Welcome to iGolfU

Welcome to iGolfU

It would probably come as no surprise that after Eric won his first World Long Drive Championship in 2003 he was besieged with golfers who wanted to learn the secrets to distance. After all, what two things do golfers want more than anything else?

Consistency and distance.

He taught them the same techniques he used for himself to win the Championship – techniques learned the hard way through hour after hour on the range hitting hundreds of drives every practice session focused intensely on one single goal: maximizing distance.

At some point after teaching the same lessons hundreds of times he realized that it would make sense to write down the techniques and drills he used, and to organize them into a logical sequence. The result turned into his first golf book: “The 5 Keys To Distance.”

He began offering the book to students and very quickly realized that while the book provided fantastic in-depth descriptions of the techniques and theory, adding video was a necessity. Written descriptions are great, but there are just some things that can be explained better with video, especially the drills.

Eric filmed videos for each of the five distance concepts along with the drills used to master them, then launched them together as a complete training program. It quickly became the best-selling distance training program in golf.

That’s When Things Got Interesting

After the release of The 5 Keys To Distance golfers from all over the world began to visit Eric for personal instruction and training. That’s when Eric observed something interesting: golfers who already had the 5 Keys program improved much faster.

Eric began to survey his students – both 5 Keys owners and other students. What emerged from his research was that the 5 Keys owners didn’t need all the time up front to learn the concepts. The 5 Keys owners already knew what Athletic Balance was and why it was so important as the foundation for both speed and consistency. Instead the entire lesson could be devoted to actually practicing and refining the technique.

The same was clearly true with the drills. Eric didn’t have to explain the Happy Toes drill, or the Toe Tap drill, or the Baseball Rip Swing. Students had already experimented with the drills. Instead of learning the drills they got right to work refining the student’s mastery.

A light bulb went off.

In the typical 1-hour lesson the teacher would have to explain a swing concept, why it was important, show how too do it, and what the expected results were. Then while the student was trying to take in all these mental concepts they were simultaneously trying to get their bodies to do something new and different.

That’s a lot to take on all at once.

No wonder so many golfers are leery of taking lessons.

But no so for the 5 Keys owners.

5 Keys owners came to a lesson already understanding the concepts. They knew why it was important. They understood what it was supposed to accomplish. They’d seen what it looked like. And they’d already experimented with it on the range.

Eric began producing more videos and writing books. He found that the more knowledge he could provide a student up front the more productive the lesson became. The learning curve was substantially better every time Eric worked with a student who already knew the concepts and had experimented with the drills. Without fail the students progress faster and easier.

Flipping the Classroom

In 2011 Salman Khan gave a TED Talk entitled “Let’s Use Video To Reinvent Education.” It’s a fascinating 17-minute talk and Salman Khan has already had a profound impact on education in our school systems. Click the link to watch it.

Khan – a hedge fund manager in New York – had been tutoring his nephew and niece from Boston in math. When Khan began producing YouTube videos for the lessons the kids told him they preferred learning via YouTube video and then working with Uncle Khan on the parts where they were stuck. Almost as importantly the kids could rewind the video and re-watch the concepts they may not have grasped the first time through.

The big benefit was that kids could listen to the lecture first and then practice or do the homework while an expert was on the phone with them.

Our Schools Have It Backwards

This sequence is the exact opposite of what kids encounter in school. In the classroom kids listen to a lecture and then are sent home to do homework. Usually without help or with parents who may or may not have skills or knowledge in the subject.

Instead what Khan proposed was that the kids listen to the lecture at home and then come in to the classroom where they had an expert to work with and help them do the actual homework.

Khan put a name to it: Flipping the classroom.

Flipping the Lesson Tee

As soon as he heard it Eric realized that he had been working toward employing the same concept in golf. He just hadn’t put a name to it. But once he heard the Khan talk Eric realized that “flipping the lesson tee” was producing the same results with his golf students.

That was when the idea for iGolfU was born.

Eric’s mission became to “reinvent” golf instruction.

Why ‘University-Style’ Courses

What makes ‘Courses’ so much different from Tips and random YouTube videos is that Courses are structured. They are designed to progress the student through a series of lessons to a specific result. For example, students of The 5 Keys To Distance progress through the concepts of Athletic Balance, Leverage, Swing Arc, Speed, and Target Focus with the goal of adding 20 or more yards to their drives.

Courses have drills and exercises specifically designed to help students master the concepts. In The 5 Keys To Distance there are drills designed to work with the concepts to enhance the student’s understanding and learning curve.

In a Course the responsibility for organizing the content is on the Instructor. It is up to the instructor to present the information as succinctly and as comprehensively as possible. Producing a course requires far more up-front effort for the instructor.

But the end result is a program where the student has a far greater chance of success.

We’re leading the evolution of golf instruction so you can learn faster, easier, and get a lot more satisfaction out of your game.

I’m glad you’re here. You are now part of the evolution movement.

See you down the fairway!

 

 

 

 

Big Cheese at iGolfU