"Elkington splashes onto the Champions Tour with the same gorgeous swing, but as a combination of 1920s barnstorming player and Internet startup CEO."

Brett Avery gets to the bottom of what Steve Elkington is doing with his cultish Secretinthedirt.com web community and his stunning new house on wheels that will be his home-away-from-home as he travels the Champions Tour.

Bob Croslin's photos of Elkington's amazing big rig accompany the story in Golf World and the online edition.

Through organic growth Secret has members from more than 125 countries. Maves equates the 30,000 unique monthly visitors to Twitter, where a core stokes conversations and far more read and retweet. Elkington claims that by dress and swing alone he can pick from a crowd any Dirters, as they call themselves. "We always try to get them to think a little deeper," Elkington says. "Take responsibility for your own game."

Among the converted is Ross Roark, a west Texas horse trainer who met Elkington 15 years ago. Roark discovered Secret as a mid-80s shooter with a looping, knee-dipping swing many instructors might scrap. Roark grooved his action by studying about 300 videos, one reason the new Secret channel on YouTube has logged a million views. "If you want to know anything about golf, about the swing or the way it's supposed to be done, it's right there in The Vault," he says. Last summer Roark, now scratch, shot a 63.