5 Questions With a Class A Certified PGA Professional

If you’re a golfer in the Long Beach/Los Angeles area, you’ve likely heard of the Long Beach Golf Learning Center. At the Roger Dunn retailer within, ask the guys who they recommend for lessons and they’ll point you to the exceptional pro Paul Young. A Class A Certified PGA Professional for over 20 years, Paul has taught for the last 15. He was on the Tour in Europe for 6 years and played competitively in the States for another five. His impressive experience and expertise comes from spending time with some of the best coaches in the world. Just take a look at the demo he gave me focused on keeping your club from coming down too steep on the ball in the brief video I shot of him at the top of this post. He truly has remarkable proficiency and can help you make giant strides in improving your swing almost immediately. Paul was gracious enough to put the club down long enough to answer my five questions:

1. What is the single most common problem you find with someone’s swing?

Grip! The grip is the most common reason someone has a problem with their swing.

2. What is one small thing that one can do to improve their swing?

Improve fundamentals – this is really important. Keeping your body in the correct form with proper fundamentals really is the Holy Grail of golf. When your body is out of the right form, you have to compensate for it in your swing and this never works. At least, I’ve never seen it work – I’d love to know if someone learned how!

3. I know you’ve got some new technology coming that you’ll be using on your students. Can you tell me a bit about that?

It’s called the V1 Golf System, an elaborate video system that will allow me to compare my students to tour pros. I’ll capture the student’s swing on video camera, load it on to the system and then make a split screen. I can then compare in real time, slow motion, or frame-by-frame so we can see what needs to be addressed. I will even be able to turn left-handed players around so that I can compare them with right-handed pros. The system is made to be outdoors also, with a special screen that allows us to see it even in the bright sun during a lesson.

4. That sounds really exciting! How do you think it will help your students develop their swing?

This will give students a tremendous understanding of what they are doing and what they need to do for success. By seeing what is going on and comparing to the pros, problems can be addressed. In addition, I’ll burn a DVD that they can take home and watch so their learning is enhanced further.

5. So who do you believe has the best swing in professional golf today?

Well, since I’m not playing anymore it would be Steve Elkington on the PGA Tour and Annika Sorenstam on the LPGA Tour.


If you are interested in a lesson with Paul Young (which I highly recommend), get in touch with the Long Beach Golf Learning Center/Roger Dunn at (562)981-7050 and they’ll put you in contact with him. They’re located at 3701 Pacific Place, Long Beach, CA. 90806. You can also shoot me an email and I’ll be happy to give you his information as well.