Club champ swings for the fences

No golf instructor would teach anyone Barbara Schmitt’s swing.

In a textbook backswing, the club’s shaft settles slightly over the player’s shoulders, parallel to the ground.

Schmitt, on the other hand, brings the club well past parallel and accelerates through the ball with as much power as she can muster.

It’s not pretty, Scmitt says, but it is effective.

“I swing it like John Daly or something,” Schmitt said. “I used to take lessons to help tone it down, but they didn’t work. I feel comfortable with my swing.”

Schmitt — a former softball player — knows golf tournaments aren’t won or lost with swing aesthetics. They’re won on the scorecards.

And as the 2008 club champion at both San Ignacio and Canoa Hills, Scmitt’s swing clearly gets results.

The 5-foot-4 Schmitt carries a homemade driver with a four-foot shaft in her bag — easily the most extreme club out of anyone in her inner circle — to accommodate her unique swing path.

“The shaft used to be 49 inches, but now it’s only 47,” Schmitt said.

She took part in her first Green Valley Golf tournament last year, when she claimed the San Ignacio title. A week later, she finished runner-up at Canoa Hills.

She is usually one of the longest players off the tee in her women’s groups, but her low scores come as a direct result of the work she puts in around the greens.

When she first picked up a club 18 years ago, she said the short game was a total mystery.

But once the golf bug bit, she started hitting the course nearly every day, with the putting/chipping greens serving as her first stop.

As a result, she is one of the rare golfers who can drive for show and putt for dough, with her score routinely dipping below 80.

If there is a flaw in her game, she said it lies in the longer irons.

“I rarely hit a green in regulation,” Schmitt said. “My chipping has to be extra strong in order to make up for it.”

She cruises through 18 holes a day, sometimes as often as five times per week at all of the local golf courses.

“I enjoy a variety,” Schmitt said.

Resting next to her four-foot driver is a set of Mizuno irons and Ping woods.

Soon, she will leave the balmy Green Valley conditions for the dry heat of Los Alamos, N.M., where she resides during the summer months.

She will also be adjusting to a 4,000-foot elevation change, which should help add some carry to those Daly-esque drives.

“Actually, I’ve found that warm temperatures have an even bigger effect on driving distance than altitude,” Schmitt said.

Ideal conditions, Schmitt said, happen when the thermometer reads in the high 70s or low 80s — much like the numbers on her scorecard.

She will be back in the fall, preparing to defend her titles with her lesson-defying swing.

If you know a local golf club champion with an interesting story, contact the sports editor at 547-9747.

nprevenas@gvnews.com | 547-9747