent at the waist. The club arc is closer to a merry-go-round than a Ferris wheel. This swing requires more flexibility and strength than two-plane.


• Two-plane swing: Golfers swing the arms on an upright angle, while the shoulders swing on a flatter angle. The club arc is closer to a Ferris wheel than a merry-go-round. It requires more timing, tempo, rhythm and balance to be successful because the arc is narrower and steeper than one-plane.

Mike LaBauve of Scottsdale, who is listed among the top 100 instructors in America by Golf magazine, is among Hardy's disciples.

"What he is doing is going to revolutionize the way the game is taught," LaBauve said. "It's so simple, I can't believe more of us didn't think of it sooner."



Hardy's concepts are explained in his new book, The Plane Truth, which is available from amazon.com for $12.95 and is scheduled to be in bookstores by mid-April. It will be excerpted in the May issue of Golf Digest.

Although most of his time is devoted to course design, Hardy works with 12 touring pros and conducts seminars with club pros interested in his methods.

Hardy's obsession began in 1978 when he asked famed British instructor John Jacobs about the powerful swings of Ben Hogan and Sam Snead.

"What John said, was, 'Well, unlike most people, they swing on one plane,' " Hardy said. "That one casual comment shaped the next 20 years of my career.

"I spent several years just going out and watching how other pros taught and, especially in the early 1990s, I was horrified by what I saw. A lot of people have reached the point where they are afraid that taking a lesson will only make things worse, and I don't blame them."

Other one-plane swingers include Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els. Successful two-plane swingers include Hale Irwin, Tom Watson and the late Payne Stewart.

Hardy advocates a one-plane swing, in part because it leads to fewer injuries, but, he said, "Either one is fine, and you can play great golf with either one, as long as it is repetitive."

Hardy's way

On the bookshelf

NORTON, MASS. - Olin Browne no longer has to write letters to PGA Tour events begging for a tee time. He doesn't have to sweat out the final two months of the season, wondering if he'll earn enough money to keep his card.

Browne took care of all those worries Monday afternoon, when he emerged from a five-way tie for the lead and closed with a 4-under 67 to win the Deutsche Bank Championship by one shot over Jason Bohn.

"It's a little bit different feeling to start out with a lead and play with it all day long and then finish it off," said Browne, who finished at 14-under 270. "I couldn't be happier about the way I played."

It was his third win, and by far the most satisfying.

Not because of the $990,000 check, more than he has won in any of his previous 11 seasons. Not because the victory gave him a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour. Not even because he is 46 and uncertain how many victories, if any, were left for him.

This was about validation.

Browne, who failed to keep his PGA Tour card the last two years, was so fed up with his game that he went to see Houston swing coach Jim Hardy some 18 months ago, determined to either improve or give up. It was a risky move at his age, with no time to waste.

It paid off in a big way on the TPC of Boston, where Browne was atop the leader board the final three days and kept his nose out front with a swing he could trust and a 15-foot birdie putt that all but clinched his victory.

"This validates a year and a half of busting my tail," he said.

When it was over, he was reminded of a line from Tom Hanks in the movie A League of Their Own .

"Hard is what makes it good," he said.

Tiger Woods, the first-round leader, was never a factor over the final three days. He shot 71 to tie for 40th.

Jim Hardy settled in front of his television Monday afternoon to watch the PGA Tour. By the time the last putt fell, by the time Olin Browne had emerged from the rubble that was his career to win the Deutsche Bank Championship, Hardy's eyes felt as if they'd endured an Old Yeller marathon.

"I had tears in my eyes watching Olin," Hardy said. "It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable."

Believe it, Ripley: Browne won for the first time in this millennium. Browne finished one stroke ahead of Jason Bohn, ending a winless drought of 193 starts. The victory came at age 46, less than two years after Browne did a particularly desperate thing.

"I called Jim Hardy," Browne said.

Hardy is the Houston-based instructor of the tour's downtrodden. David Leadbetter, Hank Haney and Butch Harmon can have at the tour's upper crust. Hardy is too old-school to be trendy, demanding his pupils commit to his way of doing things without reservation. He shuns videotape and computer graphics and one-size-fits-all instruction, opting for a common-sense approach to the mysteries of the swing.

'Last-resort types'

"I had had it," Brown said. "Finally, I just sucked so bad I couldn't do it anymore. He helped pull me back."

Hardy rarely takes on a player who doesn't have the seal of approval of his star pupil and good friend, Peter Jacobsen. The list of Hardy boys includes Scott McCarron, Duffy Waldorf, Tom Pernice Jr., Paul Azinger and Jay Delsing.

"I tell the guys, 'I'm going to get you to hit the ball better than you ever have,' " Hardy said. "How you look accomplishing the result is not important. The final arbiter is the flight of the ball. I want the flight to get better, and I want it to be more repetitive.

"I'm not getting them in predefined positions in a model. I think Lee Trevino swung beautifully from end to end. And so did Arnold Palmer. And they didn't look anything alike."

Too much of today's instruction, Hardy insists, is geared toward standardized swings modeled after the flavor of the day — be it Tiger Woods, Adam Scott or Ernie Els. Hardy said many of the prevailing theories fly in the face of golf's being a side-on game in which players do not directly face their targets.

"So much instruction in the past 15 years has been to get players to swing on the target line with their arms in front of them — slow down the body rotation," said Hardy, who advocates a circular swing motion. "In my estimation, you've seen a lot of careers ruined."

No more old swing

Hardy answered the question with questions. Was Browne hitting the ball better than ever? Did Browne's new swing look better than the old one? Browne answered the questions affirmatively — and proceeded to shoot 59 in a U.S. Open qualifier. He led after the first round at Pinehurst, led halfway through the tournament and was tied for second entering the final round. A 10-over-par 80 on Sunday dropped Browne into a tie for 23rd.

Instead of fixating on the final 18 holes, Browne took heart in the way he'd put himself in contention on one of the most difficult courses he'd ever seen. Browne insists — and Hardy agrees — he actually struck the ball better on Sunday at Pinehurst than he did in the middle two rounds.

"I was solid," Browne said. "It was just one of those deals. It's hard to explain it, but, hey, that's all part of the process, too. It's part of paying your dues, part of sucking it up, and this game teaches you a lot about being resilient and about handling ... adversity is the wrong word, because we're playing golf. People in New Orleans are dealing with adversity.

"But golf teaches you how to embrace the concept that you're not going to get it right every time. And what makes it really hard is it's not a reaction sport. This is a premeditation sport. You're walking down the fairway, considering what your options are on the next shot that you're going to hit , how you're going to handle it, where you're going to go with it, what you're going to do — bah dah, bah dah, bah dah — get your head handed to you a lot out here."

Browne handled everything he needed to Monday with aplomb, breaking out of a five-way tie for the lead by shooting a 4-under 67. Just like that, Browne went from 119th on the money list and battling to earn this tour card to 39th.

And made a grown man want to cry.

"It's what we've been working for," Hardy said. "We've not been working just to get his card back or anything like that. We had the same goals for him that we had for Peter (Jacobsen): Let's say you haven't played your best golf. Let's say your best golf is in front of you. And let's see if we can make that happen."

Hardy can't help but wonder what will happen with his newest pupil. Just nine days ago, Curtis Strange came to Hardy in desperate need of help. Strange, the 1988 and 1989 U.S. Open champion, has struggled so mightily as a rookie on the Champions Tour that he has talked about giving up competitive golf. He surged into contention this past weekend at the First Tee Open at Pebble Beach before finishing 23rd.

" You hate to see a guy who was the best player in the world who can't hit it," Hardy said. "When I saw him hit it, it was embarrassing. I don't know where that's going to lead Curtis. I do know that's a great challenge."