I just had a very interestng conversation with Don Thompson at the Bertholy (accent on the first syllable) School is South Boston Virginia (434-572-1632).
First the bad news - They won't 'sell' the books. Apparently Birtholy didn't either. The books were (and are) only provided to people that attend the school. Don told me the sory of his partner at the school who was an instructor with Birtholy at Foxfire. He got the book before he first attended the school and upon attending found he'd been doing a number of the excercises incorrectly. They feel there is no way you can really learn without in person instruction.
Sorry Jono. I told Don you'd found his school but that it might be a while before you'd be able to attend.
The good news is Don seemed like a great guy and they provide instruction in the Bertholy Method. This is done on a very customized basis and they normally teach 1 on 1 but have on occaision had 2 people at once but NEVER more than that. The program takes 15 hours and most of that is done inside (they have a cabin for this at the country club). They do let you out a bit because people will want to hit at least a few balls). If the person needs to travel the program can be concentrated into 3 5 hour days. Price for the complete program (excluding hotel...) is $500.
Though they are flexible in their schedule, Don mentioned that you really need to take a break for playing as you work on the program and as a result of this combined with the indoor nature of most of the course they get more people through in the winter (though southern Virginia typically would have only about 2 months of weather that would be uncomfortable for golf).
Don mentioned that he knew of someone in Florida that was an instructor with Bertholy but he did not know of anyone else in the US. I mentioned the school in Canada and he said that lots of Canadians attended Bertholy's school (I guess Moe got around).
I told Don my story about 'levering' and how I came to it as a common-sense approach to get a late release and that I found that same common-sense approach with Birtholy. He agreed and said that 'common-sense' was a good characterization of Bertholy.
He also had an interesting story about another attendee at Bertholy's school years ago. A guy named Leadbetter.
Peter
