Testimonials for B.I.O.N.I.C. Golf Pro
Martha Sue's method was so simple yet effective. She had students understanding and making the swing motion in a very short amount of time. Golf is challenging enough, but add a developmental disability and it can be quite frustrating, unless Martha Sue is teaching you. Besides the excellent drills and her knowledge of golf, Martha Sue is passionate about helping others and it shows. She has an excellent sense of humor and a ready smile that can put any one at ease. I highly recommend Martha Sue's teaching techniques to any golf instructor, especially those teaching the developmentally disabled. I certainly learned a great deal and enjoyed the entire process. It would be my pleasure to speak to anyone on behalf of Martha Sue.
Sincerely,
Bill Iwinski, PGA
Head Golf Professional
Ironwood Golf Course
Gainesville, FL 32609
Re:Bringing B.I.O.N.I.C. Golf to the golf community through PGA Members
I am on the National Advisory Board for B.I.O.N.I.C. Golf and the New Life Skills Program for Persons with Developmental Disabilities.
Martha Sue Yeary is a gifted LPGA Professional and has developed B.I.O.N.I.C. Golf, a remarkable grass roots program that is developing partnerships between PGA and LPGA professionals and physical therapists to bring quality golf and lifestyle coaching to persons with developmental disabilities.
I am the PGA advisor and liaison between this board and the PGA Sections and members. It is our goal to help PGA Sections and members reach an understanding of how this program and training can help their clients and communities.
My introduction to B.I.O.N.I.C. Golf was as a host club for Martha Sue's training at Neumann Golf Course in Cincinnati in 2002 during her 2002 B.I.O.N.I.C. GOLF Cross-Country Tour. On the tee line was a man with a visual impairment, a woman that had never touched a club before and the host professional that had played one of the top five clubs in Ohio that Monday (it was not a good experience for the pro). After about ten minutes the golf professional had an “a-ha moment.”
The next day brought a man with both legs amputated below the knee and a man with MS. It was an eye opening and life-changing week. I saw a vision of growth in a personally rewarding direction.
I am a member of the PGA since 1973 and a Quarter Century Club member. Great PGA and LPGA teachers have influenced me throughout my career. I have 50,000 ways to say it. Now I have 30 more. And those 30 have changed my life in a very positive way.
First of all, I am now the 2003 Greater Cincinnati PGA Senior Champion. Secondly, my students have the advantage of one turned-on teaching professional. And thirdly, my golf community will experience my growth as I help those challenged by physical and/or emotional disabilities.
I look forward to the role of third party credibility to B.I.O.N.I.C. Golf and Martha Sue's unique visualizations and philosophies.
Bill Terasa, PGA Member
Director of Instruction/Player Development
Billy Casper Golf
Cincinnati, OH
I want to relate what great things have happened to my golfing since the video shoot. I came back from California charged up at the fact that I could actually hit a ball a long way with what you had taught me. Since then I have gone to the driving range three times to practice the "belly button" and "loading the truck" techniques. I found that for the most part I was hitting long drives that were going straight or with a slight tailing off to the right at the end. My distance with my irons was in the 100 - 150 yard range. The drivers I'm still working on, but was getting good distance as well. Atta-boy!
But the best news of all is that yesterday I went out to play on a 3-par course right near my home. I was amazed at how well I did! The first three holes I made in five strokes each. The fifth, however, took me 11! My "chip shots" with the "P" iron kept rolling past the green. Then my putting was "not up to par" as they say. Then I lost a ball in the water for two shot penalty, then another sunk out of site in mud for another two-shot penalty. By the end of the front nine, I had a 59 -- even counting the 11 on the fifth hole!!! ATTA_BOY!!!
After nine, I decided to continue. On the tenth, a foursome asked that I play before them. So I had to do my stuff in front of four experienced golfers. I was a little nervous, but I drove off the tee to within about 10 yards of the green. I chipped on to the green, then two putted. My first Bogie! I was so excited!!! Believe it or not I can Golf!
By the way, I did all this with my clubs I bought at Goodwill for $1.99 each and my bag for $4.99. The driving range is only $6.50 for 45 balls or $11 for 90 balls, and by 18 holes only cost $25.00. So it's even not as expensive as I always thought it would be. I did splurge on some golf shoes, but they were on special for $39, normally $99. I looked good!! Atta-boy!!!
Hope to see you next month in Florida. I hope to be golfing with Amy Styer on the morning of November 16th at a course in Orlando somewhere.
Ed Weil Reyes
A couple of months ago, I was introduced to a lady named Martha Sue Yeary. She came to our golf course with a goal of getting students of all ages with special needs to take part in a golf program and learn the basics of a sport many people across the country play and love. While I have worked with these types of students before through the Special Olympics program, I never fully understood what they were going through until Martha Sue shed light on what it was like to have a disability.
Through her Bionic Golf Program, she taught me a teaching method of getting the student to visualize what was going to happen and taking everyday things that they know and understand and relate it to trying to hit a golf ball. I, like many others, was skeptical at the beginning when she told us to have the students talk to the ball, wiggle the hips, or even yell out a happy word if the ball was struck well. However low in behold, this method actually worked with the students and they became fascinated with saying hi to the ball as they addressed it and the happy word became louder and louder, just as the smile on their faces did, as we continued to go through the program.
As the weeks progressed however and the students started to learn more and more about the game of golf, I started to discover that it was me actually learning more than them. It wasn't about the game of golf; it was about life and how hard these kids with special needs have had it throughout their lives. It made me realize that worrying about waiting in traffic or having an argument with my spouse is petty compared to what these kids go through day in and day out. What Martha Sue has done is given them hope and the opportunity to do something they thought they never could have accomplished in life. To see the excitement on their faces after a good shot has meant the world to me and I have treasured every moment I have spent with the students and have established a relationship with them that I never would have without Bionic Golf. I know that this program is only at the beginning stages of what Martha Sue envisions happening and her work ethic and drive to help these kids is something that I have never seen in a person. I am willing to do whatever it takes to bring students from our community in and take them through the process of feeling like they too can accomplish something people have told them they would never be able to do. So whether or not it's a couple or a couple of thousand kids that she is able to help, each one is better for having met Martha Sue and her program.
Jeff Cardozo
Assistant Golf Professional
Ironwood Golf Course
Gainesville, Florida.
I thoroughly enjoy playing golf. Be it a weekend outing with a foursome, a quick round after work or a vacation filled with golf.
Golf is the most relaxing and satisfying sport I can imagine but it wasn't always this way. In my early years I tried hard to kill the ball and, once on the green, to guide the ball into the cup.
Needless to say, I had very little early success and rarely broke 100. My mental state was not improved by such a round. Gradually I became a better golfer because I finally learned some of the secrets to success.
My improvement in golf parallels my new career in insurance sales and it was all caused by my mental attitude!
What I learned in sales was to “Have a System and Work your System”! I was taught to follow a set procedure and then I would be able to handle the unexpected, the initial rejections which inevitably happen in each and every sales presentation.
Think of your last five rounds of golf, did everything go as planned? It never happens that way does it? So you must be prepared by having a system and staying with your system.
Now what do I mean by having a System? If you are teeing off and you use a different method of setting up each time, what are your odds of striking the ball consistently? On the other hand, if you always go behind the ball and line up the ball with the target and with some object about 2-4 feet in front of the ball and online to the target, you will be more consistent and hit online more often than not. This is having a system and using your system.
Now if you can paint a mental picture of how you want the swing to look, the flight pattern of the ball and its landing you have won most of the battle. So how do you paint this picture so that it will always be there and, if you can visualize the act, then you can accomplish the act. Your body will do what your mind tells it to do.
This is where Martha Sue Yeary comes in with her BIONIC Golf. In addressing the ball, you visualize getting in your car in the morning to go to work. The first thing you do is put the car in reverse and back up slowly, then you stop and put the car in neutral, than you put the car in forward and step on the gas. At first you accelerate moderately but then you visualize yourself going up an on-ramp to an Interstate Highway and a big 18 wheeler is coming on in the inside lane, you know that you have to increase your acceleration so that you will enter the highway safely in front of the truck and out in the clear on a beautiful open highway.
It's as simple as that; if you can think it you can do it, then by jolly you can do it! We can all visualize backing up a car, stopping, place the car in neutral, then in drive and accelerating moderately at first and then stepping on the gas as you move smartly up the on-ramp.
Just imagine you are on the 3rd tee at a beautiful Hill and Dale course with the tee up high and a beautiful tree line fairway in front of you on a 424 yard par 4 hole. There is a slight dogleg left about 270 yards out and the fairway begins to roll downhill a bit just at the dogleg.
As you step back and survey the fairway you realize that you want your ball to stay right so you can negotiate the left dogleg. So you line up you shot to the right center of the fairway and you see a leaf about three feet in front of your ball, it is right between you and the spot you want your ball to end up.
So you line up using the leaf as a guide, you take the club back low and slow. You pause at the top of your backswing as you imagine yourself changing the car to neutral and then shifting to DRIVE, you start your downswing slowly at first and then pick up momentum as you feel that you are in control and in a groove. You maintain the acceleration all the way thru the ball and continue all the way till the clubhead wraps itself around your left shoulder.
As you are standing up high on this beautiful golf tee on a clear day you admire the flight of the ball as it starts to the right side of the fairway and then curves in gently to the center right portion of the fairway and lands about 260 yards out and then the balls takes the spin and rolls just up the hill and then down the other side stopping in the middle of the fairway about 150 yards from the pin.
You begin to imagine your next shot landing about 3 feet from the pin and you putt in for a birdie (never think, the worst I can do is a par, always think, hey I've put myself in position for a bird).
Now that, I submit to you is BEAUTY! The beauty that you will experience when you have a System and work your System.
Just like my first Sales Manager many years ago, Martha Sue has taught me a system of Golf. A system that allows me to adjust to bad lies, various weather conditions and unexpected hazards. This system has taken at least 12 strokes off my average round.
It is a system that helps you to enjoy the true BEAUTY OF GOLF!
Jim Hargrove
