Rinker’s Golf Tips April 6th Top 100 Teacher Randy Smith. PGA Hall of Fame Member, Randy Smith, was my guest and we talked about his early years in golf, along with his teaching career and working with juniors who went on to play golf at the highest level. Randy grew up in Odessa, Texas which is known for it’s football at Permian High School, ala “Friday Night Lights.” It was also a golf haven because three people from Odessa went on the become PGA National Professionals of the Year. In Randy’s junior year of high school, he was working part time and not playing the kind of golf that he enjoyed. There was a pretty big junior tournament one day at the club and Randy had told some people that he didn’t have the $10 entry fee, because he didn’t want to play. As he was walking through the pro shop that day , the head pro, Jake Bechtold said, “You’re on the tee in 10 minutes.” Randy said, “I didn’t enter the tournament by the deadline.” The pro said, I paid your entry and here’s the tee sheet with your name on it, and sure enough he was on the tee sheet! Randy played one of the best rounds he had ever played and won the tournament by two or three strokes. Randy commented “all sickness is not death, no need to over react, and some people care more about you than you think.” He went on say it’s a fine line between encouraging, nurturing, and pampering someone, while at times you need to give them a kick in the pants. Blend those two together and you have something.
When Randy was the assistant pro at Tulsa Country Club, he drove six hours down to see Harvey Penick at Austin Country Club. He went there because he was having trouble with his chipping. Randy arrived and started hitting some balls on the range. When Mr. Penick drove up, Randy said, “I’ve got this hook problem.” Mr. Penick told him to take his glove off and start hitting some three woods. He told him a few things and the next thing Randy knew, Mr. Penick was driving the range picker around the range picking up balls. This went on for the next three hours, a little instruction, back into the range picker and so forth. The lesson time might have been only 30-40 minutes but it was invaluable to Randy. When they finished, Randy asked how much the lesson was, and Mr. Penick said, we’ll catch up later sometime. Randy then told Mr. Penick the real reason why he came down, and to his surprise they met the next morning at 7:30 when the course was closed!
Randy met Justin Leonard when he was six years old after his family joined Royal Oaks. He was a little fella, three and a half feet tall at nine, and also witty and funny. Justin came to the course early and sometimes he would raise cain if he had to leave the course earlier than he wanted to. Kids were hitting it 50 yards past him, but with his keen short game, Justin was still beating them. Randy said Justin was driven by the fact that he knew his short game had to be better than the other kids in order to beat them. Around 13, when he started to grow, Justin started getting more distance and now he had the whole package. One day after Justin won a tournament he said to Randy, I want to know more, and that started a process where Randy refocused and got more into teaching. What Randy learned through this process was that the student drives the bus, figure out what are their needs are, and where do they want to go. Everyone is different and you have to treat them differently. You can make suggestions, but it has to be what they want to do. If they can see a difference, and it’s what they want to do, now you have something. Randy can be reached by calling the golf shop at Royal Oaks in Dallas, Texas.