Here's an exclusive article from our friend Larry Baush which details his experiences as a young aspiring golfer under the tutelage of our good friend, Carl Welty. Larry is a great writer (much better than I am) and will be contributing some pieces from time to time.
Learning at the Knee of Carl Welty
By Larry Baush
I strolled into the trailer that served as the temporary clubhouse at the new Meridian Valley Country Club in Kent, Washington on an early summer day in 1970 to be greeted by the new assistant pro, Carl Welty. With a huge smile and a friendly demeanor, Carl asked me about my game. After talking for a few minutes I sat down at one of the small tables in the room that served as the restaurant to wait for my buddies to arrive for our golf game. I picked up one of the golf magazines from the pile on the table and began flipping through the pages.
I began studying one of the ubiquitous how-to instructional articles that was lavishly illustrated with the key swing items of the article. Behind me, I heard Carl say, “What are you wasting your time on that garbage for?”
After I expressed the notion that I could learn something from the article, Carl said, “How can you learn anything from drawings? If you want to learn about the golf swing, you have to look at pictures.”
And with that I was introduced to the teaching philosophy of Carl Welty. As he took me under his wing and taught me, I learned that the only reliable information about the golf swing was derived from pictures and video. Carl was all about positions in the swing and these positions were achieved by all the great players despite their individual swings. Carl had a vast library of swing sequence pictures of the star PGA Tour players as well as shoe boxes filled with 8mm film that he recorded while caddying on the tour.
Within a very short time, Carl would take me, and my friends, to the practice tee and using a multiple lens Polaroid camera, recorded swing sequences of our swings. We then compared our swing positions to those of our heroes on tour. Carl quickly identified that I was a “right arm below the left” swinger. Looking straight on you could easily see my right arm bending below my left arm on the backswing.
“Look through all these pictures of the pros,” he instructed. “Do you see any of them with their right arm below their left on the backswing? If they don’t do it, you shouldn’t either.”
I began clipping every swing sequence I could find in the golf magazines. Carl continued to record us with the Polaroid camera, and later one of the first video disc machines available on the market. Similar to the technology that was revolutionizing the instant replay on televised sports at the time, this video disc recorder was mounted on a cart with a small black-and-white screen. The great thing about this recorder, in addition to the quick replay, was that you could slow the golf swing down to frame-by-frame speed without any blurring or distortion.
Carl would set up his hand cranked film editor on top of the video disc cart and you could compare your swing frame-by-frame with one of the pros from his vast collection of filmed swings. He advised to choose a pro with a similar body type to try and emulate.
I worked through that summer, and the next, to eliminate my right arm below the left problem and eventually got my arm positions correct. My golf game improved dramatically and I was hooked. I spent every spare moment on the range with that video disc cart. Carl would give me and my friends a quarter from the till to put into the machine that dispensed range balls, and we figured a way to push that quarter in just far enough to activate the release of the balls but not so far that the quarter would drop into the coin collection tray. We would casually enter the pro shop and give the quarter back to Carl who would wink and laugh before we’d leave for the range to beat balls.
Carl began using me as a caddy for the weekly pro-ams played in the area and eventually we made a trip to Spokane, Washington, about 5 hours east of Seattle where I caddied as he played in the Lilac City Open. This was my first exposure to a tournament that featured elite amateurs and professionals. We would go out for dinner with other pros and the discussion around the table was consumed with talk about the golf swing. Other pros knew of Carl’s work with video and had plenty of questions to ask him while I sat there and soaked up the discussion like a sponge. Just through osmosis I was gaining a deep understanding of the golf swing.
Carl eventually landed a head pro job at Skagit Valley Golf and Country Club in Burlington, Washington, about 2 hours north of Seattle. I would make the trip up and stay with Carl and help around the shop. He equipped a room in the basement of the clubhouse with a net and his video disc machine as well as a new piece of equipment – a radar swing speed machine. One day he took me down into the basement and told me I couldn’t come up until I registered 100 mph on the radar machine. Using the video disc recorder and referring back to his 8mm films, I tried everything I could to increase my swing speed.
After hours of trial and error, I discovered that a wider turn and a higher hand position at the top of the backswing increased my clubhead speed. Finally I registered 100 mph on the radar machine. I went upstairs and dragged Carl down to witness the red numbers on the radar machine that read 100 mph.
When the Washington State Open visited Meridian Valley, now featuring a brand-new large clubhouse, Carl stayed at my family’s home on the 14th fairway. One night he invited Steve Cole, a prominent elite amateur player who later founded Redbird Golf Company, and Jim McLean, another top amateur player, for dinner. The meal featured one or the other of these players gripping a knife like a golf club and either making a point or asking a question about the golf swing. My parents and I sat listening to all the theories about the golf swing that these three great golf minds bandied about. Eventually, Carl said, “Come on, I’ll show you,” and we all moved out to the backyard. The next thing we knew, we were all hitting balls down the 14th fairway toward the pond in the distance. When the demonstration was complete, I walked down the fairway to shag the balls we’d hit.
Jim McLean later went on to found one of the prominent teaching schools in the country and Carl eventually joined him as an instructor. McLean often credits Carl with teaching him how to use video in teaching the golf swing and the importance of the key swing positions that all good players exhibit. McLean’s book, Eight Step Swing is a direct result of his collaboration with Welty.
You could not spend any amount of time with Carl without learning about the golf swing. And really, when it came right down to the nuts and bolts of the swing, for Carl it was quite simple. All the good players reached certain positions at exactly the same point in the golf swing. The right arm cannot be seen below the left arm on the backswing yet still achieves a perfect “L” shape at the top of the backswing. The left wrist maintains an angle as the downswing begins eliminating any tendency to “cast” the club. A slight squatting of the hips begins the hip turn on the downswing (think Sam Snead). And so on, and so on.
I was so lucky to have fallen in with Carl Welty. He taught me not only the golf swing, but gave me the analytic ability to correct swing flaws as they occur. Even to this day I only need a video camera to get me back on track when I’m swinging poorly.
Carl is annually listed on the Top 100 Instructors in America list in both Golf Digest and Golf Magazine. The list of players he has worked with is quite impressive and includes Fred Couples, Greg Norman, Anthony Kim, Ben Crane, Gene Littler, Tom Kite and Brad Faxon to name just a few. If you want to get your swing on track, in a short amount of time, look him up. You can find him at the Jim McLean Golf School in La Quinta, California. He and McLean have a Facebook page with lots of good info at
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Carl-Welty-Jim-McLean-Lead-Master-Instructor/204245372945788. You can contact Carl at cewelty@dc.rr.com.
Larry Baush has written Uncorked, The Life and Times of Champagne Tony Lema and is currently looking for an agent and/or publisher. Larry has been playing golf since 1964 and currently plays out of Rainier Golf and Country Club in Seattle, Washington. Larry can be contacted at lbaush@clearwire.net.
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