Brian Manzella
Administrator
From Dictionary.com:
That seems pretty straight forward, huh?teach [teech] taught, teach⋅ing
1. to impart knowledge of or skill in; give instruction in: She teaches mathematics.
From BrianManzella.com1. to impart knowledge of or skill in; give instruction in: She teaches mathematics.
Teaching Golf
Getting a student to perform a series of tasks with a golf club.
A couple of examples of these tasks are Driving, and hitting irons shots.
The teacher MUST find a way for the student to be able to PERFORM the tasks, in a variety of settings.
Getting a student to perform a series of tasks with a golf club.
A couple of examples of these tasks are Driving, and hitting irons shots.
The teacher MUST find a way for the student to be able to PERFORM the tasks, in a variety of settings.
But, if you watch "The Haney Project" on Golf Channel, and you watch Hank Haney interact with his "student," former NBA great Charles Barkley, you are seeing something all together different.
To me, the problem is that folks out there in TV Land might start thinking they are watching "Golf Instruction" at the highest level. Because if they do—and I'd bet most are—then this very entertaining show (at least by Golf Channel standards) may be a bigger set back for golf instruction then watching Roy McAvoy "teaching" Dr. Molly Griswold in Tin Cup.
Thank goodness for Charles Barkley, who could make a show about stacking beer cans worth watching. Co-"star" Hank Haney does a very good job on camera, coming off at least mostly like the guy I've met and had lunch with, listened to at teaching seminars, and watched give lessons. Too bad the show is a farce in the strictest sense of the word.
It is supposed to be the "World BEST Golf Instructor" fixing the "World's WORST Golf Swing."
It should be billed as "A Big-Name, One-Method Teacher trying to teach the same thing he teaches everyone—in the same exact way he teaches everyone—to a world-class athlete with a Hitch-from-hell in the middle of what used to be a 7-handicap swing."
It could then be called "Troubleshooter Exposed."
It really is sad, to be perfectly honest with all of you. My great friend Don Villavaso used to say that the worse thing that could ever happen to a poor golfer, is for them to take lessons from whoever is supposed to be "the best." Because if that golfer doesn't get fixed, he will then "be sure" it is him.
This seems to be the fate of Sir Charles, because he has basically not improved one little bit.
When you teach golf for 27 years as I have, you see quite a few swings in the manner of Barkley's. Swings that look terrible and hit worse than that, and have been taught from sea-to-shining-sea by a handful of "World-Famous" or at least "Locally Highly Touted," teachers.
What do you do with people like this?
Well, you fix 'em, because, well, that's your job.
How?
Every bad swing has a "big flaw" and the trick is to find out why the golfer added that move to their pattern.
You often have to try all sorts of things, all sorts of patterns, and all kinds of
approaches.
Sometimes you try to use the flaw, and build around it
Really.
Sometimes you have to play some tricks, like planting in some elements that are not designed to "stick around" for the new pattern, but are used to "blow up" the old one, or at least the "fatal flaw."
You never show frustration to the student, unless you are faking it for effect.
And you never, ever, ever, stick to doing something that isn't working for too long.
Hank Haney is doing a better job of proving everything I ever said about method-teachers is correct, than helping poor Charles.
Hey Hank! Do something different, it ain't working, dude.
You'd think that the ONLY WAY to swing a golf club is with a head that doesn't dip, and a backswing that starts off at New York City, and winds up in Miami, followed by a downswing that scrapes Cuba, and finishes anywhere between Dallas and Kansas City.
Newsflash, Hank.
There are Tour Players with dipping heads that drive Bentleys, and Hall-of-Famers with similar "faults" as the round mound of rebound.
It's the HITCH, Henry.
I see a lot of Hank preaching. But very little of Hank showing.
I hear Hank pleading, but I hear zero of Hank reasoning.
I see lots of line drawing, but no figuring a way around the "detour."
I like to see some grip variation experiments. Some different stances. Any thing but that silly lift the club up and make a circle drill, that looks like the opposite of Ray Floyd's swing and has produced nearly opposite results.
1000 balls a day?
Come on Hank, that trick might work with one of those 1000 super-talented juniors that have passed through your doors over the years that you've turned into, eh, you developed into, ah, a couple of really good Tour players.
What about a 1000 new ideas a day?
What about having Charles watch you, watching the brim of your cap 1000 times a day?
The best part of all of this is the "fall back plan"—the poor student is just unfixable.
Or unteachable.
The idea that the golf magazines, Golf Channel, and PGA Tour Players have managed to discover the very best golf teaching talent on earth, has been a stretch by best, and a travesty at worst for 30 years.
Here's your proof.
The "proof" is simply this: Teaching the world's best golfer to play just slightly worst than the last "name" teacher is one thing. Fixing the broken golf swings of golfers Tiger can give 20 a side to, is something altogether different.
I promise, if I hear one more "famous" guest of the show, utter the phrase, "Hank is a genius" I think I'll throw a brick at a TV. A cheap one. I wouldn't waste a good TV on this.
At the end of the day, a lot of folks are watching the show, and I guess that's good for golf.
But I know better.
