In the next couple of months there will be a lot of new visitors to the site.
So, in preparation from this influx, plus for the benefit of all who visit this site, I am starting a new series called "What I Teach."
It will cover the following 10 categories:
1. The Grip
2. Set-up
3. Early Backswing
4. Toward the Top of the Backswing
5. The Transition
6. The 1st Phase of the downswing
7. Mid-Dowswing
8. To and though impact
9. The Swivel
10. The Finish
Each section will begin with a free video from me, in a new thread where questions and comments can go on from there.
My teaching had gone through several phases in 28 years.
The first phase (1983-1986) was the "Absolute Golf" era. Absolute Golf was a book I wrote that I never published that took several methodologies and converged them into one solid body of information. A Jimmy Ballard-type pivot, with a free arm swing-Ernest Jones-Percy Boomer speed generation system, with a Seymour Dunn-Hank Haney-Homer Kelley plane theory. I liked a slightly forward hand position, a flat left wrist at the top and impact, and a flat right wrist by the time the right arm straightened with a Seve type clubshaft through the right arm finish, and the predominate shot was a draw.
Transitioning out of that phase I started teaching more forward bend at address, slightly further left path, and more of a Hogan-type finish.
Phase two (1987-1993) was my head first dive into the world of maximum trigger delay, maximum participation pivot, chip-pitch-punch as taught by Ben Doyle, but early on with some early Mac O'Grady influence. More forward bend at address, pitch position elbow, and heavy emphasis on a flat left wrist at and through impact. Lot of short to long instruction especially for newer golfers. Fairly early on, it was seen that the best golfer in the stable, was not better off doing the pattern as is. By necessity, customizing patterns begin in earnest.
Transitioning out of this phase completely occurred the day the Never Hook Again pattern was proved valid for more golfers than two.
In phase three (1994-2000) the mutil-pattern approach blossomed with Never Hook Again, Never Slice Again, and a pattern most if you never heard discussed in these parts—code-name THB—that featured a two-shift backswing with a single plane downswing and very little face rotation was used often with good results. A couple of huge missteps that occurred with trying to move students using the THB pattern into another pattern, and the realization of the lack of real-world evidence that trigger delay was for all talented players move me square into phase 4.
Phase four (2001-2007) The "Manzella Matrix." All sorts of new patterns including most of the the above, and the "baby fade" pattern toward the end of this era. Total customization with too many options, not really science based enough, and absolutely pre-TrackMan verified, D-Plane approved. Thanks to Dr. Aaron Zick, and with the insistence of Jon Hardesty, we go science based, TrackMan verified.
And here we are in Phase 5.
Interestingly, 95% of everything I ever thought to be true, based on nothing but my observation and investigating, and other people's observations and investigations, turn out to be correct, or very close.
The TGM stuff, not so much.
I have have to take back a lot of things I've said about the swing in the 9 years this site has been up, but next to none weren't rooted in the incorrect science of TGM.
Ah well, you have to know what not to teach to be the best you can be. And right now, we are cooking with gas.
Grip video and thread soon!
