~Count Yogi Golf Co.

PART I: Count Yogi (Harry Montana Frankenberg). Who Is He and why are we Preserving His Legacy?

Count Yogi, his stage name adopted during the 1950’s, was born Harry Montana Von Frankenberg, ‘Blackie’ to his friends growing up on the mean streets of Chicago. To this very day he is still considered to be the world record holder of being the youngest (age 13) teaching professional in the history of the game! Later during his competitive playing years through the 1920’s, 30’s and early 40’s he was called the Great Frankenberg, especially in the Chicago area where he grew up. This is the link that goes into more detail of his origins and youth.

Despite the booming popularity of Hatha Yoga (the most popular form of yoga, using various exercises and postures), Count Yogi’s name has little to do with yoga. His stage name was taken following highly complimentary urgings from his show business friends: Count for being the Best and Yogi for being the Master.

Yogi was, and is, an American original, and was of that generation that birthed giants of sports and commerce. It was a friendly era, characterized by great hope and growth in the whole identity and power of the young nation. Think of it. Yogi’s own generation included these bigger than life individuals, just like himself, most of them from down and out origins.

Babe Ruth, Jim Thorpe, Sachel Paige, Ty Cobb, John Heisman, Babe Zacharias, Bobby Jones, Harry Vardon. Rene LaCoste (little alligators on shirts and first Frenchman to win the British Open) and others remind us that this generation was unique, had a great flavor, and was entirely inexplicable. These athletes are all original, having not been “instructed,” or trained or schooled as today’s greats are. They almost all had friendly nicknames. This is Count Yogi’s generation.

Add to that the overwhelming odds that this little boy would make anything of himself much less live makes his story alone fascinating. One cannot forget that Little Harry was on the wrong side of bigotry: his Great grandfather, Chief Gall made Yogi’s dark features and striking handsomeness appear exotic and ‘different.’ How true that was! Yogi was not only different; he was a man of astounding potential, truly American in every way. He is to be respected for maintaining a healthy and affectionate personality for his entire life, despite the handicaps of his early childhood.

Put yourself in his place. It is the early years of the past century, almost 100 years ago. A mother rouses her six-year old son. Her drunken husband is on a rampage, a rage because his boy, young Harry, wasted time watching some golfers and didn’t finish his chores. He would beat this boy. The mother, fearing the worst, hustled the child out of the humble house. The rest of this boy’s life would be lived out on the streets of Chicago, shining shoes and being considered a worthless waif by respectable people. He would sleep in a warehouse with other lost boys. He would fight, make friends, but he had integrity. He never was a thief and a sneak. He worked and loved to sell, to make money. His selling and shining of shoes took him around the Southside where he saw some men of power and wealth playing a fairly new game (in the US anyway) called golf.

Chicago was the site of the first 18-hole course in the US, finished less than 20 years before Yogi’s birth. Yogi was there at the birth of American golf.

Who would have ever guessed that this small, abandoned child would be the chosen son for the future of American golf and a key to health, grace and enjoyment of this venerable game? He would not have suspected such but when he received knowledge of the golf swing from his Creator as he always gave credit (for Yogi was a humble man), his life and the future of golf would be changed forever.

Looking back and hearing the story always brings in a mixed emotion. On the one hand, it is a dramatic and hear-warming story. On the other, it strains credulity. Furthermore, we sit here thinking we are superior in nearly all ways to the men of a hundred years ago. What could they possibly have to teach us? We have science. They were nearly all poor boys. We have an entire history of great tournaments and their stars. We have over 15,000 golf courses and the equipment is almost too good. What can an old man who learned to play on hickory sticks, never played as a PGA pro and had a crazy trick shot show teach US?

And even if he was inspired, why would I care about that? Using slow motion cameras, scientific analysis, and practice facilities are far superior to some odd notions from a man who had a voice from an invisible presence show him the golf swing.

Not only are those fair questions, they also tell us a great deal about the questioner. We do live in a scientific age, to be sure, and we all know that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. But, there are disadvantages. We may not know as much as we think we do. Also, we have another problem. The normal golfer, however great the new equipment and fabulously well maintained courses and great designs, is still lacking in even rudimentary skill and grace. Plus, the distance between the professional and regular golfer is huge and growing daily.

As we all have the same body as do other people, why is it to hard to acquire golf proficiency? It is a known fact that hard work at golf, such as long hours of range practice, exercises, constant play and study of the courses do not really bring high returns. It is a known fact that even among the ‘greats’ of golf, that their games are off and less pleasant as they age. Finally, golf remains a mystery in so many ways that it is the only game or sport to inspire titles like (Michael Murphy): “Golf in the Kingdom,” or “The Inner Game of Golf,” or Pinnicks “Little Red Book).”

There isn’t a day that goes by where thousands of golfers and teachers are exclaiming “AHA! Eureka, I got it!!” as did Archimedes when he understood the displacement of water. The difference is that today, thanks to Archimedes, we have the entire science of hydrology, but the poor and earnest practitioners of new ideas fail once more and go back to the range, not humbled as you would expect, but nearly obsessed with finding the ‘secret of the swing.’

This happens at the professional level so intensely that a modern pro is a composition of his ideas, his father’s ideas, his videos, his watching other pros, books, personal trainers, swing coaches, putting coaches, short game coaches and a dozen other assorted characters, including a sports psychologist. The modern pro unlike his cousin who made little money at golf in the early days of the Tour, stays healthy and works at it severely, while the old timers made good use of gambling and strong drink to cope with the difficulties of the game.

WHY WE SHOULD TAKE COUNT YOGI’S TEACHING SERIOUSLY – THE CALIBER OF THE MAN HIMSELF

“Ye shall know them by their fruits. You cannot gather figs from thistles nor grapes from thorns.” This is a truth to be used in all our ways, It could help if applied to golf. Another from Holy Scripture is that: “the blind shall lead the blind and both shall fall into the ditch.”

We at Count Yogi Golf are eager to PROVE to you that you are in good hands with Yogi’s teachings. We WANT to be tested and we want you to get good fruit from your efforts guided by ours. So, to clear the air on whether Count Yogi is a fraud and clown and we are out to make a sale, we wish to share our experience with the man, the method and the passion. We mentioned that Count Yogi as a man was humble. He NEVER took credit for the golf swing. He insisted right to the last day that it was a gift from God, the Creator. He said that he personally derived as much pleasure from executing a perfect swing or putt as the first time he ever did it.

He refused to cheapen his understanding for the great financial gain that would have brought him. Like “Johnny Appleseed, he took his game and trick shots all around the USA in over 7,000 ‘Perfect Shot’ shows. He was easily the first Ambassador of golf the US had ever seen. He showed and taught his skill at private courses, public courses, in all places and under all conditions. He experienced perfect weather during his shows! He charged for his shows and was eagerly paid for them and immediately invited back.

At every show, he did a two-hour trick shot show as well as playing at least one full round of golf with the head pro and the club champion and perhaps a major sponsor. Then, he would pack up his Cadillac or Rolls-Royce and head for the next town and booking. This was all happening during the late 1940’s through the 1970’s.

His show was more than casual entertainment or a little trick act like you have today. Yogi’s ‘PLAYing’ and show performances were second to none and cannot be matched by anyone to this very day! He wanted to demonstrate the absolute simplicity of the basic swing to everyone! He believed that the game was so much fun, so pleasant, and such a great opportunity to get in a lovely walk that an inept swing should not be allowed to ruin it. Thus, during his patter and joking during his show, he always would say “Golf is a simple game. Nothing to it!” Proving it by being the first to teach and start the blind at golf. Today there are tournaments for the ‘BLIND’ everywhere!

He did not like to make reference to hand position, physical descriptions of the swing or other techniques thought to be necessary. He always proved his point and ‘explode’ theories by clever use of his trick shots. Difficult to hit out of a divot? He would hit the ball out of a hole in a block of steel. Hard to use a whippy shaft? He would swing a club with a garden hose as a shaft! Difficult lie? He would stand on one foot and swing a driver perfectly, with great results.

Another example of his humility and prudence. When he played the guest rounds, he stopped breaking the course records because it caused envy and jealousy among the home pro and he wanted to keep them as friends. Otherwise he knew he would have lost valuable access to the people. You can be so good at something that it upsets other, good people.

That leads us to our last point about the man. If Yogi is so great, where are all his tour wins?

This is a fair question. Let us get a little perspective on tournament golf. Let’s start with Yogi’s contemporary, Bobby Jones. Bobby Jones is easily up there as a great and original golfer. Not only was he the first to win four majors in one year, and not only was he the father of Augusta National, he also was adamantly against being considered a professional golfer! In his day, and more in the UK, professionals were not well received. In fact, as you know, the whole idea of professionalism was sneered at by the elites in the US and in England.

A perfect example of this is the early Olympic Games. These games excluded professionals, or anyone who had EVER received money for sports. The saga of one of the greatest athletes of all time, Jim Thorpe, was made dramatic and sorrowful by his being stripped of his gold metals because of making money in football and baseball, I believe.

So, Bobby Jones, a member of the Southern elite was not interested in professionals. That is not to say that he didn’t like them, or even play with them. But he considered professional golfer to be low class. The PGA, originating around 1916, is a great sports organization, not without its controversial side. However, it is safe to say that it was not particularly profitable until the modern era, beginning with especially Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer and of course, television revenue. Yogi was not interested in the early PGA primarily for two reasons: 1) he believed that he had nothing to prove that he had not already done; and 2) he was very successful financially in his golf business and training centers that even a year on the Tour would have cost him money.

Finally, during the 1930’s and on, there was a low profile conflict between what Yogi said was the right way to swing the golf club and what the “Official” teaching method was, which at that time was strictly enforced among its members. Obviously, there was money in teaching golf, as Yogi himself and his shows demonstrated. Thus, it would be wise if the PGA could get out a book of standards and make certain its members were in agreement about the basic approach to teaching.

This proved easier said than done. Even as far back as the 1930’s, teaching theories and methods abounded. They were as contradictory as we find today. Without going into detail, it seemed prudent for the PGA to ‘standardize’ its book; not only from a marketing point of view, but to make sure that each potential student was exposed to the same ideas. The PGA enforced conformity to this by requiring a special training for teaching pros. This course was much more than just the swing, of course, covering all aspects of fitting clubs and merchandising, and so on. Still, it was their desire to have a “book” on teaching golf and they would not tolerate competing claims.

Yogi and all that knew or witnessed his abilities had for years claimed that he was the greatest golfer of all time and that he had the keys to a perfect swing. His method of teaching was definitely not in conformity with the PGA’s teachings. We will see in Part II how wrong this was. If anything, no one, perhaps not even Yogi himself, and certainly not the men at the PGA understood how truly modern valuable Yogi’s teaching was.

In fact, we maintain that Yogi’s approach to the golf swing is perhaps better suited to this generation. Why? Because we have all had our share of teaching disasters, physical setbacks, and sheer frustration from well trained, well-intentioned teachers (well, some are not so well intentioned and some are just frauds and screwballs).

SPECULATION ON YOGI’S CAREER AS A TOURNAMENT PRO IS FRUITLESS BUT WE WILL DO IT ANYWAY

We feel strongly that, had Yogi been accepted in the ranks as a PGA pro, he would have been one of not only the biggest winners of his generation, but one with the longest career. As far as the records of his accomplishments are still available, Yogi did in fact bring in low scores and long drives. He was not just a clown and a marginal character.

And then he would have been the first person of non-pure white to play on the tour. Like Tiger Woods today (very Yogi like), if not for such great talent, do you think he would have been invited into the locker rooms or clubhouses every time? The allowance of non-whites or in Yogi’s case ‘half-breeds’ into golf course country clubs didn’t happen at all until well into the 1970’s, so we can’t imagine that the PGA would have championed his cause. Why should it? It was a respectable organization, to be sure. But it was a poor one, until well into the 1970’s.

Other players who knew of Yogi’s ability, of course, wished him well, but why would they want him on the card? Just one more competitor like him they did not need!

The MAIN thing we believe would have happened if Yogi had been on tour would be this. The up and coming pros and the general public would see and copy his swing. He would have generously shared his swing secrets. Thus, by today, the chaos in golf teaching would be diminishing and we would see more pleasantness in tournament play and more fun on the home course.

But, alas, we will never know unless and until we have some ambitious, hard working talented younger person adopting Yogi Golf as his style and getting out there and making a name for himself on the Tour. That should settle the argument in the minds of all fair men whether the Yogi method is a winning method.

Yogi as a man was just as interesting as Yogi as a golfer. He had a unique life. He appreciated his life of health and fun. He worked hard. He had setbacks and failures. He was severely injured when an out of control bus smashed his car, when he was in his early 70’s. He died in relative obscurity. Most of the people he taught are no longer with us.

His heir and adopted son, a man who knew Count Yogi for over 30 years, was charged with the impossible but noble task of preserving and extending the art. Now, we have reached a critical time. YOU and Tim are going to have to partner to save this art form from extinction. Time is running out.

Why should we at Count Yogi Golf wish to talk about tournament golf? What insights can we derive from this to improve our games and understanding?

Nothing is more ‘obvious’ than the statement that golfing excellence is defined by the tournament players.

We believe quite differently. We disagree in part and we even insist that there is much more to golf than tournament golf. To show why your interest in Yogi’s teachings will be well rewarded out of proportion to the effort you invest in it, let us examine how most of us differ from our golfing brothers who are out there in tournament land, ‘grinding it out.’

Golfers come in all ages as well as over a lifetime, Historically, golf was seen as a private club game, usually played among the retired and wealthy of a particular country. Historically, golf was played by the amateur golfer (the word for ‘lovers,’ in French!). I want to emphasize this point very clearly so I am placing the dictionary definitions of the word “amateur” below:

AMATEUR Definition

1. A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession.

2. Sports An athlete who has never accepted money, or who accepts money under restrictions specified by a regulatory body, for participating in a competition.

3. One lacking the skill of a professional, as in an art.

There are two VERY telling aspects to this word, amateur. Let me put it in my own words, to make my point, and confine its use to amateur golfers.

1. A GOLFER who engages in the game as a PASTIME rather than as a profession.

2. Sports A GOLFER who does NOT play for prize MONEY or serious bets

3. A GOLFER lacking the SKILL of a PROFESSIONAL golfer

Now, notice that an amateur is a GOLFER who plays as a PASTIME (fun?), doesn’t play for serious MONEY and might lack the SKILL of a professional. We non-professionals play for fun, no heavy betting or prizes, and MIGHT lack the TOTAL skills of the pro.

This is as it should be and we at Count Yogi Golf are equipping you with additional powers to insure that you:

1. Have MORE fun while still playing seriously

3. Equip you with SKILLS that rival and exceed the tournament player but we do NOT equip you with the DRIVE and AMBITION and raw TALENT it takes to win tournaments

Thus, most of you who are golfers in private clubs are over 40. You have little time to devote to the refinement of your game. You want to have fun and not be exasperated when you play. You want to perform skillfully when you can play. Most of all, you DO NOT want to feel obligated to play scratch golf or compare yourself to those who do.

While we know that a Count Yogi inspired golfer, with the proper financial backing, drive, opportunity, etc. will one day make a very strong presence in the PGA or any other tournament group. However, our aim is to provide you, the occasional golfer, with the finest techniques available today that free you up to get the most out of your limited time on the course.

No matter how old, young or time-restrained you are, you will benefit from this approach. Why?

Golfing Count Yogi Style is fun, artful, graceful and easy to do. It is not necessary to practice excessively and pound range balls. Once learned, it is impossible to forget when you get the’ hang’ of it. It is healthful, benefits the body, promotes looseness of limb and back, and does not emphasize brute power. It travels well when you go on a golfing junket.

The Yogi inspired swing allows you to focus on what makes for great scores. One learns how the golf course plays. What is the best landing area? Where are the pins placed? What is the wind doing? What is the actual carry over that bunker near the flag?

With Yogi, you will need a minimum warm-up time. You will find that you have practically eliminated unnecessary anxiety. These benefits not only enhance your personal pleasure, but give you a real and genuine competitive advantage over your playing partners, or your regular pals as well as the foursome you may be assigned to at an out of town tournament.

If you think you need to be a scratch golfer, or if you are already a fine scorer, the Yogi method might allow you to enter pro tournaments, or more realistically, important amateur tournaments, like the City Opens, or various Club charity events offering cool prizes. Count Yogi Golf and advanced private lessons with Tim will be the key to this.

But, frankly, almost no one will become a pro in his middle years. It happens, but you know who you are! If you have what it takes and the proper sponsorship, the Yogi swing will serve you well. It will extend your career, eliminate all swing related injuries and hurts. It will make you respected by your peers for the grace, beauty and power of your game. The Yogi method will improve your outlook and your winning attitude.

Count Yogi Golf is NOT limited to the amateur. Yogi taught and advised many tournament players over his lifetime. His heart, though, was in introducing his and succeeding generations to the joys and pleasures of a LIFETIME of graceful, artistic and healthy golf. He spent the greater part of his career doing that successfully. We also desire that this knowledge be placed in the capable hands of REAL AMATEURS, lovers of the game who are not frustrated by the skill issues.

Simply put, we at Yogi believe with our hearts and minds that the Count Yogi teaching of swing, strokes and putts are the future of golf. We believe that there is no professional swing that is better than the Yogi swing. Period.

HOWEVER, the modern pro who makes it pay, and the home pros who do all the daily work at his or her own club are very skilled at more than the swing. To do just a partial listing. They know the courses, and how they are set up. They understand subtleties of the game very well. They have a super sense for estimating distance. They can drive long and accurately. They can almost always be in birdie position on par five’s. They can putt, drive, chip and pitch effectively. They know the rules backwards and forwards. They work at the game, work at the swing, and sacrifice both comfort and peace of mind to compete with the best in the world. They are often young men and women. Some are technically ‘amateurs,’ such as top college golfers, but we know that they play all the time.

But, skill is essential to bring in scores. Yogi provides the skills, as do many other teachers and teaching methods. The BIG difference is that Yogi skills are very easy to maintain and will not fail you, once you have worked through the learning curve and gained your minimum level of competence.

How often do you play? Regularly? On Vacations mostly? Every Saturday at 10AM? Do you play for business reasons? Social ones?

Most of us are lucky to play more than once a week. Often that is only a nine hole, half-round. Retired men frequently play three or four times a week on their home course.

In any event, you want that time to be aggravation free as much as possible. Let the course defeat you, not your skills.

Tournament players these days play a lot of golf. They practice as frequently as twice a day, as much as 1,000 range balls. They have coaches and other players of equal ability to work with. They map the courses, measure distances, and survey the greens and prevailing winds. They try to master various kinds of shots. They obsess on the short game and they drive themselves mad trying to make just one more putt as so many tournament spots and prize money is decided by one measly stroke.

Tournament players do not play golf like you and I do. Here is why. In a professional tournament, they typically play a Wednesday practice round. Then assuming they make the cut, they play FOUR 18 hole, stroke play rounds, walking with a personal caddy, from Thursday through Sunday. They have yardage books. They have specially fitted clubs, coveted putters, magic charms and rabbit’s feet in their golf bags.

If they are in a major televised tournament, they have large and often unruly crowds to deal with. If they are NOT stars, the spectators treat them with a vast indifference. If they are not heavy money winners, they feel like second class persons when the huge money players fly in on their own jets, and are carried to the course by their lackeys.

These fine, but lesser players might even have the sickening feeling that the caddies of the big stars make more money and travel in better style than they do.

If these unknowns happen to find themselves leading a major tournament, the whole world is waiting and expecting them to blow up right on camera so people can laugh at them.

If they are a great star like Greg Norman, the press unkindly remembers not his greatness as a player and genuineness as a man, they remember his odd loss at Augusta to Larry Mize or his loss of the lead at the British Open.

People are not very nice to the professional, even if he a great player with wonderful skills. Still though, the rewards of the Tour are high for the right kind of guy. So, the Tour goes on.

We amateurs range from very normal people athletically to former college and even professional players. But we do not play the way the pros do. We are not on the tiny, narrow track of bringing in a sub par score, non negotiable.

Our playing might be best ball on the weekly Friday Rabbit. We play match play, sort of. We concede to our buddies the short putts. We carry our own bag, or take a cart, or pull a cart. Some clubs still have real caddies who know the course. We get our yardage’s from our club’s yardage books. We don’t spend nearly enough time studying our course and it’s proper landing areas, illusions, greens, and prevailing winds, all the issues of course design.

We rarely practice at the range. We hardly practice putting, except for dollars and dimes with our friends.

If money comes into it we might belong to those famous and very colorful Country Clubs that have very heavy betting going on which changes the emotional dynamics of a round. A whole set of amusing stories could be written about heavy betting in Texas Oilmen golf courses. Funny stories abound among the Hollywood crowd’s big bettors.

But, still, ours are not four days of medallist play, no gimmes, no second tee shots (Mulligans), no chatter and joking on the greens, no television cameras and so on. Our lives as players are pretty simple compared to even our home pro.

Most of you like your home pro. He is usually pleasant, has good diplomatic skills, keeps confidences and tries not to get drawn into the amazing petty resentments found in private clubs. He has to teach the un-teachable. He has to arrange the Ladies Over 80 Years Annual tournament, making certain that the oxygen bottles are ready remembering to warn the Regular Players that there will be a six or seven hour round claiming the course that day.

He has to avoid being drawn into the idiotic boring and drunken conversations at the bar. He has to make sure that the greens are not mauled by the Superintendent, while keeping peace with the staff. He has to deal with the Board of Directors, the membership committee, fix the ball machine, remember his wife’s birthday, wish he were on the tour having All That Fun on TV. He rarely has time for a round, and when he does play, it is with Mr. Ironpockets, the billionaire who spends at least half the round complaining about his worthless son and giving the pro a personal tip when the pro, rusty from infrequent play, launches a drive into the wrong fairway.

The most incredible fact about head pros everywhere, no matter how great and historical the golf course is or how well paid he is, is how few Head pros are convicted of murder every year. They, of all men on the planet--even more than politicians--have the greatest motive and opportunity. If I were a head pro for even a month, when I was finally arrested, the detectives would find all the nastiest members bodies buried in my favorite sand traps.

Furthermore, I would go to the electric chair with no remorse and an elevated feeling of justice. The presiding judge would of course be horrified, because he is likely a member of a high status country club. He would not like to think that his head pro is Not Impressed with His Honor.

So, I admire the Head Pro for all the things they do well. I admire them for their patience. I admire them for tolerating the intolerable and for attempting to make this great and admirable game a FUN and memorable experience for the members. I am not saying that they are great men. Some of course may well be. But all of them are misunderstood and would like to have a little fun themselves once in a while. So, to you members reading this: Love Your Pro and give him a nice big cash tip once a year. Send him to a golf course once a year far away, so he can be a golfer and not worry that an indiscreet comment will get him in trouble with Mrs. Snootrocks. You don’t have to kiss him, but show you understand that he has a difficult job in which he combines the skills of a diplomat, a politician, a golfer, a manager, a salesman, an inventory expert, a public speaker, a tournament organizer, a teacher, husband, father, man and all around human being who never supposed to make a mistake or upset a key member.

Yogi often said that the Home Pro was his friend, the very cornerstone of Club Golf. He said that they liked him.

If today’s Home Pro could teach Yogi golf without running afoul of the PGA Teaching guidelines, he would have happier and healthier members, make more money on private lessons and help preserve and extend this amazing art form.

We would love to have the interested Home Pro join our team someday, when we have the opportunity to talk with you. It will make your members happier and remove one more pressure from your busy day.

This is merely a summary of our use of equipment best suited to the Yogi swing. Time and experience has shown that we are practically old-fashioned as well as completely contemporary in our appreciation of equipment design. We are tradition-minded regarding clubhead shape and weighting preferring forged steel with Cavity-back designs. We are modern in adopting the best and strongest advances in shaft and grip improvements. You will greatly benefit from our special knowledge here.

The biggest single change in golf in the past hundred years is the relentless improvements in both the design and power of equipment. No one thing has been more noticeable.

The other biggest change in golf in the past hundred years is the chaos in golf teaching despite the amazing advances in film, slow motion, kinesiology software and the emergence of the full time, independent teaching pro. In the old days, the teacher was normally the Club Pro.

We do not wish to address all the changes. We wish to recall to the reader that Count Yogi was actually on the spot during most of these changes. As a young man with hickory shafts he played with gutta percha balls. Then onto the dimpled balls and wound balls he goes. New cast head design came along in the 1930’s and 40’s. Metal shafts were next and finally, the emergence of the polymers, metal ‘woods,’ and frequency matched metal shafts, like the Dynamic Gold series. He smacked ‘em all a long way because of his knowledge and skill. And the improvements added distance and accuracy.

But, as is elaborated in another article (See Part II: The Controversy), the way the Yogi swing works best is with a higher swing frequency and lower torque than you would normally be fitted with, especially older men. We also utilize stiffer shafts with lower torque properties on irons or woods than would be expected as normal on club fitting charts.

During the Yogi swing, one stands as tall as possible, so the players irons are more upright (lie), in fact they are very upright. We wind the grips with two wraps of tape, one being an extra half wrap under the persons lead hand (left or right), or the hand on the grip that is closest to the clubhead. This helps minimize the over-use of the wrists and also helps promote more artistic control while brain messages (yogi golf word commands and thoughts) are being conveyed to the clubface, target and body. Finally, the preferred clubhead and clubhead designs for irons are strictly classical or cavity-backed forged (some carbon based models are approved). What are the reasons for using the best constructed and finest pro line clubs? As the forces of the elliptical swing gather and concentrate at the loft-line (bottom of the clubface), the old fashioned designs are still the best.

These designs when used properly not only feel better at impact, but also accommodate a large arc and intensify force more than the new cast cavity backed or offset club irons.

As only a few manufacturers produce these beautiful sets, one normally sees them in the hands of professionals and single digit handicap amateurs. They are the most expensive and most artistic on the market and worth every penny.

These are what we recommend. In fact, a fitted full set of irons and woods is included for our private students.

We insist on the finest equipment and won’t teach without the student being properly attired.

Who would object to swinging the finest irons made today, by the top manufacturers to showcase your most powerful swings or to assist you in your softest strokes?

You will ultimately agree with our recommendation, no matter how attached you are to you present set. As you start experiencing the Yogi Swing results, you will immediately notice two things. One, you will be overwhelming your shafts because of increased force generation. And, two, you will be surprised how most club designs are created to compensate for a bad or weak swing! Yogi swings are pure and nearly perfect so you need a club and shaft combination that can handle the forces as well as give you those top results.

The Yogi swing has one unexpected and delightful characteristic, which is nearly unbelievable to most golfers the first time they hear it. Yogi swings rarely take a divot (on purpose). The only time turf is taken a little (just the top of the ground) is on very tight lies (tight lies are lies where the grass is thin and the ball not setting up).

We are the golf superintendent’s best friends! We rarely take divots anywhere, even in the rough. Why? The main reason is that we catch the ball at the fullest reach of our arc, with the club turning up. The elliptical arc continues to move up through impact. Hence the club makes pure contact and the acceleration of the clubhead does all the work. Result: a strong shot with no, or nearly no, tuft.

You have all been taught, for generations now, to ‘hit down on it, ‘ especially with your irons. With the Yogi swing, this is not only not necessary, but also irrelevant. You will understand that assertion later. One very exciting consequence is that we have healthier hands, wrists and shoulders. Wiry thick rough and kikuya grass doesn’t threaten us. Nor are we intimidated by sand.

These all sound controversial of course. But, once you understand how to mentally swing the club UP you will know yourself why all this is so.

No one was a bigger skeptic than I on this point, when I was a new Yogi student. However, fast forward about a year to my own club. For fun (while I am at the practice range), the young guys will have me stroke 40 balls (medium bucket) to the 100-yard practice flag and bet how often I take turf. The bets are flattering, of course. Out of these 40 balls, my personal best is 37. The bets run anywhere from 2 to 5 strokes with turf. You have to experience this to believe it. On the downside, once in a while I won’t be paying attention to my swing and I will take a divot. The odd thing is that it still works. Why shouldn’t it? After all, the great tournament players out there take turf. If I take turf by mistake, I still hit a great shot. The only thing is, the shot feels heavy, as if I hit it fat!

Except for a very small handful of you, most of you will not play in pro style tournaments. You certainly will not play in 20 or 30 tournaments a year! So don’t frustrate yourself by using tournament players as your standards.

All of us amateurs want to have fun, be proficient as possible, practice as little as possible and have a consistent level of skill. This is possible with ‘Count Yogi Golf’!

Finally, Count Yogi Golf utilizes only the finest pro-line equipment and shafts. Your new Yogi Swing can handle the extra swing weights and stiffness. Your new Yogi swing generates so much force; you need solid and accurate equipment.

Your home pro can be your best ally in mastering your scores. Once your Yogi skills are second nature, you can plot and scheme how to play the proper shots for the conditions and pin placement. If you really want to know the subtle ins and outs of your course, the head pro can help.

Finally, even though we greatly admire and respect their amazing scores, one should NOT look to touring pros as models for our games. The two are completely incompatible. For example, a touring pro can hardly imagine a Thursday morning best ball with a rabbit on every third hole, carried over and drinks bought by the losers. On the other hand, a retired clubman who once was CEO of, say, a hospital complex in New York and has a nasty case of arthritis in his left knee can hardly imagine playing like a pro, which entails walking eighteen holes four days in a row, driving the ball 300 yards, and griping because he shot a 66 on Sunday and needed a 65 to win!

Winning, of course, IS fun, if that is how you define the game. Winning Majors is fun, if that is your career goal.

But, for guys like me, being able to spend a lovely day at the course, stroking the ball well most of the time, chatting with my friends and getting my mind thinking and my legs moving under me is just fine, thank you!

While there are endless ideas, notions, prejudices, weak observations, stupidities, insights, systems and ridiculous notions of what makes for a good golf swing, the amateur golfer has never had it better.

All PGA home pros have to pass a test on the basics of the swing, the short game and putting. They all know the basics of equipment and fitting of same. Many teachers have access to video cameras, swing trainers, slow motion studies, and software to measure force, momentum, shoe size! It’s all there.

Also, there are practice ranges, putting greens, short game areas and many swing training devices which can be used at home or even at the office.

So, if you are brand new to the game, you have ample opportunities to at least become familiar with the skillset.

WHY YOGI DESERVES OUR ADMIRATION AND RESPECT FOR BEING A TEACHER AND AMBASSADOR FOR THE GAME TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC

Put yourself back to say, 1935. There was no television. There were movies and the radio. If you ever saw a golfer, you saw him at his private club or at one of the few municipal clubs in the country. If you ever saw a golfer on film, it would be on the little news clips, like Movietone News. “Slammin’ Sammy Wins His Fourth US Open At Congressional,” or something like that. You would see Sam Snead with his hat, smiling holding the trophy and the $5,000 check and perhaps a three second cut of Sam whacking one off the tenth tee, while the music faded and the deep throated announcer says: “ and our hat’s off to the new 1937 US Open Champ, Slammin’ Sammy Snead.”

Yogi comes along, does 7,000 shows around the country before golf became a big media event. His shows consisted of an hour or two of amazing trick shots using all kinds of improbable clubs in all kinds of odd and amusing positions. Then, he would play at least one round with the head pro and the club champion. He would always score near or at the club record. If time permitted, he would run one of his famous teaching clinics, where he would have people hitting real golf shots within fifteen minutes!

His robust health and dark good looks and his amazing mastery of everything in golf, added to his sense of humor made golf and Yogi many friends. He deserves our praise and why is he not in the Golf hall of Fame?

He was a golfer, a teacher, an entertainer and a man who really was on a mission. He believed that if people had this knowledge of the swing, it would bring them happiness through mental and physical health. He believed that it would give them a game that was fun, one that could be enjoyed right up to the last days. He believed his approach would help eliminate the confusion of different and contradictory teaching methods. He believed his enthusiasm would allow people to use their country club more often and with more pleasure. He was right then as he is right now.

Basically, according to Yogi, the game of golf is a simple affair. Who agrees with that today!? The reality today is that golf seems very complex and nearly untouchable. How could both be right? Was Yogi exaggerating? Was he being insensitive because of his great talent? Or is it possible that our perceptions are clouded?

The simple truth is that the best things in life are free and easy to do, but impossible to understand rationally!

Let me repeat that in a different way. Breathing is free, easy to do and it is impossible to understand everything about the lungs, oxygen and red blood cells. If something goes wrong with breathing, who can fix it easily?

Another example: Unless you are injured or crippled, turning your torso is very easy. You do it every second. But, those of you who have had a disc injury will tell us that the slightest turn is incomprehensibly painful and prevents you from turning.

Nothing is easier than turning a key, steering a wheel, pushing the gas pedal, and shifting into drive. But who among us can unravel the workings of the automatic transmission? Who understands computer regulated fuel injection?

Because something isn’t fully understood by the intellect doesn’t mean it can’t work properly or is irrational. Most of our lives are lived with things we don’t understand, nor do the finest and best minds understand either.

Finally, there are blessed individuals who, from God or work, or the devil manage to break through and both DO AND UNDERSTAND. This is what we call the great teachers. A very old standard for a teacher is that the teacher is both a teacher and practitioner. You can learn medicine from lectures, study and books, but you can’t learn surgery that way. You have to ride shotgun with a skilled and experienced surgeon.

Many things are like that. They don’t ‘rationalize’ well. Sports skills are like that. I admit that great strides in training and polish of established skills has come along in the past fifty years. Athletes across the board are healthier (minus steroids) stronger, more practiced, less injured and have longer careers than their predecessors. This is a fact and to be respected.

But, some things are still way off from being understood rationally, analytically and intellectually.

Golf skills are in that camp. The average golfer, despite the gains in equipment, is pretty much as confused as his father and grandfather were. The average pro is bewildered that all his work dedication and expense does not give up much return and stabilize his game and not stress his back and neck.

When a man who has an exceptional career doing nearly magical things with the golf ball and with odd and comical equipment says he can teach golf, one either thinks he is crazy or one should investigate the claim.

When a man says that with a certain kind of club, or a strap, or a square to rectangle method claims he can lower your scores, he might be correct, but he may not be a great golfer. When a team of men in lab coats explains in arcane language that the ‘moment of inertia applied to the elasticity of the titanium reinforced center of the clubhead produces a combination of acceleration-rebound effect and straight line momentum to launch the ball with maximum force,’—when you hear this, you either laugh or run for cover.

Why make a problem where there is none? Teachers everywhere would love to make their students happy, but there is no longer an absolute certainty of what is fundamental and what is merely speculative.

That is what I mean by the chaos in teaching. Yogi says: “do these five steps.” You will have a permanent and reliable swing. Why does it work? It works because it uses the maximum efficiency of the human body, coordinated by the senses, directed by the conscious mind, held in the subconscious mind (right brain), and controlled by the will to generate great force in the clubhead along a specific elliptical arc toward a preset target.

If you or anyone can understand something so fundamentally COMPLEX as a golf swing, you should get the Nobel Prize. They will hand it to you in your asylum cell, because that kind of conscious knowledge is not available to us today. It is coming, I am hopeful. Some day, we will understand the reasons why we can take a stick and hit a ball with it. That day is not today. We are making progress with our cameras; our biological theories and our computer aided momentum indicators.

But why bother with all that? People who can do the swing and UNDERSTAND how to communicate it to you are called teachers. They might even understand the scientific principles behind it. But what really matters is that they have a demonstrated superiority in both the performances of what they teach and a gift for teaching.

We believe and have shown that Yogi golf can be taught. It can be learned, although its newness and originality can be a challenge to grasp. Results will appear quickly. It can further be refined and perfected and put to the test. The other ‘systems’ out there do NOT make the claims that Yogi makes. Yogi claims to teach how to swing, play the short shots from 100+ yards in to the fringe on the green and how to putt. Yogi has the Platform to Perfection, a teaching aid to fix the thoughts into your mind. Yogi has books, DVD’s or videotapes, and he left us one disciple to teach the teachers.

Despite the natural attempts to rationalize and communicate golf theories, the old way to transmit skills is still unchanged. It is done father to son. It is done teacher to student. It is done master to disciple. Nothing changes. Your teacher must know HOW to do the skill and HOW to teach it.

It is a complete system. If you can acquire it you should while it is available. We want disciples, friends, supporters and competitive golfers of all ages and types to help us keep this alive.

Let me just say it blandly: EVERYTHING Count Yogi (Harry M. Frankenberg) taught and we teach seems to contradict EVERYTHING being taught out there today!

Repeating: EVERYTHING! Is this possible to be at odds with the world’s most reputed gold instructors? Or does it just SEEM that way?

Why did we reach this sad state of affairs? Is it possible that some of the great names in golf teaching and some of the great golfers are ‘wrong?’ Is Yogi a fraud, a quack, a chimera? Of course, we know that he is the real thing. Yet, time and circumstance make his claims difficult to contextualize and to understand. Yogi was born when there were fewer than a dozen 18-hole courses in the US. He was there when the PGA formed.

He taught golf all over the US when most people never even heard of the game. He used practically all the types of equipment right up to the early 1990’s, things like hickory shafts, gutta percha balls, wooden tees, and so on.

Furthermore, we would be making a very grave error if he was the ‘real deal’ and we ignored The Count.

Let’s narrow this question. Let us describe, from the ground up, what golf really is. And once we know that, we can ask what it is we want from it, and whether we can get that in a reasonable and sensible manner from a teacher or if we should just figure it out ourselves.

At the end of this examination, we will see where Yogi and current golf seem to separate. Finally, where they seem to be in opposition. You will be able to clearly and decisively decide for yourself if Yogi’s teaching makes sense and is worth your time and best effort.

Golf is a GAME played outdoors, on a large acreage, on a series of 9 or 18 holes. The series of holes is called a COURSE. The object of the game (it is a game) is to play each hole in succession, starting at the TEE and ending at the CUP. One begins a HOLE by striking the golf ball from a specific place (the tee box) to a hole in the ground many yards away.

What is a game and why do human beings have such a singular and near obsession for playing them? This topic would not only require many books, but would initiate a very lively discussion. Who doesn’t like games? Even people who sneer at games like golf or football frequently love card games or puzzles.

But I am going to answer this in a very specific way, so we can use it later, to describe a critical difference between PLAYing a game and WINning a game. The two functions are not always integrated. Sometimes, for example, if the entire focus is to win, then the play function is irrelevant.

For the sake of the Count Yogi website, we are going to cater to the reader who wants to PLAY good, or better golf. This might be WINNING golf, but that is an entirely different thing. Again, for example, if you are a college player and think you can win your division tournament, then you would want the Yogi information to give you lower scores. We respect that, of course, but we could only equip you with the best and time-tested swing/stroke/putting methods in modern history. It would be up to you to learn Yogi’s methods with such polish and hands-on tournament condition play that you would see the low scores you would need to WIN.

Generally, too much is made of winning. Winning for most club and weekly players, or vacation players is the ‘spice’ of playing with their buddies or foursomes. What they want to do is have FUN PLAYing golf. What a radical concept, fun and play!

I issue this disclaimer. Just because a technique makes a game fun does NOT mean that it is not worthy of a competitive, humorless and results-driven golfer. Today, the dearth of Yogis and there being only one teacher left taught by the master, there has been no time or investment capital to develop a true tournament player. Such a player, well polished in Yogi skills and able to bring in top scores would be FUN to watch because this player, he or she, would NOT play under such severe pressure from his own game.

The pressures he would face would be normal competitive pressures, media and money temptations. He would never lose his game or his swing. But, he would be in a tight contest most of the time, as the modern golfer is one great winning golfer.

The length of the hole is called the yardage (meters in Europe). This is the straight-line distance from the TEE BOX to the HOLE (also, the CUP). The length of the COURSE is the combined length of the 18 holes. This length varies, depending where the TEE BOX is set (RED for ladies, WHITE for normal, and BLACK OR GOLD for championship, or maximum, yardage)

At the end of the round, the total number of times one hits the ball is added up and the lowest score wins. If one is playing solo, the lowest score closest to the PAR rating is or is not a source of personal satisfaction.

The HANDICAP is the strokes over par (simplifying) so that a player can see how well he is doing versus the player of PAR (also called ‘scratch”) golf. So, to play a ROUND, one (preferably) walks about 4 to 5 miles, with his bag of clubs. He locates his ball, stopping every 100-200 yards. The he hits the ball toward the GREEN, where the HOLE awaits.

Thus, GOLF is a game with a score and the lowest number of strokes determines the BEST SCORE. It is very difficult to match par, more difficult to beat par. In fact, statistics show that most golfers who play regularly normally score 1 full stroke per hole over par, and good golfers get about half the holes in par. It is a difficult, challenging and very pleasant game, but as they say—golf is a good walk ruined. We will address that witty comment a little later. Let me say now that golf does NOT have to be a good walk ruined, and Yogi spent the best years of his life showing people how to have fun and play well.

In the professional game, play and fun playing are strictly optional. The minimum standards for even qualifying and making good money as a pro are four rounds with sub par totals. This is not negotiable. High scores, low money. Enjoy tournaments? Fine, but you can still ‘PLAY’ if you can’t score.

We mention this to remind you why we should NOT burden ourselves with the high scoring and technical standards of the pro game. Most of us, in fact, never or will never play golf in the professional format.

Think of it this way. The professional tournament game is played on Thursday through Sunday. One walks the course and has a caddy. No carts allowed. Their course is in perfect condition and not crowded. Everyone knows the rules. These days, the pros are on the range every day even during tournaments. On off days, they hit perhaps 400-500 balls. The players who make good money have swing coaches, putting coaches, massage therapists, psychologists, tarot card readers and exercise trainers. Their equipment is customized by witch doctors. They have yardage books, course design maps, weather experts, prime tee times, and the evil eye to contend with. In big tournaments, they have the fans, the media, the crowds, and the excited club members to deal with.

If they are the star, they have to keep people from suffocating them. If they are not stars, they have to deal with being treated like total losers, even when they shoot a sixty-six. Did I add that, while most professionals are relatively normal guys, when they play, they assume a game face and frequently indulge in unpleasant and intimidating behavior toward fellow competitors.

Do YOU play golf this way? I hope not! At least I hope not if you are not making it pay.

Furthermore, if one adds the number of professional tournament players who can make money PLAYING the game, it is a very small number of men and women. It probably amounts WORLDWIDE, to perhaps 1,000 or 2,000 players. Maybe. Not a very safe profession. Furthermore, fewer than 20 players grab all the winnings and titles while they dominate the big tournaments. Good work if you can get it. But back to our discussion…

The game is played with sticks called CLUBS. These are the tools one uses to strike the ball in the direction of the hole. These clubs have to conform to a certain standard. The same is true for the balls. One can use the clubs any way one likes, but the normal manner is to SWING them, holding the small end (the GRIP) and swinging the broad heavier end, called the CLUBHEAD, or HEAD. These tools have changed in type, quality and power dramatically in recent years.

These days, a player has his clubs in a bag. They are roughly called woods, irons, putters and specialty clubs. The MIN DIFFERENCE IN CLUBS IS THEIR LENGTHS OF THEIR SHAFTS AND THE ANGLE OF THE CLUBFACE. You know this, but it is important to emphasize it now.

ALL clubs are designed for a particular distance. This is a fact. A longer club sends the ball longer than a shorter club, IF THE FORCES SWINGING THE CLUB ARE IDENTICAL. This is a fact you all know, but do you understand why? It is the key to grasping the essence of the Yogi swing.

The reason one has many different club lengths and club heads is basic physics. When one swings two clubs EXACTLY the same, and strikes a golf ball EXACTLY the same, the longer club will send the ball farther.

Why is this? There are three things going on to achieve this. 1) The swing path. 2) The mass (known outside of physics as the weight) of the club; and 3) the ANGLE of the clubface surface at impact.

There is a fourth factor to produce distance, but it is not related to the club. It is the physical factors of the body. I mention this because this is NOT the essential factor in a good swing. This is certainly NOT an essential factor in the short game and putting game! We will examine this later, too.

The real energy that moves the ball is called FORCE. This is what Yogi learned as a small child (though he didn’t know that word at six years old!) and this is what Yogi always taught. Create FORCE. Force creates a powerful swing, is easy to control, and is a CONCEPTUAL (mental) not a PHYSICAL idea.

So, what is force relative to a golf club? What I am going to say now might seem hard going but it will pay you heavily to follow it. Once you know this, you will comprehend what Yogi teaches when he insists that one must “CONTROL” the CLUBHEAD. He never, or rarely, mentions body issues (like shoulder turn, hands ahead or behind the ball, etc.)

In basic physics, FORCE is perhaps the highest form of energy. It is at the root of nearly all energy calculations. POWER, the other calculation, is less than force. It is a measure of energy, but ONE FULL MAGNITUDE less.

What is mass and what is acceleration? For the sake of the non-scientists out there, let us use good old everyday words. Mass is what we call normally weight. It is for our purposes, the clubhead. Clubheads for the irons in a matched customized set (such as you get when you have personalized lessons from Mr. Nicholls) are the SAME MASS (or weight!). The clubheads for the woods, though, are usually heavier (higher mass) than the irons. More on mass in a moment.

What is acceleration? The best phrase to use to describe acceleration is “faster-and-faster.” If you slam on the accelerator of your car it goes faster and faster until the engine speed hits its limit. If you drop in an elevator, you are going faster at the bottom than at the beginning, not very pleasant I am sure. In golf, if you try to US YOUR BODY to accelerate the CLUB, you reach the limit of your body very quickly. The ability to accelerate by physical means alone diminishes severely before we are 40.

However, there is a way the body is easily able to accelerate and men have used that method for centuries and centuries. Let’s see how the ancients did it in a forum called the Olympic Games.

One contest, which oddly, did not require great strength but resulted in an amazing achievement is the discus “throw.” Using today’s discus (6 pounds) we see that they don’t “throw” it at all, in the sense we use the word. Rather, they spin around maybe two and a half times, arms fully extended and then ‘fling,” or ‘heave” the discuss, well in excess of 200 feet. This amazing feat is achieved by TECHNIQUE and knowledge and only secondly by strength. If one uses strength exclusively to throw a six-pound disc, it might go thirty or forty feet, if one were fit and strong and one had a desire to ruin ones shoulder! Notice, to this day, 2,500 years after the first Olympics, there is no good word to describe the discus ‘event.’ Some call it a toss, some call it a throw, but whatever it is, it is not easy to give a name to.

Another thing to note, for our purposes, is that the principle physical edge for competitors in the discus is not only a strong fit body, but also a very long arm span. This tells us something, too, about the golf problem.

Why does a discus ‘throw’ go much farther if the athlete spins around? The answer is primarily equation above: Force = mass X acceleration. But how do you go ‘faster and faster’ when spinning? The answer to that is one of the big breakthroughs in physics in the 16^th century. It says, simplifying, that objects which move in a CIRCLE are accelerating. Let me state that a different way: if you hold a flat disk in your hand and spin and relax your arm so that you are moving in a circle, the disk will be accelerating. If you hold a stick with a heavy weight on the end and spin it in a circle, the heavy weight will be accelerating.

If you drive the club into the golf ball, the clubhead will merely have speed, and no force will be possible.

So, ideally, if you can move the CLUBHEAD in a circle and keep it there, when it makes contact with something, it will create FORCE at impact. FORCE is acceleration X mass.

If you take a stick and use all your physical power to HIT the ball, then at impact you will create POWER, which is weaker than FORCE. POWER = mass X speed (velocity). Since acceleration is velocity (speed) squared, it is ONE FULL MAGNITUDE more forceful than a direct line hit! When I say “direct line” I mean that one mentally attempts to drive the clubhead into the ball from the top of the back swing in as short a line as possible.

Of course, biologically, no one can actually take a stick and move it in a perfectly straight line, nor does one have the need to. But, in the MIND of the untrained golfer, he sees himself ‘swinging’ the CLUB (not clubhead) directly down toward the ball as hard as he needs to in order to get the POWER he wants.

What have we said and what is next? We say that the principle of FORCE guides Yogi instruction. Yogi did not work this out with a slide rule and calculator way back in 1916. He had a full revelation of the entire skillset of golf: the swing, the short game, the putt, the setup and the finish. He held fast to what he insisted as “God given (Creator given).” His entire life was marked by an ease and fluidity of play, trick shots, great scores, and good distance and shape right up to the last days of his long and fun life.

There is much more to the way the body works, of course, than just knowing about acceleration along a circle. But, without it, one MUST ‘hit’ the ball and do so with the maximum of coordination, timing, and physical skill, and do so for each club, each type of shot, each golf course and for any stage of life in which one has a marked physical change! No wonder we regard the modern tournament player with awe! They are so gifted and driven that they actually try to master the game under these conditions.

You might object that you do see a circle and arc as the main swing. But the truth would shock you. This is not the place to debate the differences between a power game and a force game. More on that in a later piece. However, I concede fully that owing to practice and observation, the power swingers have allowed themselves more and more to swing the club rather than hit with it. They run afoul of what to do at impact. Do you hit down on it or swing up on it? It is an entirely different problem with entirely different physical requirements.

Yogi’s inspiration was complete. He figured how to make a very large circle beginning from the top of the back-swing right on through the full wrap-around-the-neck finish. This is a very difficult maneuver to untangle and comprehend in physical terms. Hence, Yogi says “I play 100% MENTAL!” What he means is more than just the swing, but he means that he has a mental routine for setting himself beside the ball, aiming, placing the club behind the ball, taking the clubhead back and finally swinging (in an arc (circle or, more precisely an ellipse) up and finishing the whole ellipse. In this way, the clubhead, if properly put on this imagined (mental) arc would be accelerating. At impact it will discharge its full force into the ball.

The golfer will experience a full release of the generated energy. His body will be as loose as the discus thrower mentioned above. The only benefit of using physical force will be to make very small changes in the arc size, the type of contact (spin) and so on.

Why is it that Yogi’s method is not known world-wide as of this moment? The reason is not hard to find: it is easy to DO but hard to UNDERSTAND. The learning curve for Yogi is tricky, because few of us have experienced acceleration. Fewer still have experienced strength by staying loose and swinging artfully and gracefully. This all contradicts the masculine in us. In Fact women may find themselves better students of the Yogi swing.

Speaking from direct experience, I have people tell me all the time how ‘smooth’ or ‘effortless’ my swing is. I thank them but it is not me doing that. I am merely doing what I have learned from Yogi and Tim. If I stand loose and turn properly so that I can get the clubhead on placed on MY arc, and then bring it UP into the ball, I will look like I am doing nothing. And frankly, I AM doing nothing! Where I have problems is that the view from my head is ENTIRELY DIFFERENT when I draw a big circle with the clubhead than when I stand over the ball and hit it.

The physical experience is different. The hand position is different. The ‘shoulder turn’ is different. The CONCEPTION of the shot is different. The shape of the shot is higher, and completely consistent.

The way the clubs are tuned is different. Yet, the whole process is so profound, so logical so easy to do that it really did baffle people. Yogi was AHEAD of his time and just now is coming into prominence.

Golfers everywhere have worked hard, had very bad days, seen their distance decline precipitously, and been subjected to a massive Noetic Flood of teaching ideas, equipment and watching great scores from awkward professionals. It is dawning on many of you that the swing can’t be THAT difficult. It is also dawning on you that it just might require INTELLIGENCE and not just physical prowess to execute this skill, just as it did in the days of the Greeks when they discovered that spinning was the only way to hurl the discus very far.

If you have seen a top discus event, the main thing about it is its classical beauty. Even though today’s discus throwers are large, fit and muscular, they are uniformly graceful, well balanced and full of rhythm as they spin across the tiny ring. Perhaps one of the most famous sculptures remaining from Greece’s golden age, the Discus Thrower in the British Museum shows how an artist saw the event. But the point is that something can be both beautiful, graceful artistic AND very powerful.

Yogi constantly hammered on this. Be beautiful Be an artist. Swing gracefully. Hold the club gently. Use your mind and swing effortlessly, “be boneless and muscle-less.” Very charming. Where are you ever going to hear that kind of talk coming from a golfer who could drive the ball 300 yards in the days of hickory shafts?

So, using the classical definition of truth, we see that for something to be ‘true’ it has too be easy, powerful, and beautiful. ANY proper movement executed perfectly is beautiful: a football throw, a sprint to the wire, Pete Maravich’s passes. No one can resist the lure of beauty and gracefulness, which the Yogi Swing is aiming for.

In one memorable but brief talk, the Count says that he NEVER sold golf. He ALWAYS sold health. People, he said, came from everywhere to get health. And, he would continue, if they WANTED to learn golf, then they could have that too. What was Yogi talking about?

As we write this today, it is a fact that the golf swing is always in the top ten lists causing back and shoulder injuries, as well as wrist, neck and even knees. Normally, one expects a sport (especially a non contact sport) to build health and fitness. But, golf’s little secret is that it can cause injuries. Why? What is more innocent than swinging a fairly light club (less than two pounds)?

Without going into too much detail, the answer is a lack of total body efficiency AND not properly aligning the shot.

In other words, the golf swing works best and healthiest if the swing is a full body swing and the golfer is lined up perfectly. Why do we mention alignment? If one is misaligned, and we have all done this, there is a conflict between what we sense (probably the correct line) and what we think we are doing (our ‘approach’). This little conflict usually results in pushed or pulled shots at best, and often can cause one to strain to get correct contact with the ball.

In any event, the Yogi Five-Step swing, using the Platform to Perfection, can minimize this alignment problem.

Then there is the problem of a total body swing. As we have said above, unless one approaches the swing from the point of view of acceleration and making the clubhead move in a very big ellipse, one MUST rely on physical coordination and strength on all shots. If one is not well practiced, or not coordinated, or whatever the issue is (recovering from surgery!), then one’s shots will be unsatisfactory. So, Yogi insisted that learning his swing movements would bring health to you. Corrective Exercise without strain and increased blood flow through the entire body. We say ditto, and you will too, if your experience is anything like mine.

What is fun? Play? Joy? Pleasure? There is an infinity of answers but one only knows! Can golf be fun all the time? Yes! Is it? For most it is not. The game is inherently lovely, or demanding, or solitary, of social, etc. It can be a competition or a private affair. It can put one in harmony with nature or at odd with it. It can make one want the course designer to die a slow death. It can yield extreme excitement on a good day.

Still, if we are not masters of our swings, we always face each swing with some uncertainty. This is absolutely unnecessary. Period. With a good practiced Yogi swing, you will NOT ever think you can’t make the next shot.

You may have muffed a shot, but it was because your mind wandered, or you were excited or distracted mentally.

When one takes the uncertainty out of the swing (not the game!), one can always enjoy the course, the weather, the shots, and even the people if they are well behaved.

One does not need to be a sociologist to know that activities, which are challenging mentally and physically AND with the challenge taken seriously, will result in excellent mental health at any age.

Golf can provide this challenge. Think of it. You are faced with a large well-manicured area. It changes its mood and atmosphere every day. You meet various people in various mental states, not all pleasant. You have a complex physical maneuver to perform when you swing, stroke or putt or kick the golf ball. You have to use your mind somewhat, you walk, and you can meditate on nature or think out your problems. You can bet with your buddies. You can challenge yourself to play at a higher level. You can feel anger, pleasure, rage, hatred, violence, good feelings, friendliness, and even the entire range of those feelings in a four-hour period.

So, it is safe to say that golf is a mental challenge and it can keep your mind young, or at least younger. Yogi always emphasized again and again that golfing his way is good for your health. He meant both mental and physical. His swing teaching leads one into the possibility of really enjoying the whole process, even when the course is beating up your score.

Oh! Did I forget to mention that there is scientific proof that the Count Yogi Health & Mental Golf Method actually slows down the dying off of brain cells (slowing down the aging process).

But, to illustrate this from an unexpected source, we are reproducing a feature excerpt from the copyrighted Jan. 31, 1996 Peter Jennings (ABC) show "WORLD NEWS TONIGHT.” This short but powerful piece demonstrates, as the narrator states: “…a story that may have enormous implications for the way you lead your life.” Click here for the link to this WORLD NEWS TONIGHT transcript.

If you took time to read that short piece, here is what hits us between the eyes. No matter what your age, a physical challenge increases blood supply to the brain AND a MENTAL challenge actually grows around 20-25% more brain synapses (connections). Gentlemen, get out your golf bags and your Platform to Perfection.

We don’t go into it here, but the fact about Count Yogi golf, is (quoting Yogi) “100% mental.” You will find two very big and challenging AND rewarding things for your own brain. A) It is very challenging to learn, but you only need to learn it once; and B) it is very challenging to perfect, and you will spend the rest of your life enjoying that challenge.

Speaking to you personally, I was a victim of not knowing what each shot would bring. I was a heavy, heavy practicer. The ugly moniker ‘range rat’ was applied to me. It was not true, but it looked true. Yet, on the course, after having invested hundreds of thousands of practice shots, I EXPECTED to play a good round.

Not true. I had absolutely no control or certainty at any time what might happen. I might drive the ball beautifully on one hole and yank one into the trees on the next. I might make a spectacular sand save on one hole and skull a simple fringe chip to the next county. This combination of heavy work and failed results left me mean, brooding, and antisocial. I hated playing with other people, even friends. My swing, having been refined on thousands of range balls APPEARED smooth to those who didn’t know. I LOOKED like I might be a good golfer. Occasionally, I hit a perfect shot or two. But, in general, I was thoroughly defeated! I was a very good and accomplished athlete in other sports, and golf had me pinned for the three count.

And, to continue, I was no longer having any fun! I was just angry that I couldn’t master this stupid game. It didn’t matter if I was at Shinnecock Hills, Pebble Beach or Six Hour Round Muni, nothing could make me happy any more except getting on top of this damn game! It was that bad. And I am NOT alone in this. Many of you are ticked off that your dedication, work and affection for the game are rewarded with a whore’s reward.

So, after 18 years (EIGHTEEN!) of this and around 700,000 range balls, the Good Lord had mercy on me and let me have the courage to rediscover Count Yogi. It was difficult at first, because the Count’s claims seem excessive, it takes time to verify his records and he is from a different, and frankly less sophisticated generation! As I am a snob sometimes, it took me some time to check it out.

At this point I will fast-forward to the good results. In a matter of hours, I had a real short game, even though the Yogi swing ideas were odd to me and completely different that I expected. In a year, I had a great putting game and short game and in the second year, I am driving it with nearly the same accuracy as my short club. But, I never ever worry on the golf course, I expect each shot to be perfect and I rarely if ever make a terrible shot, unless I am standing on my head in a pot bunker in Troon.

I don’t even mind playing with other golfers because someone always says something complimentary about ‘my’ swing. Sometimes I tell them it is Creator given or Yogi given. Sometimes I just smile like I was a gifted natural golfer. Ha!

You might well have heard all these terms from your own favorite teacher or pro. But the greatness of the Yogi system is this: here we have a man, who from the age of six until his last days at 84 played nearly perfect golf under all conditions, during all major changes, perfected trick shots with odd clubs, and performed 7,000 shows over a 30 year period at a time when golf was nearly in its infancy.

His own life and dedication are another proof of the ease and validity of his ideas, much stronger proof than the scientific discussion of FORCE versus POWER above. You couldn’t ask for a better one-two punch. You have a man who understands his skills perfectly combined with a 70 year career demonstrating it! The only thing he is not known for was winning on the PGA tour and there were very good reasons on both sides why that didn’t work out. We all regret it, because old-timers and his close friend and family know what he would have done with a national audience.

Still to put the FUN back in PLAY, one has to have a swing that is: 1) easy to do; 2) effective; 3) doesn’t require much practice, except at the learning stage; 4) inexpensive to learn; and finally, 5) doesn’t lose effectiveness with age, or youth or sex, or physical abilities, or anything to do with the body.

For those who wish to be perfect, bring in par scores and better, then you must put in your hours playing golf on all kinds of courses, in all kinds of conditions. You must learn how to understand the courses, the green speeds. You will have to assess your ability to deal with competition. Your golf judgment will have to be developed to a very high order.

Yogi golf, in my experience, eliminates really bad shots (a heavy push, a snap hook, a whiff) and makes one straight and fairly long. However, because I play infrequently, here is what happens to me. I have a 150 yards to the green. The pin is back. Eight or Seven iron? I use an 8. I swing a perfect Yogi swing and feel great. It goes EXACTLY the direction I planned. I walk up to the green and realize that I am 10 yards short because the REAL distance was 160! Am I angry? No. Did I strain myself? No. Did I have a perfect swing? Yes. Did I cost myself a stroke? Yes!

Golf is a game that rewards more than skill. If you HAVE the skill, you don’t necessarily have the shot or the hole figured out. That is what makes golf fun, challenging and on a good day, creates a memorable score, too. Once the swing is behind you, you can have fun. Yes, unless you are a practiced and polished Yogi, you will revert and make Yogi mistakes. You will not set up right, or fail to keep it moving on the ellipse. But that will happen very infrequently.

The main thing is that, for the middle aged and senior golfers at fine country clubs, you will finally have your own amazing course open up to you. You will see why the great players like your course – or hate it! You will understand how the course designer put a little angle on the tee box to fool you into lining up your shots to the right.

You will see that the greens read one way and roll the other. You will have a real chance to PLAY a hole and bring it into YOUR game, rather than just pushing a ball around and trying to find it.

As we stated at the outset, golf is a game played on a piece of manicured land called a course. But it is MUCH more than that. It is a chance to be outdoors for a few hours either alone and meditatively or with friends. It is a strong challenge which never gives up anything. It is a source of pride in having become a member of one of those wonderful clubs, which maintain the grandeur and traditions of golf and add prestige by their membership roles.

Why let a little thing like foolish ideas about the swing interfere with all that? Why subject your body to pain and suffering and your mind to confusion when you can have a swing that only asks for a little thought and some persistent diligence on your part.

Tim can teach you the basic Yogi method of the golf swing and putting. But YOU have to learn it. You also have to prove it to yourself that this works as well as Yogi claims. You will get very quick results, especially in the short game and putting, but the full swing may take a little longer. Why? Think back to the discus thrower. When you see a champion discus thrower in the Olympics, he looks graceful quick, and artistic. And he IS.

What do you think he looked like the first time he tried to spin around the tiny circle? I can tell you first hand. When I was in High School, I did the discus. My mentor was a senior, the state champion, a 6’10” basketball All-American. He had a huge arm span and mine was big but not like his.

The practice circle was way out in the middle of an abandoned field, which should have told me something. At the back of the cement discus circle was a heavy netting. This should have told me something, too. My mentor showed me how to hold the discus, how to stay very loose. He showed me how to spin two and one half times and then release it upward. He demonstrated and this little six-pound metal and wood disc sailed way out there, nearly out of sight.

“Your turn!” he said, and he was restraining a laugh. This should have told me something. I held it as he said, loose. I did the little warm up, twisting my body very heavily then I spun, once twice and let go and Bang! The discus hit the big net BEHIND me. I spun so off center that my foot hit the foul line rail and I did a 360 flip onto the scratchy Bermuda grass outside the circle. My mentor’s long lanky frame was rolling with laughter as I got up and brushed the ants off my tee shirt.

It looks natural, easy and completely effortless when you see a practiced discuss thrower spin around in a very small circle and release the discus in front of him sailing it high into the air. But he didn’t do that the first time, no matter how great an athlete he was in another sport. It is also a different way to generate results, not based fully on muscular size. It takes a good deal of practice to ‘get it.’

But, the Yogi golf swing is exactly like the discus. Once you know how to do it, you will ALWAYS have a good throw, with power and accuracy. You will NOT be a champion or a dominant tournament golfer, though, unless you play a lot of golf and have the opportunity and means to perfect your game.

If you love the game, and are in your forties, fifties, or older and you want to play once or twice a week, and want to swing straight, accurate shots most of the time, you NEED Yogi, now.

And we need you! The Count Yogi system, bequeathed entirely to the Count’s adopted son, Tim Nicholls, is in danger of becoming extinct! Help us save this amazing artform, playing system, and even lifestyle. If you are a man or woman of means, and if you learn and love the Yogi approach as much as we do, we need you on our side as a Friend of The Harry Frankenberg Society and Trust. We need endowment capital to assure an unbroken line of new teachers trained by Tim. We need enthusiasm to promote and advance the method among members and their families in your clubs. It can be a rare opportunity to make a difference. Help bring fun and laughter back into golf. We are only looking for the best of the best in this quest. You don’t need to devote all your time, by any means, but you need to be 100% behind the Yogi teaching and agree strongly on the importance of preserving and extending it.

Send mail to sales@countyogigolf.com with questions or comments.
Last modified: November 28, 2009