Well, Oliver Heuler said I could translate his text for you guys, so everyone can see for himself whether Leadbetter's cancelling of TCC was justified. Here goes, in the words of Oliver:
When I presented Leadbetter during the book signing with his 14 year old book »The Swing«, I said: "I was probably your first German fan." That wasn't a lie: during a time when everybody in Germany still said Leedbetter, when he read his name, I, as an apprentice, already knew precisely what he was working on with Faldo.
I had watched Faldo during the Germany Open - I believe it was in 86 in Hubbelrath - and saw, how he managed to stay under 90 twice thanks to ingenious putting. In spite of this I was fascinated by the interviews with Leadbetter in the American magazines. The man appeared to have a plan, which seemed to be totally different from the general teaching consensus at that time. I tend to feel sympathetic towards this type of thinking. My luck was that Denis Pugh, his first man back then, offered seminars in Hamburg almost monthly. I didn't miss a single one and was a totally convinced Leadbetter disciple. Denis Pugh also wrote the foreword for my second book and even today »perfecting your golf swing« still testifies in American book stores towards myself having no prejudices whatsoever towards Leadbetter.
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<center>Almost 100 people wanted to see David Leadbetter in Germany</center>
Also, during his two appearances at the DGLV-Seminar Leadbetter left a good impression. But when I got to know Hank Haney at the first European Teaching Conference in Milano and shortly after that watched him teach in Dallas, I knew: faster success is that way. I only saw Leadbetter again in New Orleans (this must haven been 6 or 7 years ago), when he in front of 1000 pros taught a good female player with a little fade, which he turned into a hopeless slice in the course of 30 minutes.
Still, I was euphoric when I heard that the best-known and most expensive ($5000 for 3 hours) teacher, who coaches the Top-100 of the world rankings up and down, would come to a rural club close to the former Eastern German town of Wildenbruch. And he would not teach talented Tour players, but mainly Sally Havercamp, her husband and friends.
So we spontaneously rescheduled our obligatory Golf teachers meeting at Fleesensee in order to witness this world-renowned teacher doing »our« job. Which is to deal with ordinary Flattakeawaydorsalflipslicers, invertebrally challenged Leftarmstiffers and apodictical Leaveheaddownexplainers including their victims, i.e. their wives. The program was to be a 60 minute clinic, 150 minutes teaching of amateurs and half an hour's worth of autographs.
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<center>Bright and interested faces, wherever David would look.</center>
Leadbetter made a name for himself by preaching that the tail should not wag the dog, but vice versa, so the golfer should at first forget the club and concentrate on his body. Additionally he popularized the swing building; not the correction of mistakes was to be the goal, no, a complete make-over was called for most of the time. If one asks Hank Haney about the differences between his system and that of Leadbetter, then for the last 10 years he has been saying the same thing: that it couldn't be long until Leadbetter turned aboutface and realized how to reach success much more quickly.
I also had heard rumours that Leadbetter doesn't want the club to come across the target line at the top anymore and that he was supposed to cure hooks with dorsal wrists. Another difference between Haney and Leadbetter is Leadbetter's notion that the club must become extremely steep after the 9 o'clock position in the backswing.
The clinic got off to a promising start. Leadbetter said that most amateurs would do too much with their bodies, when in fact the golf club would hit the ball and therefore it must freely swing. However, when teaching 15 to 20 different players you cannot hide. Leadbetter's teaching style is unchanged. Almost always he only looks at one swing from about three feet away in front and then immediately starts to correct. Often he corrected the grip and the stance and then one body movement. As an example, let's look at his first female student. She hit the ball fat and thin and practised hitting short and middle irons from a tee - wisely. Leadbetter from in front of her only saw her hip shift and her reverse pivot and started correcting that immediately. The inevitable happened: she took the club back on an even flatter plane, came across at the top even more and hit into the ground even earlier than before. However, Leadbetter commented only on her body movement and so the perplexed student earned frenetical applause for sometimes dreadful shots from the self-appointed number one Golf teacher.
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<center>Less reverse pivot and hip shifting does not really help here. The shorter backswing (Butch Harmon's favorite correction for coming across at the top) alleviates the problem slightly.</center>
However, with the almost 20 students Leadbetter also scored three hits. That always was when the grip or the wrist (which one can see from the front) were the cause of the problem at impact. Typical of his unchanged plane theory were the moves of the master himself and his disciples. Leadbetter weaseled out of the demonstrations and pretended a neck injury (which could not be discerned in any way), but in a somewhat unattended moment he did make a swing: he comes across the target line already in the backswing and and crosses it even more in the transition.
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<center>Crossing like that...</center>
Embarrassing were the shots of his Leadbetter-Pro from Germany. His club was so much across the line and came into the ball so extremely from the inside that he happened upon a veritable wormburner with an iron 7. Practically every ball was a quick hook. The teacher was visibly disconcerted and after each shot said that the next one would be straight, but the best result was a single 35 yard push. For that performance, Leadbetter purposefully hit him in the knee with a ball, which, from the sound of it, must have hurt a lot.
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<center>...the occasional worm-burner and frequent hooks should come as no surprise.</center>
Especially interesting was the last student, a colleague from Seddin. He also had a case of the hooks and came into the ball on a flat plane. Leadbetter even mentioned the crossing club and recommended more lower arm rotation. So far, so good. After the correction, however, he missed that Kai Wendland now rotated the forearms much too early, therefore already flattening his takeaway and still coming to impact on too flat a plane. David L. reacted to the unchanged hooks that the forearms would still rotate too much and Kai should concentrate on avoiding that.
Apparently Leadbetter doesn't know that hooks come from a palmar left wrist and that in turn results from a flat takeaway. Also, for Haney's theory he only had disparaging remarks and a club that is parallel to the plane at the top seems to amuse him.
Still, as a watching Golf teacher one cannot help but wonder where this man's success comes from. For one thing, he can (and IMG) can sell himself pretty well and his appearance was very professional: he had many laughs during the clinic, was dressed well, looked fresh even though that was his fifth country in five days. He talks eloquently and is easily understood, plus he is a very good smalltalker.
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<center>In spite of all the praise: Leadbetter does not lead very accurately. He takes the club back on the outside and flat, doesn't watch the student's pivot and often squeezes his fingers. There was a good article on that from Roland Becker and Stephan Morales in Progolf, which Leadbetter apparently doesn't know
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What was interesting was how devout the students reacted to him. One man made the critical spectators shake their heads in disbelief: when Leadbetter commented his last shot, a 90 yard pull-hook, with the words "much better body rotation", the student bowed deeply and thanked him visibly stirred for the valuable tips.
This type of demeanor matches my impression gained in Germany. If you coach Bernhard Langer you can tell your students what you want, they will in all likelihood never question it. What is the bottom-line? As a Golf teacher try to catch a Tour player and see to it that he becomes successful. Because even a teacher, who tries to get faster results on the practice tee, once in a while depends on a little trust on the part of his students. Even better would be if the teacher could play like a Tour player himself. I don't dare to imagine how the many VIPs would have reacted if Tiger Woods had taught them that afternoon. I guess he could have told them that it would be better to grip left-hand-low with the driver and cross your legs - the people would have tried it.
But how can it be explained that Leadbetter's players are successful, even though his knowledge is not superior by any standard? Well, what we do not know is Leadbetter's success rate. On this day in Berlin it was below 20%. Perhaps it is not much higher with Tour players? If you get hundreds of them, then 20 successful ones are enough. But uncounted remain the many Pros, who now sell balls in the Pro shop, because they couldn't walk in the valley of tears for 2.5 years as Nick Faldo did. Additionally, the more talented a student is, the better is the chance that Leadbetter's system of swing-building works for him. That explains why Leadbetter's Golf academies have very bad rebooking rates: weekend players do not have the talent and the perseverence to go the Leadbetter way to the very end.
Still, I don't look at the phenomenon Leadbetter with scorn. Au contraire: Leadbetter has done much for our profession and I write that without irony. Since Leadbetter everyone knows:
1. Even good players need teachers and can improve with their help.
2. It's ok if good teaching costs a little money.
And so, on that day probably many spectators were motivated to get a lesson or two. What more could be expected?
And now for criticizing the critic: yes, maybe my perception is twisted. Maybe I am not advanced enough to recognize the brilliance of Leadbetter's analyses and fixes. I cannot rule that out and neither can the reader, he shouldn't even. There is only one way to be sure: watch Leadbetter yourself, don't just read subjective reports in some Internet forum. As a Golf teacher one even has the responsibility to learn from all possible sources. And only he, who has studied the various systems (here Leadbetter vs. PGA of Germany teaching manual) free of prejudice, understood and tested them, can judge them. In any event, Leadbetter does not belong to this circle yet.
(The End)
