Ultimate low for
McWade - No
Return in pro-am
but team were
still winners!

PART TWO OF THE
KENDAL McWADE
STORY

Kendal McWade (right) in demonstrative mood as he talks to Willie MacCallum from Ellon at Hacienda del Alamo Golf Resort driving range.

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Colin@scottishgolfview.com
So what did Kendal McWade find so mind-blowing within the pages of Fred Shoemaker's book, "Extraordinary Golf?"
“Really, Fred, in his book, asked the question ‘Is there a better way, a more natural way (to teach or coach golf pupils …?’ He certainly opened my eyes to something I didn’t ever consider. Having said that, when I came home the experience I had actually drove me into an even more disastrous place," said McWade who is the Bonnyton Golf Club professional but, more important in the context of this article, the founder of "Instinctive Golf" Coaching.
“My own golf fell apart completely because now I was kind of betwixt and between, didn´t know where I was, becoming the new guy or still the old guy. I was nobody.”
McWade candidly reveals that he spent the next two or three years with a state of mind which, in golfing terms, meant he did not know the difference between Shrove Tuesday and Good Friday.
“It wasn’t terribly pleasant. I went from being maybe the busiest golf coach in the West of Scotland to the quietest one, which caused some interesting financial challenges to me. But I knew there was no question of going back to where I once had been as a golf coach. And I didn’t.
“I was still teaching the ‘pre-Fred Shoemaker’ conventional, PGA-style technical coaching.
Then I got kind of caught between the two methods. I was trying to do Fred’s stuff but I couldn’t because I didn´t really know how to do it and, of course, that made everyone think I was a complete crackpot coach.
In 1997, McWade decided he had to do something to snap out of his golfing life in limbo.
“I went back to the States to see Fred Shoemaker, to see if going back would help to clear the air, or, more importantly, clear my mind. When I came back to Scotland after that trip, I definitely saw a little bit of a change in the way I was delivering what I was trying to deliver but, if I am honest about it, I was still floundering around.
“I went back again to Fred Shoemaker in the States and these were hugely expensive trips, four days at a time on the West Coast of America, usually at very exclusive resorts. It was costing me four grand at least every time I went out there.
“So it was very, very challenging to come home and find that I had not really discovered any more than I thought I knew when I came home the last time.”
Life, in golfing terms, at this stage for McWade had become “the pits.”
“I suppose the ultimate low when coming back from one of the trips was when I No Returned in my own club’s pro-am. So, having told the world how amazing Fred Shoemaker was, I had a No Return!
"What made it even more painful was the fact that “we” won the pro am team event that day and I had to stand up and make a speech. That wasn’t good but I did get a cheque, so that offset the downside of it all.
“At that moment I decided not to make another trip back to the States and I changed what Fred Shoemaker had started. I began by looking at how we learn all the other sports and I tried to apply that to golf. So that started another journey.
McWade gave a lesson to one of the Bonnyton members two or three years after Kendal “saw the light,” and he thought this was a pretty novel approach.
“The member liked the idea. I was still in the infancy of this new approaching to coaching. He asked if I considered this might be a business opportunity and I became partners with him
He was a marketer, so he was very good at getting into places I would never have considered getting into. He managed to get to the PGA and get me a slot on the programme at a European Coaching Summit in 2002
“And that´s where Paul Affleck, now one of my partners, listened … there were six coaches and you could go and listen to any of them. The lead coach was David Leadbetter who came and everyone went to listen to him
“Paul Affleck liked what he heard from me and contacted me. He then subsequently contacted Paul Eales and I did a day for them and a few other coaches at Royal Lytham.”
McWade looks back and pinpoints that as a big, big turning point in the development of “Instinctive Golf.”
“I had now had credibility and access to another level of player. Paul Eales thought it was fascinating stuff. He invited me to go with him on to the Tour a couple of times and introduced me to various people, including, ultimately, Paul McGinley
"I worked with McGinley for 18 months. It was the biggest success we had had at that level.
McGinlay climbed from 160th in the world rankings to 58th and made the Ryder Cup team that year.”
So what’s the difference between Fred Shoemaker’s revolutionary coaching theory and Kendal McWade’s “Instinctive Golf?”

+++FIND OUT TOMORROW IN THE THIRD AND FINAL PART OF THE KENDAL McWADE STORY.
IF YOU MISSED PART ONE, SIMPLY SCROLL DOWN UNTIL YOU COME TO IT.
YOU CAN ALSO LEARN MORE ABOUT "INSTINCTIVE GOLF" BY LOGGING ON TO www.instinctivegolf.com