SUMMERFIELD – At first glance, The Learning Center at Greensboro National might be mistaken for a storage building for golf course equipment. It sits at the end of the expansive practice range and is dwarfed by Greensboro National’s clubhouse as golfers enter the complex via Niblick Drive.

Golfers arriving for a round of golf or a lesson will quickly notice, however, that range balls are flying out of the building’s 18’ x 20’ door onto the range. Go inside, and it looks like a den with TV sets and comfortable furniture.

"They might think it’s a shed but once they come inside ... it’s like hitting golf balls out of your living room," said PGA Professional Steve Harris, who has called the Learning Center his home away from home for the last three years.

Harris gave more than 1,300 private lessons in 1998. That’s more than 100 a month, but it’s as an instructor that he’s found his pro niche.

"I got tired of wearing all the hats that a club pro wears," Harris said, remembering a career that began in 1977 and took him to clubs in Columbia, S.C., Lake Norman, N.C., Greenville, S.C., and Eden, N.C. "All I do here is teaching and club fitting."

He left Meadow Greens Country Club in Eden for a stint as director of instruction at Tanglewood Park.

Shortly after Greensboro National opened in 1995, majority owner Titus Plomaritis invited Harris aboard as golf instructor.

"Titus was one of my members at Meadow Greens," Harris said. "He was looking for a teaching program and I was looking for a place to teach.

"I own and operate the building and they own and operate the golf course. It’s been a good marriage. They’ve got a teaching program and I’ve got a great location for a teaching facility."

The Learning Center is climate controlled so lessons are never called off because of bad weather; golfers can hit into a net inside. But what really sets it apart from other teaching facilities is ASTAR, an advanced video system. Graphs and comparison charts zero in on a golfer’s swing problems and enable Harris to work quickly.

Harris teaches the full range of players, from beginner to the advanced golfer who is in for a tune-up. Many of his clients come from Clemmons, where he still lives, and many from Eden.

"At Tanglewood, I gave more private lessons to adults," he said. "Here, it’s 50 percent juniors and 50 percent adults."

Harris said he always starts with the basics. "I teach fundamentals from grip to posture. Stance and grip go hand in hand. I’m huge on swing plane and face angle. That’s what makes the ball go in the right direction."

Harris said he scores in the mid 70s but notes that he plays golf only about once a month. He doesn’t teach or play golf on Sundays, so he can spend a day with his wife of 24 years, Barbara, 16-year-old son Jason and 14-year-old daughter Jenny, both aspiring junior golfers.

More and more, Harris is becoming known as the father of Jason, a rising senior at West Forsyth High School and one of the state’s top junior players.

If Steve is taking time off from his teaching, he’s probably following Jason at a junior event. He was in Ohio and Texas, among other junior-event venues, in July.

Jason’s success has been good for business.

"My son’s an excellent player, and just because of his name he’s brought me a lot of people who have heard about him."

Although Jason has been playing in more national-scale events this summer, he’s been one of the top winners in the history of the Triad Golf Today Junior Tour. Several of the juniors on the TGTJT have taken lessons from Steve Harris.

"I’d like to thank Wendell Welch for forming the tour and running it," Harris said. "He does a great job with it."

Harris said he can give the juniors some guidelines to practice with, but it’s up to them to take the next steps. "The practice tee is where they practice their fundamentals and it carries right over into their games. And there’s nothing like competition to bring out the best in them."

The downhill chip shot is probably one of the most difficult shots in golf. There’s a tendency by most amateurs and even the tour pros is to try to help the ball in the air.

The first thing you must do when hitting a downhill chip, is put all your weight on your left side. You need to go with the hill, in other words. You want your shoulders to be level with the hill. If they are not, the tendency is for the bottom of the club, the bottom of the arc, to bottom out on the down side of the hill, resulting in a chunk or a blade. Set your shoulders with the level of the hill, weight on your left side, ball toward the back of your stance. Now, players like Billy Casper, Chi Chi Rodriguez –very handsy players in their day-- were always great bunker players and great with the downhill chip, because they were a little more handsy. Players of today, like Faldo or Ernie Els—a little more stiff-wristed players and not as wristy swingers—would have trouble with this shot. Always remember: Even though the ball is coming off low—which it will off the downhill lie—it is still producing a lot of spin. And you have to allow accordingly.

Take two examples here of amateur golfers. Chuck hits more of a driving shot, hits a real hard golf ball. Chuck would have more trouble hitting the downhill chip. He would have to allow for more run in his shot. Bill, being a finesse player and a little more handsy, could play the downhill chip a little better, because he could slide the club under and get the ball slightly higher in the air.

This is a shot that requires a lot of practice. It’s a shot that you don’t get too often, but it’s one that you must be able to execute. Remember, the whole key to the down hill chip is to go with the slope. If you try to help the ball in the air, the arc will bottom out behind the ball and you will chunk it or skull it.

This applies also to hitting out of the fairway. I’ve seen a very common mistake made by amateurs in numerous Pro Ams. They get on the downhill and the tendency is to try to help the ball in the air. If you are hitting out of the fairway, and for a little longer shot you must open your stance, you must aim well left of the target, play the ball toward your back, go with the level of the slope and allow for it to slice or to push off a little bit to the right. By opening your stance you clear your body out of the way, and that allows you to swing the club down the slope line.

Hope that this will help you, and good luck out there with your golfing. Always remember, if you don’t like your lie, tee it up. You are just out there having fun.

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Jerry Haas is head men’s golf coach at Wake Forest University

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Gotta a rule you love to hate?

Most golfers murmur some nasty epithet about the out of bounds rule, the spike mark rule or maybe the 14-club rule.

They’re not really all that terrible when compared with a rules decision I like to call the "Good Samaritan" rule.

What is a rules decision, you almost want to ask?

Start with the rules of golf, all 34 of them that take up 144 pages in a small book that fits in your back pocket.

Now consider that there are about 1,100 decisions, based on the 34 rules, which embrace specific golf situations.

Because golf is played outdoors among nature and the rest of us, a lot of strange things can happen to a golf ball. The decisions on the rules of golf were written to answer questions about situations not covered specifically by a rule.

The decisions are listed in order by the rule to which they refer, such that all decisions under Rule 16 deal with the putting green. Unfortunately, not all decisions dealing with the putting green are under Rule 16’s list because some decisions are governed by more than one rule. Complicated, huh?

If all the dilemmas of golf were to be covered in the rules book, it would be 600 pages long, the size of the book titled the "Decisions on the Rules of Golf 1998-1999." And it won’t fit in any pocket unless you wear clown clothes.

You can buy a "decisions book" from the USGA by calling the association’s order department (800-336-4446). If you are a USGA member, you get a discount. If you are at all curious about the application or intricacies of this game’s rules, it’s fun to have around.

The USGA refers to it as Decision 1-2/3.

You might like the way decisions are written in a question and answer format—although the USGA could be more creative in the way it names players.

Question: B removes the flagstick, places it on the putting green behind the hole and putts. A, believing that B’s ball will strike the flagstick, picks up the flagstick, allowing B’s ball to roll beyond where the flagstick had been placed. What is the ruling?

Answer: In match play, A loses the hole for removing an obstruction which might influence the movement of the ball while the player’s ball was in motion—Rule 1-2 or 24-1.

In stroke play, A incurs a penalty of two strokes—Rule 1-2 or 24-1.

That’s right. The guy who moves the flagstick, not the guy who took it out of the hole or was putting, gets the penalty. All this guy A was doing was trying to keep this guy B from getting a penalty.

Let’s cover some basic premises. Toward the bottom of the obstruction rule, 24-1, you can read "When a ball is in motion, an obstruction which might influence the movement of the ball, other than an attended flagstick or equipment of the players, shall not be removed."

The flagstick is an obstruction because it is artificial or man-made. It’s not attended; it’s lying on the ground. It’s not supposed to be moved from its position on the ground once a putt is in motion if it is possible that the putted ball might hit it.

At the same time, most of us know that a putted ball shouldn’t hit a flagstick. The player who hits such a putt is penalized, either two strokes in stroke (medal) play or loss of hole in match play (Nassau golf). This falls under Rule 17-3.

So we have a situation where a guy is trying to prevent another guy from getting a penalty. These two guys aren’t related or partners or anything like that. No insidious plots. And the one who’s trying to do a good deed is going to be penalized.

Not a good rule, I believe; but there it is. The Good Samaritan Rule.

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Michael Dann is the assistant director of the Carolinas Golf Association