Calvin Peete Analysis (now w/ a page 18 blog post by Brian Manzella)

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Peete didn't hit it long according to himself, citing that as the reasoning he couldn't compete in the majors.

Despite the super accuracy would Peete win in todays game? I say yes, Brian Gay can win definitely Calvin Peete could. Majors are different though, cant win the US Open or PGA hitting it short.
 
Despite the super accuracy would Peete win in todays game? I say yes, Brian Gay can win definitely Calvin Peete could. Majors are different though, cant win the US Open or PGA hitting it short.

True, you probably can't win a major these days hitting it short. Pavin got himself a US Open though, and Trevino won a bunch so I never really bought some of the old school guys saying they didn't win majors cause they were too short off the tee.
 
Despite the super accuracy would Peete win in todays game? I say yes, Brian Gay can win definitely Calvin Peete could. Majors are different though, cant win the US Open or PGA hitting it short.

Not only did Corey Pavin win one he also was "in" a lot of other majors. I don't think it helps to hit it short but if you have some other intangibles you can get it done.
 
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What about Corey Pavin?

It had to have been the mustache.

pavin.gif
 

ej20

New
The PGA tour has some stats on Peete.He was about 10 yards shorter than Trevino and Lee wasn't that long himself.
 
Not only did Corey Pavin win one he also was "in" a lot of other majors. I don't think it helps to hit it short but if you have some other intangibles you can get it done.

I can't compare 94' (pre ProV type balls) with todays game. Shinnicock would be a course though I suppose you might be able to knock it short and win of all the US Open rotations, Pebble maybe as the ball was rolling like crazy. Certainly not at Winged Foot or Bethpage.

The PGA has become increasingly difficult as well.
 
The Olympic Club will be just about 7,000 yards this year and with the rock hard fairways hit will play much shorter than that, assuming you can hit the ball straight. Peete would have been competitive at this year's US Open, as well as the upcoming Open at Merion.
 

brianid

New member
Not to bag or under-appreciate Mr. Peete, but if you're teaching someone striving for both distance and accuracy, like the overall driving stats, would you adopt Mr. Peete's way of swinging the ball? I mean, the minimal PA3?
 

Jared Willerson

Super Moderator
He was no where near the shortest on tour in his day. In fact he was longer than O'Meara, Oosterhuis and a lot of other known golfers. Plus he wasn't considerably shorter than the rest of the tour. He went about 250, a bomber on tour back then was 265.

Would you teach his swing? What kind of question is that? We have been over this, if a player gets to that level, the goal would probably be not to wreck him. Sure you could try to get him looking sexy on video but what good would it have done him. NONE.

Golf is about finding what works for you. Peete found it, others of us should be so lucky. So the asinine questions about "would you teach his swing" is really just a shot at what is being shown.

Really.
 
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Brian Manzella

Administrator
Not to bag or under-appreciate Mr. Peete, but if you're teaching someone striving for both distance and accuracy, like the overall driving stats, would you adopt Mr. Peete's way of swinging the ball? I mean, the minimal PA3?

I don't teach ANYBODY to swing like ANYBODY.

And more importantly, knowing what I know now, I WOULD NOT HAVE TRIED TO CHANGE HIM.

It would be all maintenance and giving him some useable knowledge.


Most other teachers would have tried to change him, and if that would have happened, he would still be selling jewelry out of his car.
 
He was no where near the shortest on tour in his day. In fact he was longer than O'Meara, Oosterhuis and a lot of other known golfers. Plus he wasn't considerably shorter than the rest of the tour. He went about 250, a bomber on tour back then was 265.

Would you teach his swing? What kind of question is that? We have been over this, if a player gets to that level, the goal would probably be not to wreck him. Sure you could try to get him looking sexy on video but what good would it have done him. NONE.

Golf is about finding what works for you. Peete found it, others of us should be so lucky. So the asinine questions about "would you teach his swing" is really just a shot at what is being shown.

Really.
He really was pretty near the shortest. In the years 1982-1986 in which he won 11 of his 12 tournaments. he ranked ,128th, 157th, 160th, 139, & 171th in distance. O'Meara, who is 13 years younger, was longer and was always ahead of Cal during these years. A couple years Mark was in the top 20 in distance. I noticed Mark went from 18th in distance in 85' to 115th in 86' I wonder when he started working with Hank?
 

brianid

New member
I don't teach ANYBODY to swing like ANYBODY.

And more importantly, knowing what I know now, I WOULD NOT HAVE TRIED TO CHANGE HIM.

It would be all maintenance and giving him some useable knowledge.


Most other teachers would have tried to change him, and if that would have happened, he would still be selling jewelry out of his car.

I'm very interested in the BOLDED part about what you know now. Is that related to the new release? Or entirely something else?
 
He was no where near the shortest on tour in his day. In fact he was longer than O'Meara, Oosterhuis and a lot of other known golfers. Plus he wasn't considerably shorter than the rest of the tour. He went about 250, a bomber on tour back then was 265.

Would you teach his swing? What kind of question is that? We have been over this, if a player gets to that level, the goal would probably be not to wreck him. Sure you could try to get him looking sexy on video but what good would it have done him. NONE.

Golf is about finding what works for you. Peete found it, others of us should be so lucky. So the asinine questions about "would you teach his swing" is really just a shot at what is being shown.

Really.
To be as talented as Peete...growing up dirt poor playing crap courses and becoming scratch within two years, learning by just asking better players questions here and there.

Scratch in two years, on tour in five. Who can pick up golf and do that? Not to mention he picked it up in his twenties! Sheesh.
 
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Brian Manzella

Administrator
I don't teach ANYBODY to swing like ANYBODY.

And more importantly, knowing what I know now, I WOULD NOT HAVE TRIED TO CHANGE HIM.

It would be all maintenance and giving him some useable knowledge.


Most other teachers would have tried to change him, and if that would have happened, he would still be selling jewelry out of his car.

I'm very interested in the BOLDED part about what you know now. Is that related to the new release? Or entirely something else?


What I said about Calvin Peete—and the fact that knowing what I know now, I would NOT change his swing and just adjust him and explain it to him on TrackMan— is NOT related to what we have learned about "The Well-Time Release."

I, Brian Manzella, am a "custom-pattern" teacher. I have been for a long time now.

It all started back in the late 80's....

I was teaching a max-lag, max-pivot through the ball, max-up the left arm swing to all my talented golfers.

I had about six guys that looked absolutely GREAT on the range, GREAT on video, and HIT IT great.

And this one other student that just couldn't do it.

One day, after a couple of long sessions working on the same sort of positions that people have been trying to shove down my throat lately as "optimum," we went out to play a course that he played all the time.

He was beaten by a guy that sells insurance now. (not that there is anything wrong with that)

My student then infamously uttered these exact words after the bad round and having to cough up some green pieces of paper, and then having me try to start to tell him it wasn't that bad....


"But it looks good on video, huh."


So, either I had to adjust what I was teaching this guy, or lose him. I adjusted, and he quickly returned to form and got on tour.

Then, at Doral in 1991, right after he had finished 3rd a couple of weeks earlier, I put in something that I wish to this day I never did.

On a par-3 in the tournament that he finished 3rd in, there was a good 45° up-the-line video of him on TV. I watched it at Tom Bartlett's old sun room with Tom.

My Tour student's hips looked to pretty much stop through the ball (or slow a whole bunch). Tom told me that I had to fix that, "that's not what we are supposed to do." It sure wasn't what I taught.

So at Doral, I put it in, a continuos pivot through the ball.

I'm lucky he didn't fire me right then and there. He didn't. I hung around for a few more years, off and on. Eventually a few years later, his swing had gotten unrecognizable. I had started to teach several patterns, in an early version of the Manzella Matrix.

One of those patterns was Never Hook Again.

Pretty much his swing. So I taught it back to him. It helped a lot, and another teacher got it to work even better. I'd least I had did something right for a change. In the few years that he became famous without working with me at all, I really upgraded my teaching. Living in Louisville, I completely developed the Manzella Matrix, and was eventually smart enough with another future LSU golfer, to leave her INDIVIDUALIZED SWING PATTERN alone enough. She had a long sweep type release too, and another bunch of other things like a big weight shift, that had become passé. I knew she'd make it one day, and I knew I could really help the other now-famous player too now, if I ever got the chance.

In the spring of 2003 I got the chance.

The golfer had started to swing way too far inside-out. I knew how to fix it, and using the pre-TrackMan resultant path ideas that I was mocked on the internet for teaching (it was jokingly called "avoidance"), I fixed him.

He won a million dollar event the next week.

Back in the fold some of the time, I got to keep adjusting this tendency with pretty good results. The golfer played well±not great for him—but well, and my teaching really took off with the help of this website. A guy named Fredrik Tuxen invented a mobile teaching device he didn't realize was a mobile teaching device, and uncovered the D-Plane from the bowels of history, and I bought a machine that not only transformed my teaching and career, but the whole teaching industry. I'm quite proud that this change took place partially because of me, and my promotion of the device and the concepts it can help you adjust in your students.

I really started to utilize the device with the player last year, and he really started to enjoy the easy to understand lessons—checked at all times for accuracy—on my "little orange friend." The player and I worked together more than we had for years, on and off the tour, and he played well all year.

Oh yeah, he shot 63 yesterday.

So, before you run out and try a max-lag, turn through it aggressively though impact, and take some lessons without checking the work on a device like TrackMan, you might want to read this story again.

And before you try to throw under the bus the ideas about the release that MAY not produce a max-lag, super pivot through the ball swing, or throw me under the bus for not teaching it, you might want to think about the fact that if it exists, I taught it or test it at some point in time in the 29 years I have been trying to become the best teacher in the world.

Thanks for reading.

BMANZ
 
Brian -

This is why I keep coming back. My swing is my swing, not some pattern in a book or based upon video. I know what happens under pressure for me, not what some book/video says must happen. We're all different. There might be some "standard" ideas about the swing, but "optimum" has to be tied to our mind and bodies, not just appearance.

I'll take impact all the way.

Never Hook Again changed my game forever.
 
Brian, not sure this is the correct way to teach a tour player. As opposed to realizing something is not working and adapting your teaching, are you not supposed to continue to shove the same thing down their throat and when it does not work, you write a book about all your conversations with the player, how they were unable to understand your genious, question their work ethic, something to make yourself look better? The honesty you revealed in this post raises questions. Seriously, this was a great post which reveals so much about what a teacher of anything should be like. It is a privilege to be your student, on the lesson tee yearly or by reading your posts.
 
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