FORMER CHORAL TEACHER TURNS GOLF PRO

For 30 years, Judith Williams-Johnson taught Central High School students how to sing. Now she's more interested in how her students swing.

Her mid-life departure from choral music teacher to golf pro is not as dramatic as it might sound.

"Golf is a mental discipline. So is music," Williams-Johnson says.

On Monday, she shot a 78 from the 5,800-yard men's tees at the Hermitage golf course in Nashville, Tenn., to earn her Ladies Professional Golf Association card. She was also required to pass a written exam called the Player Ability Test.

Among those who didn't qualify was a former Vanderbilt University golfer. A month earlier, Williams-Johnson herself had failed to win her card by a stroke at a long, wet course in Valparaiso, Ind.

Though she has been giving golf lessons locally for about two years, Williams-Johnson now is a certified teaching pro whose card is an entre to teach at the finest courses around the world. She can play in LPGA tournaments if she wants to qualify.

But what she intends to do is leave for England Tuesday with her new husband, Dr. George Johnson. They will live near Cambridge for a year or two, he teaching in the University of Maryland's overseas program, she teaching golf and a bit of music.

She will be associated with golf courses at both Lakenheath and Mildenhall. During their stay, Williams-Johnson also expects to play her way across the great courses of Scotland, where golf began.

Williams-Johnson comes from an athletic and golfing family. Her ex-husband, Carroll Williams, is the head golf coach at Southeast Missouri State University. Her son Steve is the head baseball coach at Cape Central High School. And her son Kevin is helping out with the Southeast basketball team this year.

As an amateur, Williams-Johnson played in local tournaments for many years. In 1994, she won the women's championships at both the Cape Girardeau Country Club and Kimbeland in Jackson.

"I didn't think of myself as the best golfer but I was a good golfer," she says. Her handicap at that time was 8, one below the LPGA card requirement.

Her decision to pursue a professional golf card seriously was made two years ago after she took an early retirement as the choral music teacher at Central High School. Encouragement came from two pros in Paducah, Ky., Lisa Bremer and Todd Trimble.

Bremer invited Williams-Johnson to accompany her to the LPGA Swing Model School in Modesto, Calif. The four-day academy taught her how to diagnose swing problems and about the drills designed to cure them.

Among the instructors were LPGA president DeDe Owens and SIU-Carbondale women's golf coach Diane Daugherty. She was paired with touring pro Sandra Palmer, who plans to become a teacher once she retires from the road.

Williams-Johnson took to the job of golf instructor. "Because of my music teaching background I had an instinctive way of teaching feel and vocal commands, and also seeing fairly quickly what people are doing wrong," she says.

Golf pros who can't do those things can waste their students' time and money, she says.

Her own golf gurus are the late Harvey Penick and Dr. Gary Wiren, author of the book "Feel the Inside, Move the Outside." She also is a believer in the benefits of videotaping the golfer's swing and an approach called Cybervision, in which students watch a good golf swing over and over.

When Williams-Johnson speaks of golf as a mental discipline, she's talking about engaging the right side of the brain. "It's the intuitive part of us, the feeling part of us as well as the physical part of us that has to be encouraged," she says.

"When you think too much you mess up. When you don't think at all you mess up, too."

The culture of golfers is a close-knit one, and Williams-Johnson credits the managements at Bent Creek Golf Course, the Cape Girardeau Country Club, Southeast Discount Golf and Arena Golf with helping her develop as a teacher.

Williams-Johnson is proud of her music students' many accomplishments but is just as pleased with her golf students, from the banker to the seventh-grader.

To her, golf is more than a game. "Golf reflects life," she says.

"I found out quickly those that are confident and those that are insecure."

Aesthetics are one reason she is a golfer, Williams-Johnson says. "I love nature and the outdoors. No place is more beautiful than on a golf course."

But she also is engaged by the game's mental and physical challenges. "It's unusual for someone my age to be pursuing that," she says.

"...I love golf so much."