THE WORLDS MOST EXPENSIVE GOLF PRO (By Merrel Noden) Golf Connoisseur MITCHELL SPEARMAN was seven when he first took up the game, inspired by an auntie who just happened to be two-time British Ladies' Amateur champion Marley Spearman. A precocious pupil, he shot 71 "at 12 or 13," joined the PGA at 16, and qualified for the British PGA Championship at 18. But, says Spearman, "as much as golf is my life and I enjoy playing it, what I have found is that teaching has become my dharma." Spearman moved to the U.S. in 1988 and for 10 years served as David Leadbetter's top assistant. He's taught a number of top pros, including Nick Faldo and Craig Parry, and now works with Deepak Chopra, with whom he's developed a program called "Golf for Enlightenment." But it's not for enlightenment alone: Spearman, who currently works out of Manhattan Woods Golf Club, in West Nyack, New York, is known as the most expensive golf pro in the world. Is it a selling point to be known as the most expensive teacher out there? Other people have used it as that, which is a compliment to me. I suppose if something's expensive, it might be regarded as quite good. So how much does it cost to take a lesson with you? Usually for the first lesson, it's three hours, which costs $1,800. For subsequent lessons, which are two hours, it's $1,200. Why would anyone pay that much? You're paying for the privilege of other people not being there-as opposed to paying $200 with three other people there. That's actually how it came about. My lessons used to be three guys at $500 a go. One of my pupils called me up one day and said, "I want an individual lesson with you." I told him I didn't do that. He said, "Well, I want to pay for them to not be there." When it was over he said, "That was the best lesson I ever had. It was fantastic! I got you for three hours: I feel like I improved three times what I normally would. I recommend you try doing that more often." Well, I did. How did you get started teaching? I was caddying for a pro in a local tournament [in London] when I was 12, where I met the head pro from the Hampstead Golf Club, Terry Le Brocq, who had been on the European Tour and qualified for the British Open. Terry asked if I'd like to work in the golf shop every Saturday and Sunday. I told him what I'd really like to do is watch him teach. He said, "Well, come work in the golf shop in the morning, and then at noon you can come out and watch me teach in the afternoon." I got three pounds a day, but it was fantastic. Once I started [teaching], I used to get six pounds an hour. Is there a single theory or approach that runs through all of your teaching? I teach by trying to extract all the good things that I see a player is capable of doing. Instead of [subjecting students to] a lot of struggle and frustration, I am able, very quickly, to go in there and see one thing that will have an effect on improving the rest of the swing. I'm told that I swing too hard. Does that mean you'd find a way to make a virtue of that? If you swing hard, it might be more effective if the swing is shorter. And obviously, you've got to make sure your set up is pretty good. So hard can be a good thing - if you learn how to nurture it because it would be completely against your equilibrium to try to swing smoothly and slowly. I remember a cover of Golf Magazine that showed you doing a lot of chores, like painting and lifting a bucket. Do you use images like that when you teach? When you're playing good golf, you can get out of your own way by creating images. Some of the great players used images: Hogan talked about the pane of glass; Snead about being nice and oily; Jack Nicklaus said reach into the clouds. Everyone from time to time has used those images, but no one had ever put them together. What I like is that they are memorable: Everyone who's read my book - called AIM of Golf - remembers a few of them. How did you meet Deepak Chopra? Through my wife, who'd been to a lot of his seminars. He'd just taken up golf and asked me to give him a lesson during the lunch break. The lunch break turned into the next morning and the next middle of the day, and we became close friends very quickly. It was amazing to watch him. Here was someone who had an acceleration button on the learning process. He had a way of making his body learn something without the usual tendencies I see in golfers in their mid-50s who are just taking up the game. Within a year of his taking up the game, I went out to California and we played four days in a row and he shot between 83 and 87 every day. Who else are you teaching at the moment? I would never name my clients, partly because you would recognize some of them. I don't do much advertising. It's word of mouth, really. People find me that way. Have you taught any other celebrities? Jack Nicholson, way back. I was out on Long Island and I was introduced to him. He was hitting balls and everything was a big slice. This was September. I said, "How long are you out here for?" He said "I'm playing Shinnecock, National, and Atlantic, and I'm not leaving until I break 80 or 90 - or whatever it was - on all of them." I said, "Well, you may be writing Christmas cards from out here." He hit another big slice and said, "I see what you mean." Do you ever fly out to see students? I do a lot of corporate stuff. Is the rate the same? It's a bit more. Ten thousand dollars and up. For a day. Are those large classes? Yes, but what works in the large class isn't an hour of three people, it's a five-minute tip. A five-minute tip is sometimes more powerful and more valuable than spending a lot of time with one person. Eventually the effect wears off. But the five-minute tip can be quite helpful for that day. I know a track coach who says he gets as much satisfaction in making the 4:40 miler run 4:20 as the 4:10 miler run 4:08. Is that true for you? Working with top players has been a valuable part of the experience of being a teacher. The thing is, for Nick Faldo or Greg Norman or any of these guys, there is such a fine line between what they were doing when they won a tournament and what they were doing when they didn't. It could be changing the putter in their bag, changing their caddie, getting a different swing coach. The role that you play as a golf instructor to those guys is saying the right thing at the right time, not too much, not too little. How many clients do you have, roughly, and how often do they see you? I send out 100-plus Christmas cards. Some just pop in and see me once a year and are good enough to be able to do that. Others come more regularly. My idea is that they don't become dependent on me for golf instruction. Once people get to know what they need to do, it's up to them. To view the other Press articles featuring Mitchell click here . . . For more information on Mitchell Spearman click here . . . For more information on the Tour Players Mitchell is currently working with click here . . . For information on the other Staff working for Mitchell Spearman Golf click here . . . For information on receiving Individual or Corporate Instruction please click here . . .