Why Did I Now Become a Teacher Of The Game?
Ben Hogan said "The Secret Is In The Dirt".....obviously hinting that dedication and hard work and perseverance are contributing factors in a golfer's success.
Whilst today's breed of golfer's very much follow this thought and work hard in many different areas of fitness, nutrition, stretching and mental work as well as practicing the golf swing-- they have become FAR too reliant on outside aid.
It has become increasingly apparent that there are very few golfers on the professional tours of the world who know their swing, own their swing and can work out any kinks in their swing.
Every player has a "guru" who slap them on the back, helps clear their mind, gives them one thought to focus on and it seems the world is at harmony again......until the next day!!
If the pros don't know how to control their own swing any more even with all this so called advanced technology equipment and computer screens and hi speed definition videos and 'guru teachers' ....what hope does the average golfer have?
Even the golfers whose names we always hear mentioned out loud by golf commentators as having a 'picture perfect swing'...or having a 'pretty swing'....obviously are at a loss about how their swing functions .....because if they did we would be seeing them pipe drive after drive down the fairway and not be hitting the very average 12 greens in regulation per round or less.
Fairway driving percentages on today's golfing tours is at an all time low. These are meant to be the best players in the world and they can not even hit half the fairways in regulation.!!!
It is the misleading information these players are receiving on so many different fronts that offer them little solution but to accept their mediocrity in the tee shot department no matter how hard they practice at it to get better and improve their chances.
My belief is that if someone received tuition from me and worked just as hard on what I ask them and show them to do, then I would basically phase myself out of any need they would have of me.
That probably sounds crazy..to phase myself out.....but great golfers don't need to continually search and search and hope and hope that they will one day get it and be able to strike the ball day in and day out on a piece of string.
Jack Nickluas only visited his coach Jack Grout at the beginning of each season for a tune up. You shouldn't have your name on your golf bag if you don't know what makes your swing tick. If you have to put in an SOS call to your swing guru every time something little goes amiss, then you shouldn't be making a living from golf.
My goal is to show golfers everything they need to know... I believe I can honestly answer any question they would put forward and base my answer on knowledge and not on guesswork. There will be no guinea pigs in my golfing stable. What I will show people is true, proven, absolute truths of the swing and it's pressures and it's intentions based on a wide variety of different looking swings belonging to the golfing giants of the past 100 years.
The pros now days seem to practice so much to somehow find something, instead of practicing to refine and build on what they should long ago have had in place that works so well
Can I back up my statements with evidence?... Absolutely.........
When I was 14 years old I shot a 9 under par 64 on my home course which had hosted two Australian PGA Championships.
On my 15th birthday I played a major Australian PGA Tour event, not with an invitation, but by beating the professionals in the qualifying event.
I shot a 10 under par round of 62 in my first ever round on the European Tour at Fulford GC in England in The Benson & Hedges International of 1989.
I won almost every major Amateur event in Australia before I turned professional.
I won my third event as a professional beating Greg Norman's record at the time of winning in his fourth event he played.
I have played in all four of golf's Major Championships...Ten Majors in total
Two time Australian Masters Champion with a record score in 1998 of 24 under par breaking Greg Norman's tournament record by 5 strokes
Australian Tournament Players Championship Winner by a record 12 strokes
I ranked 4th in the Total Driving Statistics on the PGA Tour in 1998 behind Hal Sutton, David Duval and Duffy Waldorf with Nick Price in 5th position
Presidents Cup International Team member
World Cup of Golf Australian Representative (twice)
Played US PGA Tour (8 years) Europe (4 years) Japan (3 years) and of course my native Australian PGA Tour for 20 years
Why should people listen to my ideas about ball striking prowess?
The majority of my golfing success came in the era of persimmon woods, blade irons and high spin balls....where the swing ingredients had to be so precise to make good contact of the ball on the correct trajectory with the desired accuracy.
I have played right through the spectrum of technological advances and have seen it all and been associated with the games greatest players of the past 25 years from all corners of the globe.
The first time I won the Australian Masters in 1993 I hit 63 greens in regulation for the week out of 72 holes....that is over 87% and in the final round under the intense pressure of tournament golf I hit all 18 greens in regulation as well as the playoff hole that I would win the title on
When I won the Australian Masters in 1998 with a record score I hit all 18 greens in regulation in the 1st round and the 3rd round and hit 65 greens in regulation for the week at an average of 90%
The Huntingdale course which held The Australian Masters event is not a pitch and putt course.
It is long. It is very tight from the tee with unplayable lies and lost balls more the order of the day than a chip out or a viable approach to the green being available. The greens are hard and fast and guarded by bunkers.
You had to really golf your ball around that course and the tournament's Wall of Champions include Greg Norman (6 times), Bernhard Langer, Mark O'Meara, Gene Littler, Peter Senior, Craig Parry, Colin Montgomerie, Graham Marsh.....
I played US Open venues very well because the setup of the courses required driving accuracy, greens in regulation were the object and par meant something.
What Happened..? Why Do We Not See Precision Any Longer?
I honestly believe today's golfer's have less knowledge of the 'true' golf swing than at any other time in history.
The great champion golfers of the past 20 years are now still playing and competing on the Champions Tour...or...they have made so much money from the sport they don't need to go out and teach and pass down their knowledge first hand to up and coming golfers...they just build golf courses or retire away to their rocker on the back porch and enjoy the life they yearned for after all those years of travel and tournaments.
The players we see in today's generation have missed out. We have skipped an entire generation of true golfing knowledge.
Instead of fantastic world class golfers passing down their first hand knowledge .....we now have instructors who have no basis for teaching other than getting a degree online or from a classroom, reading books for ideas and owning a computer and a hi speed camera to download swings and draw lines all over the screen in an attempt to try show the student they know something about the golf swing.
My Objectives....
I am undertaking the task of trying to rectify this lack of true instruction. Up until I was 26 years old I had rarely had a lesson.
We had coaches for our Interstate Team matches but nothing major was ever undertaken during those days, as these coaches knew we all had ability and just needed nurturing .
I eventually succumbed to gathering a coach and listening and trying to learn. My natural swing became very technical and much more difficult to repeat. I lost my true swing and my swing dynamics through instruction that took away my feel for MY swing.
How Did I Learn What I Believe Is Correct?
It has been through my rest from tournament golf over the past decade and searching deep within the look and feel of my younger swing and then looking over my older swing in the same manner and establishing the differences between the two and the pros and cons of the two and researching thousands of videos and books and interviews with the game's greatest....listening to what they say, watching what they do, even asking them questions in person has enabled me to figure out in what way, shape or form my swings over the years resembled the great ball strikers.
It has taken me a while but I feel very good about my instincts and understandings. I used to play by feel. That is important. I know how the swing is meant to feel, especially when that was at a time of arguably my best golf.
Then later on I played by mechanics and computer screens and instruction from outside sources who were observing the swing based on scientific thoughts or observations by the 'gurus' of that era..
By being exposed to both ends of the spectrum and used both processes in the world of high drama tournament golf, I have a very good sense of what works, what doesn't, what is bogus, what is possible and what should be listened to and what should immediately be discarded.
It is because of all this and events in my life that shaped who I am, that I have now formed these swing opinions.
My early golf swing was certainly structured around the best dynamics that the truly great ball strikers show with their motions.
Interest in plane lines, early setting on the backswing, big muscle swinging...well I went a bit downhill after that- I had my moments but the game became so much harder on a daily basis...trying to swing based on what a computer or an instruction manual said I should do.
You can only really teach what you can do.....My experience has shown and proven I can do and feel the true golf swing and have a larger understanding of what the key ingredients to a successful swing for power and control is. This is what I will teach and show you to do...based on fact..not on fiction
Why My Teaching Works....
I have had amazing success with my students. I have actually had one student drop his personal best score from around 120 down to a 75 !!!! This happened in the space of approximately 18 months from first lesson to the score posted.
Most of the work was done by the student themselves. I only visually saw them maybe 10 times over the course of that 18 month time frame. They put in the work based on what I showed them and the results were amazing.
That's why my instruction methods work so well. Because I view the individual. I view what they have readily available in their swing and what area of their swing we can utilize or what we need to improve. I then show them the best method of training their swing to allow them to achieve what can best help them.
Like a music teacher. I teach them the chords....one by one.
Imagine if you sat at a piano or someone handed you a guitar and slapped a piece of sheet music in front of you and said..." play this"...It would be one big mess.
Just like the golf swing can be one big mess when bombarded with too much at once.
I promote the right feels. I describe why they are important for you and why they may be necessary for you and then show you the perfect routine to be able to train the action to become instinct and part of you without having to think about them individually as time progresses.
So you learn the important chords....THEN..you learn how to put them together.
WHY AREN'T GOLFERS IMPROVING? WHY AREN'T WE SEEING BALL STRIKING PERFECTION?
Today's golf swing theories just DO NOT go along with what the great ball strikers of golf showed us. The great ball strikers left their blue prints for all to follow and unfortunately people aren't listening.
When I hear an instructor talking about keeping the golf club on plane I instantly cringe and settle in for a good laugh. Instructors who talk about keeping the club on the same plane going back and coming down DO NOT fully understand the golf swing. We hear about lines being drawn down through the ball and flash lights running up and down the plane line. It is an untrue concept and entirely false -- as the swings of the greats show nothing of the sort.
Do we need to see club shafts on plane pointing at the ball as they approach impact at a position half way down? ......NO....of course not.....there is a reason for this and the reason is directly related to force and pressure. You cannot keep pressuring a club up and down on the same line as it will eventually come flying off that plane.
I also hear instructors talk about releasing the club with their right hand. This is again a laughable concept. This action alone closes the club face through impact and throws the club off the true line necessary for consistent golf-- making ball control and solid striking a game of chance. Some days the stars all align and a person can hit the ball well, but the next day they back in their old habits of yelling fore and searching for their golf ball all day long.
Check the comparison photos below of Ben Hogan and Gay Brewer compared to Phil Mickelson (flipped as a right hander) and an unknown PGA Tour player.......and on the right a face on view of Hogan & Player and two of my students showing their Drill 3 form (great stuff!!!)
The same swing plane going back and coming down just isn't an ideal logic. If you aren't going to keep the club going through on plane then the rest doesn't matter.
So therefore WHY do players get taught this type of action and what role does today's equipment issues have in making them swing in this uncontrollable manner?
As I have mentioned before today's equipment is not designed by quality golfers like in years past. The equipment is designed by scientists who aren't good golfers and do not understand the correct golf motion. Their sole intention seems to be directed at distance.
Clubs are lighter, longer and bigger.
The lie angles are WAY TOO upright making players bring their hands in high to the ball raising their impact plane and giving them no option but to flip and roll through the hitting area.
It is a total disaster as we now have club fitters and manufacturers telling us to hit up on the ball for DISTANCE because the drivers have sweet spots too high up on the face. So you now have two different swings-- one for a driver and one for an iron and each different action wants to be the rudder that steers the ship with disastrous results.
The equipment being produced and the club fitting process we see today breeds a vicious cycle of incorrect intentions in the swing and as a result are damaging and ruining many more golf swings in the process.
THE BACKSWING-- Why All The Fuss?
If you honestly believe that taking the club back on a path what is deemed to be "on-plane" is of importance....... then how do we explain that some of the most renowned ball strikers ever had some un-orthodox ways of taking the club away and up to the top of their swings. How could these players take the club back on almost any old plane they wanted to with their backswings and play so well and be revered for their games if the backswing was so crucial to golfing success?
Because we don't hit the ball on our backswing !!!....that's why!!!!!
The backswing's function is only a moving of the club in a manner that sets each player up for the perfect delivery into the ball. If I showed you the impact position of all these golfing greats they would look very, very similar.
The backswing is earned once you know the true feel of impact....read that again.
If you know how to find the correct path to the ball and know how to control the club through impact-- you will find your very own perfect backswing to suit that feel.......It really is that simple.
This is why generic teaching based on some formula or what the 'teaching fad' of the day is confuses people and gives them little chance of improvement.
Golfers get too much backswing information from instructors because it is slow and easy to see when in motion and they forget the important part....the path into and through impact.
We need to be interested in the blurr of the swing..not the start and the finish. That backswing and follow through stuff may make you look pretty but it won't make an iota of difference to your ball striking ability.
History shows the backswing can be a variety of different paths This is a FACT.
A Pretty Swing Doesn't Necessarily Mean It Is A Dynamic Functional Swing
It is always strange to hear commentators discuss golf swings. There is a huge difference between a pretty looking swing and a dynamic functional swing.
Even with today's 'inferior equipment' there is one player that tends to stand out as being a ball striking machine. He does all the right things in the correct sequence and has always been recognized as being a tremendous ball striker even though most people criticize his swing- thinking it is too loose and requires too much timing...Nothing could be farther from the truth...that player is Sergio Garcia.
If Sergio could get the same feel and compression with his putting action as he does with his golf swing, he would be very hard to beat.
His putting stroke resembles being too careful and trying to create a roll with an entirely different looking putting action to how he swings the golf club.
His golf swing is all about creating angles and releasing them in the correct sequence with a distinct compression on the ball.
This is a big reason why we see great ballstrikers who are average putters and great putters who are average ballstrikers.
Very few players seem to match up the finer points and feels associated with both parts of the game.
Why wouldn't you want to keep the same feeling motion throughout all parts of your game?
Sergio's golf swing is uncannily similar to Hogan in many regards...PURE GOLD!!!
ANYONE can achieve this controlled powerful feel to their swing if given the right information and the correct methods at ingraining it into their system..
This is my main goal as a teacher of the game.
To allow people to FEEL and CREATE these dynamically correct positions. It is not done with trying to create a flat left wrist or trying to do such and such. It is done with the correct training of the body using a real golf club. No flashlights. No brooms...just real golf clubs like you use on the golf course.
Once you receive the correct instruction, that is fundamentally backed up by the best ball strikers the game of golf has put forward, you will be well on your way to your own golfing excellence.
It takes work, as any quest to improve at anything does, but anyone can improve armed with the right information and their own desire and motivation.
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The Legs Start The Downswing- But Which One?
Many of my early YouTube videos discussed how the legs work into the downswing. Too often we hear we must get over to the left leg early and transfer the weight immediately to the front side from the top of the backswing.
This is what a golf swing looks like it does but it isn't entirely true. We need to distinguish that pressure and mass/weight are two different things.
The great players all actually used the right leg to exert pressure down to initiate the downswing and they did NOT try and get over to the left side too soon.
Using the right leg - as Arnold Palmer shows so beautifully here- allows the lead hip to bump forward. The weight may feel like the body is moving left but the pressure is working down the right leg to make this happen. The true art of performing this delicate move is to keep the upper body behind the ball and turned while only the lower half moves laterally forward.
There will never be enough toros/body rotation in reserve for the release aspect of the swing if one is trying to get over into the front leg early in the transition and downswing.
Remember we want to move weight and mass through the strike and the only way to do that is to utilize the right leg at the start of the downswing to maintain pressure down the right ankle and leg that can then be used to push and drive forward along with the release and move also into the through swing.
This learning is an integral part of the drill 2 and drill 3 training and especially via the drill 4 and drill 5 work. All designed to enable the golfer to feel and work the dynamics exhibited by the very best golfers of all time.
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Impact- It Tells The Ball What To Do
Impact is truly the number one goal in conquering the game of golf. The ball can only do what it is told- so the collision of the clubhead onto the golf ball at impact is vital.
No matter the club, the goal of impact is to have the clubface squarely striking into the back of the ball. The stance width can and will dictate the angle our clubface descends onto the ball. The narrower the stance the more the blow will feel down into the ball- this would be the shorter clubs. The wider the stance- the longer clubs- sets our upper body more behind the ball placement and the swing may feel like a more sweeping action onto the strike.
Each club has a specific loft. This is an important fact to remember!! We want to use the loft engraved on the sole of the club to our full benefit, so we can hit each club the designated distance inspired by its design.
Utilizing the correct loft means having a nice straight line between the shaft and left arm at impact strike. Tiger Woods displays that perfectly here on this iron shot.
This "impact ideal" is right at the heart of the very first drill I expose my students to.
We learn how to rotate the club from an inside path.
We learn how to fire the club actively into the strike with an accelerating late hit.
We learn to use the right arm as a support close and bent to our side rather than using it as a thrusting tool that can and will twist the clubface out of its true loft and alignment.
We learn how to keep beautiful dynamics of the wrists- the left wrist flat and leading- the right wrist bent and driving keeping pressure on both sides of the grip, almost like a push and pull sensation.
How the club exits impact will have a massive bearing on the trajectory and the curvature of the shot. The exit after impact is generally a mirror image of the entry path. Hence why the characteristics of the ball's flight will be determined here.
Very few golf instructors pay much attention to post impact. Trust me however!!!- it is of the utmost importance. When we understand that what is still to come in the golf swing has the capacity to alter what has come before- then we really begin to gain control of our strike and our shot making capabilities.
This is the heart and soul of drill three. Tying everything together to keep pressure on the club and the ball where it matters- at impact!!.
Dynamics and Forces Are The Keys To A Solid Repeatable Swing
Did my golf swing growing up resemble Ben Hogan's swing when viewed in motion? Absolutely not......
Did my golf swing growing up resemble Ben Hogans's swing when frozen at some of the important parts of the motion? Absolutely yes.....
These dynamic positions are a result of internal pressures working underneath the engine of our body that are hard to see and that your normal golf instructor never experienced or really even knows about.
You can try all you want to hit these positions but you can NEVER just stick the club somewhere and hope for a result. Positions of the swing happen for a reason...a cause and affect.
This is where split screening a students swing on a computer and comparing it to someone else and trying to stick the club in a similar position is destructive to all the other flowing components that make up the golf swing.
This is where learning from a seasoned player who is armed with this kind of information from his own experiences is more logical than learning from someone who has no internal experience of playing at a high level.
