Steve Bann works on Hee Young Park’s pitching

A big thanks to Pure Golf Blog for the following content:

Welcome to the latest episode of our Fly on the Wall Series, where we eavesdrop on PGA Tour coach Steve Bann as he works with some of his professional clients.

In this episode, Steve is working with LPGA Tour player Hee Young Park on her pitching and chipping. Steve is working to help simplify Hee Young’s technique so she can “free it up” and just concentrate on where she wants to land the golf ball. This is a money shot- having a good pitching game will help you make a bunch of birdies on par 5’s and short par 4’s while also helping you save par on long par 4’s or when you get into trouble off the tee. Enjoy!:

Watch a PGA Tour coach at work

We would like to thank Pure Golf Blog for the following content:

At Pure Golf Training, we are always trying to find new ways to bring you golf training information. We understand that not everyone has the opportunity to train with a PGA Tour coach, and that is why we took the opportunity to film Steve Bann coaching some very talented young Korean golfers at his academy in Melbourne.

Over the next few days, we will bring you a number of free videos through which you can be a fly on the wall as Bann teaches his players a number of different skills including putting, short game, long iron shots, swing plane and much much more.

Now this is all unscripted and put together with minimum fuss- we won’t be winning any filming awards any time soon but we’re sure you will pick up some great tips for your own game and enjoy the experience of watching a master at work. It’s the next best thing to being there!

Let’s start with the first video. In this video Steve is teaching Korean LPGA Tour player how to make the correct transition from the top of the backswing. This move sets up the sequencing of the body and helps drop the club on plane halfway down while also helping the golfer generate maximum power through the golf ball. Basically, it’s an awesome drill!

Mental game lifts Villegas to third win on PGA Tour

Dr. Gio Valiante knows the value of finding creative ways to drive a message home to a client- each person is unique and sometimes you’ve got to think outside the box to get your point across. So about a month ago, he took one of his star clients, Columbian USPGA Tour player Camilo Villegas out onto the practice green and told him they would play a little game:

For every putt Villegas made, he would get a rare silver coin with a value of $500 and eventually a $1000 gold coin. Villegas drained 12 straight putts of different lengths.

Then, Dr.Valiante took his wallet and told him that for every putt that he missed, he would lose $100, and then $200, $300 and so on. “He missed on his third putt” said Valiante.

The purpose of the exercise? It showed Camilo that he plays much better golf when he feels like he has nothing to lose and only something to gain.

Fast forward a month ahead and Villegas closed out his third victory on the USPGA Tour at the Honda Classic with a final round of -2 (68) to finish at -13 and 5 shots ahead of American Anthony Kim.

All week, Villegas spoke about a shift in his mental attitude as being the main reason behind his improved play from last season. He mentioned the importance of appreciating the opportunity that he has to play on the best tour in the world, and basically being positive and going for his shots without fear. This, of course, is a central principle of Dr. Gio Valiante’s “Fearless Golf” philosophy.

This philosophy fits in perfectly into the Pure Golf Training program, and that is why the golf training academy is proud to have Dr. Valiante on its coaching staff. “Gio gets it. Playing good golf is all about trying TO do the right thing, not trying NOT to make mistakes” says Pure Golf Training co-founder and USPGA Tour coach Steve Bann.

“You need to make an assessment of what you can improve in your game, set some realistic goals for improvement, find specific drills/activities to help you achieve those goals and then focus your attention solely on that. Don’t stand there worrying about what could go wrong in your game- focus on a positive improvement plan and you will be very pleased with the results”.

Villegas is sure to be pleased with the results- look for this to be a big year for the popular Columbian.

Thanks to Pure Golf Blog for the story

Happy homecoming for K.J in Asia

Sunday 7th March| K.J Choi continued his recent run of strong play with a 2nd place finish behind compatriot Noh Seung-yul at the Maybank Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The experienced South Korean lovingly called “the tank” by his peers handled the severe heat and humidity impressively to finish at 13 under par for the tournament. Choi birdied the final hole to put pressure on the 18 year old Noh coming down the par 5 18th tied for the lead. After taking an adventurous route on the 18th which included playing through the crowds after taking relief from the practice putting green, Noh hit a clutch pitch to 3 feet and sank the putt for birdie to win by one.

Choi, however, will take plenty of positives from a week which saw him continue to strike the ball extremely well, only to fall short (and only just) with the putter. When asked if he was disappointed at not winning he said:

“No I’m not disappointed at all. I played well and tried my best. My hats off to Seung-yul (Noh), he played well and had a fantastic round. I’m happy with how my game has improved and I have a lot to look forward to. The pin positions were tough but I held my game and managed to be in contention. Noh played brilliantly and I have no complaints.”

To his credit, Choi showed some great spirit by joining in the celebrations with young Noh as he closed out the win. He joined his Korean compatriots in showering the winner with water- a Korean tradition.

Choi enjoyed great support all week from the crowds at the Kuala Lumpur Golf Club, who seemed to adopt him as an honorary Malaysian for the week. After struggling with his game last year, Choi has started off 2010 in positive fashion with some encouraging results on the US PGA Tour including a T15 at the Farmers Insurance Open and T20 and T21 finishes at the Mayakoba Golf Classic and the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am respectively.

Choi’s coach Steve Bann has been predicting a strong run of play from him in the last few weeks, having seen his game improve significantly in their practice sessions:

“K.J is starting to look scary good in practice. He has gained about a club in distance and is absolutely striping it. He just needs a little bit of tidying up here and there and we’ll be good to go. He is too good a player to be outside the top 50 in the world and I am confident he will be right back where he belongs in no time. I am very pleased with his progress and just excited to see him complete the final step of the Confidence Cycle and bring it onto the course in competition for 4 straight rounds.”

A big thanks to our friends at Pure Golf Blog for this story.

Leishman proves rookie season was no fluke

Sophomore slump? Don’t bother talking about anything of that sort to  Marc Leishman. The 2009 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year has started the 2010 season picking up right where he left off.

Leishman has made 3 out of 4 cuts with the highlight being a T2 finish in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. The Victorian finished one shot behind winner Ben Crane of the United States, and tied with fellow Aussie Michael Sim and American Brandt Snedeker.

Coming into the new season, Leishman was asked about his goals for the season:

“I think if I could just improve my game, that’s the main thing. If I can do that, I can improve, and the results will take care of themselves. I had a very good year last year. I guess I maybe went past my goals a little bit… It was great. Hopefully I can do better this year and see how we go.”

Leishman has also put in strong performances at the Northern Trust Open (T15) and the Sony Open in Hawaii (T20) with his sole disappointment of the season so far being a missed cut at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

Don’t worry about him becoming complacent any time soon though:

“I knew that just because I got Rookie of the Year it didn’t mean I was all of a sudden going to become an unbelievable player,” Leishman said. “I knew I still had work to be done. I really didn’t take that for granted and I’m not taking the PGA TOUR for granted.”

This is exactly the kind of attitude that has Leishman’s coach Denis McDade of Bann Lynch Golf very excited about his prospects:

“Marc continues to grow as a player but there is no shortage of incredibly talented players out here on Tour” said McDade. “I think what’s really working in his favor is his belief in his own abilities and a very positive attitude towards enjoying his game, enjoying the process of getting better and enjoying the thrill of competition. I’m proud of what he has accomplished so far.”

The season is still young and it remains to be seen whether Leishman can sustain his run of good play for the rest of the year. However with this kind of positive attitude and the results to back it up, not many people would bet against him making it back into the FedEx Cup Playoffs this year after being the only rookie to do so last year.

Hee Young makes strong start to 2010

Hee Young Park has made an impressive start to the 2010 LPGA Tour season with a T11 finish at the Honda PTT LPGA Thailand.

The young South Korean shot out of the blocks on Thursday with an impressive round of 67 at the Siam Country Club in Chonburi, Thailand. She followed that up with a blistering 66 on the second day to be in second place behind Suzanne Pettersen of Norway going into the weekend.

Hee Young struggled a bit on the weekend with scores of 72 and 73 on Saturday and Sunday respectively, however her play in Thailand this week is sure to give her a big confidence boost for the rest of the year.

Despite this being the season opener for the LPGA Tour, Park showed no signs of rust and this wasn’t all that surprising- she has been training at the Bann Lynch Golf school in Melbourne, Australia for the past couple of months and felt pretty good about her game as she left for Thailand.

When asked about her offseason, Park said:

“I went to Australia. They have long days. 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. there is sun so a lot of time to practice. Practiced my short game, greenside, and focused on putting. I did drills to shape the ball. I trained all of December and January and I got a lot of confidence”.

We were lucky enough to get some time to talk to Hee Young before she headed off to Thailand.

You can watch her interview and training video here:

Ogilvy does it again

Six Mile, S.C. (January 11,2010) — The International Institute of Golf (IIG) would like to congratulate Geoff Ogilvy on his second straight victory at the SBS Championship at Kapalua Resort in Maui, Hawaii.

Ogilvy posted four rounds in the sixties to finish at 22 under par, good for a one stroke victory.  This victory moved Geoff to 9th in the Official World Golf Rankings and marked his seventh PGA Tour victory including wins at the 2006 U.S. Open and the 2006, 2008 and 2009 WGC Accenture World Match Play. 

Winning the SBS Championship back-to-back is nothing new to IIG students.  Stuart Appleby is a three-time winner of this event 2004, 2005 and 2006, marking the only time it has been won in three consecutive years.  With Ogilvy winning this event the past two years it marks multiple victories for both Steve Bann and Dale Lynch as instructors at this event.  Ogilvy has been under the watchful eye of Lynch since he entered the golf program at the Victorian Institute of Sport at the age of sixteen which Lynch co directed with Bann.  

“Geoff’s game is primed for the 2010 season and he will not rest on this victory.  He has his sights set on becoming a better player,” said Dale Lynch.  “We focus on all aspects of his game – physical, mental, technical and strategic,” said Lynch. “Of all the things that stood out in Geoff’s game at Kapalua, his wedge play and putting showed the effort he has put into his off season practice.  Many players come to Maui to shake off the rust; he came with his game in shape to start the year off strongly.  I look forward to seeing what he will accomplish in 2010.” 

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About the International Institute of Golf (IIG)
Located at the Cliffs at Keowee Springs, the IIG accompanies a Tom Fazio-designed golf course and community.  Headed up by Steve Bann and Dale Lynch, the IIG offers varying levels of instruction, group lessons and corporate outings.  In his commitment to make the IIG the premier instructional facility in the world, Lynch relocated to the Greenville, S.C. with his family. Bann will commute across the continents at the outset, splitting his time between the IIG at Keowee Springs and Melbourne training facility.  Both instructors spend time traveling with their professional clients including Geoff Ogilvy, Stuart Appleby, Mathew Goggin, K.J. Choi, Arjun Atwal, Roger Tambellini, Nick Flanagan, and Steve Allan.  

The IIG includes a state of the art 80-yard short-game area with varying rough heights, run-offs and green shapes and speeds will help golfers learn different ways to save strokes; a teaching center featuring NIKE 360® Fitting System; a state of the art Swing Catalyst motion analysis studio; and an indoor putting studio with the TOMI system and a fitness training area. 

The Cliffs at Keowee Springs is one of eight private master-planned residential developments within The Cliffs Communities, founded in 1989 by Jim Anthony and located in the heart of the Carolina Preserve stretching from Greenville, S.C., to Asheville, N.C. To learn more about the IIG, call (864) 868-0477 or visit www.iofgolf.com ? 

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About The Cliffs Communities
Founded in 1989 by Jim Anthony, The Cliffs Communities offers a unique collection of eight communities within three distinct regions of The Carolina Preserve — Asheville, Mountain-lake and Mountain— while providing immediate enjoyment of all with only one membership. All communities are just minutes from each other. All are surrounded by hundreds of thousands of acres of protected parklands at the southernmost edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. And all provide access to two of the South’s most vibrant towns: Greenville, South Carolina, and Asheville, North Carolina. When you are a member of one Cliffs community, you are a Member of all eight. The Cliffs offers home sites from $200,000 to more than $3 million and custom homes from $700,000 to $5 million. To learn more about living at The Cliffs, call (877) 254-3371 or visit www.cliffscommunities.com. 

Contacts:
Barrett Wood      
(864) 868-0477 IIG      
(404) 543-3400 cell    
bwood@cliffscommunities.com

Seriously…How does Geoff Ogilvy do it?

We’ve all seen it.The calm demeanor. The casual, almost lazy stroll across the fairway. That smooth swing.We’ve also seen the booming 300 + yard drives, the fierce competitiveness and the mental toughness to win the US Open and a host of other big events. How does Geoff Ogilvy do it?

This week, Geoff Ogilvy is defending his title at the SBS Championship at Kapalua, Hawaii, which is the first event of the 2010 US PGA Tour season.We thought it would a good time to ask his coach Dale Lynch some questions about how Geoff has developed such an effective mental game which has brought him tremendous success on the world stage.

We also asked Dale if there is any difference between how he would train a player like Geoff Ogilvy or Aaron Baddeley, versus how he would train an amateur golfer:

Here is a recap of Geoff’s 2009 win at this tournament (the event was called the Mercedes-Benz Championship until last year):

(Our thanks to pgatour.com for the video)

How would you would like to have access to the training program players like Geoff Ogilvy, Stuart Appleby and K.J Choi use?

Give us just 21 days and we guarantee that we can improve YOUR golf with a membership in our Online Training Program. Try it out today:

Appleby finds rich form at Aus Open

5/12/09| Stuart Appleby might be a little disappointed that he didn’t win the 2009 Australian Open which concluded at the New South Wales Golf Club, La Perouse, NSW on Sunday. However his performance this week must have done wonders for his confidence as he played the kind of golf his supporters have longed to see this year.

Appleby seemed to be playing a tournament of his own the first two days, shooting two consecutive 66’s while playing on the tougher side of the draw in extremely windy conditions on the tough layout. He was several shots better than anyone playing on his side of the draw, and many onlookers called it some of the best golf they have seen for some time.

His coach Steve Bann said the following on Twitter:

Hee Young Park shines at LPGA Tour Championship

South Korean LPGA star Hee Young Park has finished T-5th at the LPGA Tour Championship at the Houstonian Golf & Country Club in Houston, Texas.

Park followed rounds of 70 and 72 with a sparkling 5 under par 67 in the final round of the weather-shortened event. She eventually finished 6 shots behind winner Anna Nordquist of Sweden.

Park has been working with IIG co-director Steve Bann for some time. However, with Steve currently in Melbourne for the Australian summer tournaments, IIG Coach John Thalassinos joined Hee Young in Houston to keep an eye on her technique.

John and Steve have been speaking on the phone daily to make sure she is on the right track, and it obviously worked with Hee Young getting one of her best finishes of the season.

Congratulations to Hee Young Park and also Steve and Johnny from all of us here at IIG!

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