Road to the World Am – Episode 4 with Gene Chiarella

This year, the Myrtle Beach World Amateur is following three golfers as they pair up with top golf instructors from across the country to improve their game leading up to the event. We check in with Gene Chiarella, from Myrtle Beach, S.C., to see how his lessons are going with Allen Terrell, swing coach for Dustin Johnson and the director of coaching at the Dustin Johnson Golf School. Watch as we follow Gene through his process of preparing for the World Am.

Speaker 1:
What did you bring in, Gene?

Speaker 2:
Do you need help with anything?

Speaker 3:
A little lunch.

Gene Chiarella:
A little lunch.

Speaker 2:
Unbelievable.

Speaker 1:
What?

Gene Chiarella:
You knew that.

Speaker 1:
I know, but the camera doesn’t.

Gene Chiarella:
I guess it’s the Italian in me. You know, I grew up with food, you know what I mean? You bring people to your house, and you cook, and my happy place is in my kitchen. I just love cooking, and it’s a great way to say thank you to people. Who doesn’t like food?

Gene Chiarella:
Well, the first one was more or less to find out what I was doing to correct, so we changed the golf swing. From that point, and I felt comfortable with it, then we went into I had an issue of body sway, so we work on that a little bit, and now the shoulder turn, and the fire in the hips was for the last one. So today brings another part of the game, but so far I’m doing pretty good with the other stuff that he has.

Allen Terrell:
Okay, so not around the green.

Gene Chiarella:
I can. I can.

Allen Terrell:
That’s your go-to club?

Gene Chiarella:
Yeah. More or less.

Allen Terrell:
And then how about if you want to hit a low running shot around the green? Do you have one club you use?

Gene Chiarella:
I’ll either do a seven or an eight.

Allen Terrell:
Okay. All right. What shot around the green gives you the most issues? What kind of situation?

Gene Chiarella:
Probably from this kind of stuff and trying to get it close to the pin. Sometimes I just chunk it.

Allen Terrell:
The fairway cut?

Gene Chiarella:
Yeah.

Allen Terrell:
Okay. And are you below the surface with the ball or is it like level like we are here, or … ?

Gene Chiarella:
I think, probably if I had to say so, this way right here.

Allen Terrell:
Right here, so if we’re just chipping it to right there.

Gene Chiarella:
Yeah.

Allen Terrell:
Okay. Well, cool.

Gene Chiarella:
Or even from here. I just have zero confidence.

Allen Terrell:
Okay. All right. Well, let’s go. We’ll go right here. I know there’s not a flag in the hole. So you use your A-wedge.

Gene Chiarella:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Allen Terrell:
All right. Now, just kind of walk me through your system. Where do you play the ball position? Do you have any kind of any thoughts?

Gene Chiarella:
I take it this way. This way.

Allen Terrell:
Okay. All right. And if you were visualizing where you want this ball to land versus how much is going to roll, what –

Gene Chiarella:
With this one here, I’d probably be looking just at the bottom of that little clip.

Allen Terrell:
Okay, so you would try to fly it all the way to right there.

Gene Chiarella:
To about here.

Allen Terrell:
Got it. All right. Okay.

Allen Terrell:
So the more we set up with the handle forward, okay, the more it’s going to have a tendency to dig. All right?

Gene Chiarella:
Okay.

Allen Terrell:
So we have an A-wedge, and this is for every one, and your visual is to try to fly it 75 percent of the way and then only roll 25 percent, so we’re set up for the opposite shot. Okay? We’re set up because we had the ball back and the shaft too forward.

Gene Chiarella:
Okay.

Allen Terrell:
We’re set up really where the ball should barely get on the green and roll most of the way. So that means then you’re going to have to try to like flip the club to try to get some loft on the ball.

Gene Chiarella:
Okay.

Gene Chiarella:
Getting the ball to be closer to the hole, actually, because most of my chips will go by all the time or I’m way, way short. So, you know, what he did was just take everything I was doing wrong and put the right stuff into the game, so it’s working.

Gene Chiarella:
Oh, gosh. I think it’s going to just be a tremendous difference, you know? Even in the Monday through Thursday, the flights, if you can stay competitive, come Thursday, anything happens, you know? You don’t want to play yourself out of it. In the last couple of years I’ve been playing myself out of it the second or third day. My goal is to make the fourth day, and then be there for the fifth day.

I’ll see you at the World Am!