written by Bill Speltz
photographed by Tom Bauer

Annie Loughlin posed a question of her mother recently, curious about the perpetual frown worn by a mutual acquaintance.

“My mother looked at me and said, ‘Well don’t you know at some point your face becomes your face?’ ” Annie recalled. “ ‘Whatever you do with it on a daily basis, eventually you can’t change it.’ ”

What a wonderfully versatile piece of wisdom. Suitable for job interviews, special occasions, sticky predicaments and ... golf?

It’s true. Annie has ironclad proof.

Her belief in the strength of a smile has been validated over years of teaching and competing in the game of golf. So much so it’s the underlying theme in a quirky, sometimes funny and introspective book of anecdotes she’s written on her favorite sport.

It’s called “The Golf Letters, Tee Tales,” and it’s as much about taking time to smell the roses as it is about taking the torture out of an unpredictable game. Consider Loughlin’s advice on addressing a golf ball:

“I use the analogy of the Dalai Lama, how he always has kind of a grin on his face,” she said. “I don’t know why he does that, but I used to stand over putts and grimace and I started experimenting with a little smile.

“Oh my gosh it really made a difference, kind of relaxed my whole body. You find if you have a grin you can’t really be tense.”

If only the sport were that simple. If only we could all shoot par wearing wide smiles.

Truth is, par can be part of the problem sometimes. Expectations soar out of control like a wayward drive and golf becomes too serious, according to Loughlin.

A respected teaching pro who was recently appointed by PGA of America president Allen Wronowski to the organization’s 25-member executive teaching committee, Annie says players are leaving golf because they’re overwhelmed. Too much emphasis is placed on results and the tools that supposedly get us there – expensive technology and a textbook swing.

“We have a lot of lapsed golfers right now,” said Loughlin, who splits her time teaching lessons at Canyon River and the University of Montana Golf Course. “I think in a way we’ve kind of lost the fun of it – too intense and people are getting too judgmental about their swings.

“They can’t just go out and have a good time. And there’s no place that really welcomes families to come and play.”

Technique is one of Loughlin’s pet topics. Teaching golf for 22 years in places like Texas, California’s Bay Area and Missoula, she has seen all sorts of different postures and poses. And she’s dealt with plenty of players expecting to find success in 30-minute lessons once a week.

She moved to Montana in 2000 to get away from 30-minute lessons, teaching up to 17 a day in the Golden State. She much prefers taking her time with students, interjecting humor and stressing that the first golfer in Scotland used a stick and a rock and went out and had fun.

“I’ve taken lessons from a lot of pros over the years and Ann Loughlin is the best I’ve ever worked with,” said Steven Pressfield, author of the famous book “The Legend of Bagger Vance.” “Golf is a game of imperfection. Imperfection equals humor.”

Even Loughlin’s advice on grip mechanics has a theme of “lighten up.” She shares in her book the story of a star pupil she worked with in San Francisco.

“Ron Bryant came to me for a lesson and I remember he had perfect mechanics,” she said of the former standout pitcher. “When I checked his grip, oh my gosh it was vise-like 10 times over. As soon as I showed him to lighten that thing up, it helped.

“It’s kind of similar to fly fishing here in Montana. You don’t want to hold that fly rod really tight. You have to keep it light so it flows. The energy flows.”

There are parts of Loughlin’s book that could be experienced whether golfing or fishing. That’s probably not by accident for a woman who has grown to love the Treasure State’s simple pleasures.

Annie’s first anecdote highlights an experience she had playing golf while an eagle circled overhead. Later she touches on owls, squirrels, hawks, fish, cows and bears, careful not to overlook other delights like the value of teeing up a marshmallow.

“The Golf Letters” probably won’t take you more than 30 minutes to read. The impression she leaves will last much longer.

“Golf is a great educator of life,” said Loughlin, who grew up in small-town Iowa and took her PGA player’s ability test from the legendary Harvey Penick in Austin, Texas. “The lessons you learn about recovering, the parallels.

“Let’s say you hit a shot you’re not happy with. Try to pause and let a little time pass. The magic happens in that pause in our daily activities as well as golf in the top of that backswing.”

Annie uses her own competitive experiences as a base point to teaching the trappings of golf. We’ll never conquer golf, she warns, but goals are perfectly fine.

“If you listen to a lot of pros when a person is interviewing them before a big round, they always say, ‘Well I’ll see what happens,’ ” Annie said. “That’s the attitude we have to have with this.

“We already know you want to do well, practicing and playing. It’s a matter of getting out of our own way with it. It took me a long time to get to the point where I didn’t beat myself up over golf. It’s a process. I remember playing in a mini-tour event out in California and I shot par on the front nine and at the turn I started saying to myself, ‘That was a good round for me. Boy if I can shoot this it will be a 72.’ I think I shot a 50 on the back nine. I was really embarrassed and didn’t stay around afterwards to have a beer. I wanted to go to the library and hide in the stacks.”

One way to appreciate golf, Annie suggests, is to consider how fortunate we are to have such accessibility. In her book, she writes about a group of Korean women visiting Missoula one summer to attend the University of Montana. They asked that she give a lesson.

The group was grateful for the instruction. Golf is popular but pricey in Korea, so opportunities can be limited.

“I ended up giving them a series of lessons and at the end I said, ‘We’ll go out on the golf course,’ ” she related. “That was exciting to them. I got them all lined up and got carts and everything, got them to the first tee and all they wanted to do is drive in the carts.

“We drove around for an hour. They were just excited to be on the course. We need more of that for kids to get out there in this country.”

Loughlin says the PGA recently paid a good chunk of money to a consulting firm to find out why the business of golf is “flattening out.” She contends part of the problem is short attention spans. Kids say it takes too much time to play. Some adults say the same.

Sadly, the golden age of golf may have come and gone with Tiger Woods’ legendary status. On the other hand, maybe the game is just experiencing a temporary lull.

All Annie knows is golf is a great game. Well worth another look from all those lapsed golfers out there.

“Just don’t worry so much about performance,” she said. “People have enough stress in their life and you don’t want to add golf into that.

“I learn from golf every day, life lessons that have made me who I am. You can learn a lot about people and their nature when you get paired up. You kind of see how you want to be and how you don’t want to be. You learn we’re all human.”

Bill Speltz is Sunday sports columnist for the Missoulian. He can be reached at 523-5255 or by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Tom Bauer is a Missoulian photographer. He can be reached at 523-5270 or by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .