A Little Lesson in Lesson Giving by Brian Manzella

[Matt Bryda]

This kind of information encourages more learning and research on the part of the instructor and I appreciate it.

Savydan,

I meant learning when, how and why to dish out and spoon feed information to the student. For me there is alot of great information in Brian's post and thanks to Kevin also for explaining the explanation.

Matt

 

[dbl]

When to spoon feed info during a lesson? I don't know that that sounds right.

Maybe in a review after of what was done and why (though not for every one). During? It sounds more like ball flight was giving teacher and student stuff to go on.

 

[ZAP]

Having experienced Brian's teaching I can tell he puts a lot of thought into what he is telling the player.(as well as what he is not telling the player) I can see times during my lesson where he might want to say something but stays quiet. There is a point in my lesson where I hit a shot doing all the stuff we were working on well and he stops me short of talking and tells me what he (and trackman) saw. Brian wanted me to stay in the moment of that particular swing and have a second to absorb what just happened.

If I was a golf instructor I would love the opportunity to see a lot of teachers teach so I could see what does and does not work in the real world.

 

[James Marshall (Hogan1953)]

Is there relationship at all between zeroing-out and the VSP? I noted that the VSP went up as the golfer swang more left.

 

[James Marshall (Hogan1953)]

Brian,

What would you have done if the golfer had shown up with the end-of-class numbers at the start of the class?

Thanks

 

[birdie_man]

Now, remember, I said I changed his poorly constructed strong grip to a professional style, very slightly stronger than neutral grip.

I have nothing against strong grips, per se, but if a golfer has a good basic swing, and a severely closed-to-the-path clubface, I will try a grip where I keep the grip under the heel pad, but have the clubface more matching the back of the left hand.

This doesn't work all the time for a particular golfer, but more often than not, it INSTANTLY presents the ball with a less closed-to-the-path clubface.

In this case, it did right away. His first few shots with the new grip were solid pushes, an average of 6-to-7° inside out with a basically matching face.

So, now we have a push, so I had him try to start the ball slightly left of an intermediate target, which he did almost right away, delivering a near zeroed out path, but with a 5-7° open face.

Why did the face not "move left with the path"?

Because out of the same stance, he had to actively rotate his hips and torso more, and this activity, and the change of sequence from a "hips facing the ball at impact" to a "hips past the ball and point 45°-ish to the left at impact" made the face more open to the path.

With his old grip, he cupped his wrist at the top, and retained the bend in the wrist through the ball. (he had forward lean, but a bent left wrist because the bend was UPWARD TWOARD HIS ARM, not forward toward the target.

So now, we had to teach him to square up the face.

Interestingly, most folks who have never seen me teach think I flatten everyone's wrist at the top, and have the golf apply twistaway and limit the left arm flying wedge rotation on the backswing to help the golf square up the club.

A weaker golfer, or a bigger slicer, MAYBE. But this ex-pro baseballer, who will be scratch if we continue to work, needed to learn to square the club up in a more "TOUR" manner. So we taught him to increase the distance between his grip logo and his watch face, and rotate the back of the left hand downward toward the ball, and continue this whole arm rotation to a "catch the raindrops" position just post follow-through.

It worked like a charm, moving the face more toward the path.

The last degree or two came from continuing that left arm rotation to a "hang the dry cleaning" left thumb under/butt of the club at the target at last parallel location, on the way to the finish.

Great detailed post. Cool.

 

[jenhaoyen]

What is the secret to this? I feel like I'm the guy on the right all the time!

 

[Jared Willerson]

Jen, there is visibly less right elbow bend in the photo on the left. Focus on straightening the right elbow sooner in the down swing. You will feel like you are going to hit the ground, but that is where back extension takes over and takes the club to the ball

 

[Lindsey Newman]

Jen, there is visibly less right elbow bend in the photo on the left. Focus on straightening the right elbow sooner in the down swing. You will feel like you are going to hit the ground, but that is where back extension takes over and takes the club to the ball

Really? Could you explain that further? I don't see that at all. I see a more open pivot.

 

[Kevin Shields]

For one thing the guy on the right has to look like that to keep that closed clubface playable

 

[Jared Willerson]

Really? Could you explain that further? I don't see that at all. I see a more open pivot.

You are correct his pivot is more open (back more extended)....however, his right elbow has straightened more than in the pic on the right. Depends on which feel you is more comfortable to you.

Straighten the right elbow and feel like the right arm is overtaking the left

or

Really extend toward the target

Kevin is very correct in saying he has to look the way he looks in the pic on the right to keep from hitting the left of left shot

 

[Kevin Shields]

.......but he hit it anyway of course

 

[bax1865]

Fix the face and then the path

What is the secret to this? I feel like I'm the guy on the right all the time!

Swing more left. Swinging left with the old clubface would have been a disaster.

 

[GolfHappy]

All you do is move the ball forward in the stance, this will fix the path, the clubface, shoulders at impact... and practically everything else. Playing the ball too far back will lead the club to come too far from the inside with the face open to the target line and generally the shoulders closed to the target (as per the pic on the right) Too far forward and you increase your chances of a) Coming over the top b) Hitting the ground before the ball.

The only other change required is to soften the grip so the ball doesn't go bigtime left.

So move the ball forward and soften the grip.



What have I missed????

 

[Brian Manzella]

What have I missed????

Not sure what you are asking.

The point of the thread—in case you missed it—is that golfers sometime just need a TWEAK and that will have a DESIRED ripple effect.

"Go to any resort course and watch 100 people tee off #1. You won't see 5 identifiable methods being employed. Someone has to help those 95+ golfers, and that someone is me." — Brian Manzella​

 

[Scott Fossum]

In my opinion you can tell how good a teacher is by how fast they can change ball-flight. The best ones can do it in one swing. My guess would be that Brian is a consistent "one-ball" teacher. If a student needs more than a couple of swings to change either the teacher isn't educated and experienced enough or they have a show on The Golf Channel...lol!

 

[Bell812]

Brian literally zeroed me out in 15 minutes. And 3 weeks later I'm striping it. Without a doubt the absolute best money I've ever spent on the game.

 

[drewyallop]

With an eye to later.

An important point. Brian gave me a foundation that I could build on.

Drew

 

[drewyallop]

I was asking you to talk about it because people come here to see what YOU have to say.

There may be irony here insofar as Ringer has posted here over 1400 times, much of it argumentative.

Drew

 

[wulsy]

Here is his initial club numbers on his first three 6-iron shots:

Clubhead Speed 98.23 mph, Club Path 11.1° inside-out, 5.4° open clubface, 12.4° dynamic loft, 51.5° VSP

Here is the last three after I gave him a one hour lesson:

Clubhead Speed 95.73 mph, Club Path 0.7° inside-out, 2.4° open clubface, 17.0° dynamic loft, 56.5° VSP

Was he hittin it shorter?