My golf guru: long-distance teaching and playing pro Wayne DeFrancesco and the GolfStyles enigma

Back in the day when the in-laws lived near Pittsburgh, the fam and I would make the trek south and I’d play at Chestnut Ridge, an interesting 36-hole complex in Blairsville, PA. At some juncture during those electric 90s (the decade, not my scorecard tally), I stumbled upon a copy of Washington Golf Monthly, a free and informative magazine that has morphed into GolfStyles. The magazine has changed over time, but one constant has been the instruction editor/author.

Wayne DeFrancesco is a Maryland-based, teaching and playing pro who played collegiate golf at Wake Forest and LSU before embarking on a tournament career. Many injuries and some success later, he turned to golf instruction. A fiercely self-confident chap, DeFrancesco majored in English throughout college and read seemingly every text on every subject he could find. While great literary knowledge might not suffice to connect hip rotation with clubhead lag on the lesson tee, it DOES help immensely when explaining it in print. This is DeFrancesco’s gift to you, me, everyone, everyone (sorry, got carried away…Blues Brothers thing.) He writes better than he should, more appropriately and precisely than he should, so that we can understand him.

It mystifies me when wags describe WD as a blowhard; they are the same ones who want it all now, in tidy little sound bites. These tyros are the DeFrancesco’s undoing, his match to be met. Certainly the average DeFrancesco article, spanning two to three full-size pages, takes time to read. Relationships take time to build, golf takes time to learn.

Wayne D. continues to be a player as well as a teacher. He annually competes in the National Club Pro Championship, which he won back in 2001. He often gains entry to PGA Tour events in the mid-Atlantic, threatening the cut on occasion. He is the ultimate lab rat, taking what he suspects to the practice tee, the money match, the tournament, all in the name of science. If he proves it with something on the line, he reasons, it must have the potential to stand the test of time.

This month, WD’s article deals ostensibly with Stack and Tilt and One Plane Two Plane, the dueling theories of the day in high-profile golf instruction. “Ostensibly” because WD transcends a mere assignment to get to the meat of the matter: what you the student wants and how another the teacher will get you there.

Sadly, I cannot get you there. The sneaky deceivers at GolfStyles, unlike most print magazines, do not mirror there paper copy digitally. That is, they put certain pieces on the site, leaving others to subscribers only. DeFrancesco’s pieces do not make the website. Washington Golf Monthly was a free publication; GolfStyles is, too, but only if you live in that state or in a bordering state. Never mind that I’m a five-hour drive from Columbus, the epicenter of all that is good in Ohio. I cannot access an Ohio subscription because of that little toenail of Pennsylvania containing Erie.

The principal articles don’t change from edition to edition. What does change are the local course reviews, which everyone likes. So visit this link and see if you qualify to receive at least one GolfStyles edition. You’ll like the pretty pictures, but the words of Wayne should keep you coming back.