Brian Manzella
Administrator
A few days ago, this forum turned 5 years old.
What a five years.
It started pretty simply. I had been banned from three other stupid websites. They didn't like the fact that I completely blew up their so-called experts. I just took my marbles and started my own.
But, really, this forum started way, way before that. Back in the late 80's, they used to gather around the City Park Driving range. I would slice and dice the guys in the room, without ever mentioning their names. The crowd started to gather to witness the verbal arse-whuppin' and the attempted retorts, around 3 p.m.
You see folks, this golf business is a really, really strange thing.
The best and the brightest rarely, if ever, get noticed, promoted, or even allowed to continue what they are doing. I could give you 100 examples without breaking a sweat, but for the sake of simplicity and this thread, just say, I was being hid under blanket for years.
When I was 25, in May of 1987, before I ever flew in a plane, before I ever worked with Ben Doyle, I had become a really good little player, and a very good teacher.
In just seven years of teaching, I had a great clientele; written a book long hand; had done 100's of hours of research with my little video camera, my drafting table, and more tracing paper and graph paper than you could imagine; and become the single biggest threat to the golf power brokers in the New Orleans area.
Why?
I could ALWAYS help folks hit the ball better. And I was interesting.
No matter how much more I learned, how many flights I flew, seminars I attended, famous teachers I impressed, competitors I smartened up, I was going nowhere fast in the Big Easy.
Teaching in Louisville was a great change for me, and where I learned so much you'll never know.
But, this web site was my ticket. My end-run around the business bullies, I went from banned to the #1 ranked Alexa site named after, and run by a single instructor. Ahead of Lead, Hank, Butch, and all the wannabees.
I have sold thousands of videos without buying a single Google Ad word.
But, I am absolutely, completely, and totally not satisfied.
The other day, my great bud Michael Finney said, "If you become the acknowledged #1 teacher on golf—reaching your goal—will you quit when you are on top?"
I had to tell him that I had adjusted my goal. I want to be the #1 golf personality who never made it to #1 in the world. In other words, bigger that Ken Venturi was, or Peter Kessler was, or Leadbetter or Haney never was. Like Emeril or Rachel Ray, but with more substance.
How?
Well, you see, even though I can write a little, a lot gets lost in the translation.
We are going to do a TOTAL redesign, re-engineering of this web site. The #1 new feature being a LIVE show. An interactive LIVE show. Something NO ONE ELSE can do once a week without boring everyone by halftime of the first episode and running out of material the first month.
We are testing the portal tomorrow, and hope to get up and running on that part in a couple of weeks.
The show will be once a week, for 90 minutes to two hours!
We will experiment to find out the perfect time.
You will be able to ask questions in real time. We will have the best and brightest on with me. We will all learn a lot from each other, and I promise not to be boring.
The show will be a $5 per episode, whether you watch LIVE, participate LIVE via webcam or chat, or just download it.
The forum will be restructured somewhat to revolve around the show.
We will have a segment each week where we'll explore topics we'll vote on in a thread with a poll. You folks will nominate a few, we'll put several of them in a poll, and we will pick three.
We will present a separate main topic each week, and have plenty of time for live interaction.
At some point I do some live internet lessons, and live regular lessons as well. All the big guys would vomit first before teaching LIVE. What if the lesson goes bad? No biggie. Like Johnny Carson, I'll see be good even when the jokes fall flat.
It will evolve as we figure out the technology, and get the feedback from those of you who watch.
The forum will then be aBUZZ each week discussing what was IN the show, and of course what should be in the next show.
The new forum will have a new very clean look, new upgrades, and a twice weekly blog of mine.
Topics that can be answered on-line will still be handled the old way, and we are not intending for the regular forum topics to fade away. I just believe that the show will dominate the discussions.
A new eStore and new download system for the videos will be in place, and we will be able to offer REAL TIME LIVE LESSONS to anyone, anywhere in the world with webcam or a camcorder they can hook to a computer with a decent speed connection to the web.
The first version of this site, back on manzellagolfforum.com was pretty cool, and this brianmanzella.com version was a big upgrade.
The 3.0 version will not disappoint, and should all be in place by years end.
If we are lucky, MANZELLA LIVE may be live very soon.
Thanks for everything folks,
Brian
Happy Birthday Forum!
What a five years.
It started pretty simply. I had been banned from three other stupid websites. They didn't like the fact that I completely blew up their so-called experts. I just took my marbles and started my own.
But, really, this forum started way, way before that. Back in the late 80's, they used to gather around the City Park Driving range. I would slice and dice the guys in the room, without ever mentioning their names. The crowd started to gather to witness the verbal arse-whuppin' and the attempted retorts, around 3 p.m.
You see folks, this golf business is a really, really strange thing.
The best and the brightest rarely, if ever, get noticed, promoted, or even allowed to continue what they are doing. I could give you 100 examples without breaking a sweat, but for the sake of simplicity and this thread, just say, I was being hid under blanket for years.
When I was 25, in May of 1987, before I ever flew in a plane, before I ever worked with Ben Doyle, I had become a really good little player, and a very good teacher.
In just seven years of teaching, I had a great clientele; written a book long hand; had done 100's of hours of research with my little video camera, my drafting table, and more tracing paper and graph paper than you could imagine; and become the single biggest threat to the golf power brokers in the New Orleans area.
Why?
I could ALWAYS help folks hit the ball better. And I was interesting.
No matter how much more I learned, how many flights I flew, seminars I attended, famous teachers I impressed, competitors I smartened up, I was going nowhere fast in the Big Easy.
Teaching in Louisville was a great change for me, and where I learned so much you'll never know.
But, this web site was my ticket. My end-run around the business bullies, I went from banned to the #1 ranked Alexa site named after, and run by a single instructor. Ahead of Lead, Hank, Butch, and all the wannabees.
I have sold thousands of videos without buying a single Google Ad word.
But, I am absolutely, completely, and totally not satisfied.
The other day, my great bud Michael Finney said, "If you become the acknowledged #1 teacher on golf—reaching your goal—will you quit when you are on top?"
I had to tell him that I had adjusted my goal. I want to be the #1 golf personality who never made it to #1 in the world. In other words, bigger that Ken Venturi was, or Peter Kessler was, or Leadbetter or Haney never was. Like Emeril or Rachel Ray, but with more substance.
How?
Well, you see, even though I can write a little, a lot gets lost in the translation.
We are going to do a TOTAL redesign, re-engineering of this web site. The #1 new feature being a LIVE show. An interactive LIVE show. Something NO ONE ELSE can do once a week without boring everyone by halftime of the first episode and running out of material the first month.
We are testing the portal tomorrow, and hope to get up and running on that part in a couple of weeks.
The show will be once a week, for 90 minutes to two hours!
We will experiment to find out the perfect time.
You will be able to ask questions in real time. We will have the best and brightest on with me. We will all learn a lot from each other, and I promise not to be boring.
The show will be a $5 per episode, whether you watch LIVE, participate LIVE via webcam or chat, or just download it.
The forum will be restructured somewhat to revolve around the show.
We will have a segment each week where we'll explore topics we'll vote on in a thread with a poll. You folks will nominate a few, we'll put several of them in a poll, and we will pick three.
We will present a separate main topic each week, and have plenty of time for live interaction.
At some point I do some live internet lessons, and live regular lessons as well. All the big guys would vomit first before teaching LIVE. What if the lesson goes bad? No biggie. Like Johnny Carson, I'll see be good even when the jokes fall flat.
It will evolve as we figure out the technology, and get the feedback from those of you who watch.
The forum will then be aBUZZ each week discussing what was IN the show, and of course what should be in the next show.
The new forum will have a new very clean look, new upgrades, and a twice weekly blog of mine.
Topics that can be answered on-line will still be handled the old way, and we are not intending for the regular forum topics to fade away. I just believe that the show will dominate the discussions.
A new eStore and new download system for the videos will be in place, and we will be able to offer REAL TIME LIVE LESSONS to anyone, anywhere in the world with webcam or a camcorder they can hook to a computer with a decent speed connection to the web.
The first version of this site, back on manzellagolfforum.com was pretty cool, and this brianmanzella.com version was a big upgrade.
The 3.0 version will not disappoint, and should all be in place by years end.
If we are lucky, MANZELLA LIVE may be live very soon.
Thanks for everything folks,
Brian
Happy Birthday Forum!
