HARLINGEN — The whole package.
That’s how Wendy Bullock approaches a student when she teaches golf.
“ Really that’s been the way that I have taught forever,” said Bullock, director of golf instruction at the Harlingen Country Club.
“ It’s sort of like Montessori,” she said. “When I was younger, the people I was impacted by sort of led me on the path to a pretty integrative model of teaching that ends up being holistic.”
So commanding has been Bullock’s teaching that she taught Deepak Chopra in the early 2000s. Chopra is an Indian American author and alternative medicine advocate. He was so moved by the experience he wrote a book called “Golf For Enlightenment”.
So how does the term “holistic” apply to golfing?
“ I’m not just teaching the golf swing to the person,” she said. “It’s knowing how the person really learns best. Because you could be learning auditory, visually, kinesthetic, tactile, and how my information is delivered best to them.”
She speaks to her students about such things as diet and “screens” their bodies for what she called inefficiencies. Those inefficiencies are physical characteristics that may not allow a student to perform a particular movement in a certain way.
“ That may be why they’re not hitting good shots,” she said. “It’s not because they don’t want to or they’re not trying to. Their bodies simply can’t get them to do that.”
But alas, all is not lost. An inefficiency can be addressed.
“ That’s what leads me down the path of, you know, I have to get them a trainer, work those certain areas,” she said.
Bullock began playing golf at the ripe old age of 3 while growing up in Denver. She attended the University of New Mexico on a full golf scholarship and graduated in 1989. She played professional golf in the United States and Japan. She’s been teaching since 1990 and moved with her family to the Valley 17 years ago.
“ My first place that I taught was in 2004 in Rancho Viejo,” she said. “I was down there for two years and then had our daughter. When I went back to teaching, I was in the Harlingen Country Club.”
Her greatest joy of teaching comes from seeing the changes in her students’ lives.
