Thread Video Swing Analysis has to go....

[Brian Manzella]

There is nothing in the whole world that gives me the heebie-jeebies more or faster than watching a bad golf lesson.

When you spend basically your whole life trying to become the best in the world at something, that "something" is usually something you care a lot about.

I care a lot about teaching golf, and helping golfers play better.

I gave one the best lessons of all-time yesterday by getting down to what really caused this particular golfer's issues. And doing it with the idea of what exactly that golfer could do, and couldn't do.

A golf lesson is a lot like a date. You meet, exchange pleasantries, and go off to your destination. Sometimes that destination is known, but some of the very best dates are just a ride waiting for something to jump out at you. Once a destination is determined, you head off in the direction of it, very mindful of not doing or saying something to ruin the whole date before it even really got going. Etc.

About a dozen times on this forum, over the almost 10 years we have been on the air, I've banned folks putting their swings up in a thread and looking for help.

I am going to do that again real soon. But this time, with a sticky we will dutifully enforce.

I am not against folks looking for help with their swings on the forum. They can ask all the questions they'd like. They can even post up their TrackMan numbers. BUT NO VIDEO.

I read these threads and I want to vomit.

Even though half of the advice is very good-to-great, the other half is so bad, It makes me want to run away from the site and go read MacRumors.

In a game where there more teachers than instructors, where there are websites with non-teachers giving out awards, most folks are just NOT cut out for it. I have a LOT of golf "talent." I played D1 college golf, and a whole bunch of other stuff since. Yesterday, on a golf course on Long Island I had never seen before, without a round for a score under my belt since January, I birdied two 220 yard+ par threes with tap-ins, and made an eagle.

I also had 5 three putts and a whole barrel full of dumb mistakes I've been making since I was 15.

Tour player—NOT!

You have to know your limitations in this life.

But on golf instruction websites, and apparently at every driving range in the world, there is someone who THINKS they know what you should do.

No.

Not close.

You might hurt somebody.

No more videos. Ask questions, all you want. Video exposes the semi-informed. On a site like this, where I've smartened up thousands—friends and enemies alike—you can get some REALLY good advice from a succinct paragraph about your trouble.

You can post up a video of scratch player, in the middle of a great round, striping every shot, and some yahoo will talk about some perceived flaw.

If you have a swing problem, and you want help, we have over a dozen Manzella Instructors who can help. Send me or one of them your video, you can work it out from there.

Thanks,

BManz

 

[SPmoser87]

Brian,

I sent you a PM the other day about maybe coming to New Orleans the next time I can get a couple days off in a row. I'd like some help if you are available. It'll be sometime this summer.

Thanks.

 

[wulsy]

Good post Brian. These wannabe clueless clowns who give others advice whilst having no clue themselves make me want to puke as well. There are some guys out there who know how to teach and can analyse well and some are not even golf pros. There are a load of pga pros out there who are clueless. Most of 'em.

The golf teaching business is as crooked as any other (law, medicine, car sales, drug dealers, you name it) and most amateurs are the victims of these con artists and money grabbers. That's why most of them are chopping it round the course and making an arse of themselves on the ranges.

 

[MikeD2]

Good post Brian. These wannabe clueless clowns who give others advice whilst having no clue themselves make me want to puke as well. There are some guys out there who know how to teach and can analyse well and some are not even golf pros. There are a load of pga pros out there who are clueless. Most of 'em.

The golf teaching business is as crooked as any other (law, medicine, car sales, drug dealers, you name it) and most amateurs are the victims of these con artists and money grabbers. That's why most of them are chopping it round the course and making an arse of themselves on the ranges.

I know you'd like to think that crooks routinely practice law or medicine. In fact, both professions require advanced study and testing to insure minimal competency. In addition, once you're admitted to practice, state disciplinary boards routinely investigate and prosecute practitioners who practice poorly or take advantage of their patients or clients. It is not a foolproof system but it is unlike many other businesses where services are offered for a fee. Medicine and law are unlike drug dealing or selling cars.

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

You are mostly going to hurt somebody.

If you have a swing problem, and you want help, we have over a dozen Manzella Instructors who can help. Send me or one of them your video, you can work it out from there.

Thanks,

BManz

I adjust BManz post above with what i firmly believe and applaud this post.

 

[Virtuoso]

Good post Brian. These wannabe clueless clowns who give others advice whilst having no clue themselves make me want to puke as well. There are some guys out there who know how to teach and can analyse well and some are not even golf pros. There are a load of pga pros out there who are clueless. Most of 'em.

The golf teaching business is as crooked as any other (law, medicine, car sales, drug dealers, you name it) and most amateurs are the victims of these con artists and money grabbers. That's why most of them are chopping it round the course and making an arse of themselves on the ranges.

Let me get this straight, you're equating golf pros, lawyers, doctors and car salesmen to drug dealers?

 

[Nitro7]

Let me get this straight, you're equating golf pros, lawyers, doctors and car salesmen to drug dealers?

I'm wondering who the "honest" non-money grabbing drug dealers are??

 

[dbl]

I know the passion, and the ire against wrong advice.

But at the same time, some swings with obvious and crazy maladies like WOFLDOG's can be instructional. Problem is, after 1-2 or two decent suggestions, threads go for 2-4 pages more on ticky tacky sutff...and the original poster (like myself at times) is blind and unfeeling of the wrong move and any new moves.

Maybe you could have a small library of typical positions and moves and suggested remedies. Then people can discuss if they have the "steep transition" problem, or the "underplane late flip" and others can say how they did X to combat that problem.

 

[Virtuoso]

I know the passion, and the ire against wrong advice.

But at the same time, some swings with obvious and crazy maladies like WOFLDOG's can be instructional. Problem is, after 1-2 or two decent suggestions, threads go for 2-4 pages more on ticky tacky sutff...and the original poster (like myself at times) is blind and unfeeling of the wrong move and any new moves.

Maybe you could have a small library of typical positions and moves and suggested remedies. Then people can discuss if they have the "steep transition" problem, or the "underplane late flip" and others can say how they did X to combat that problem.

dbl, sounds great in theory (I don't mean that in a dismissive way--I really do like the theory), but the golf swing is terribly complex and when you try to standardize the definitions, causes, effects, typical errors and possible solutions, it ultimately becomes just as meaningless at the end of the exercise as it did at the beginning (because everything grows a sub-system).

Afterall, you said Wolfdog has an "obvious" problem--let's call it the steep transition--and everyone seems to acknowledge that...and everyone has talked about what "x" they would do to solve the problem, and yet all the "ticky tacky" stuff persists.

Because all golfers are complex people, with complex physiology, and complex psychology, etc.....the actual teaching should just be left up to the experts.

 

[gmbtempe]

I understand Brian's reservations about "my swing" threads. Someone throws it up there, then someone like me who is a total amatuer hack says something, it makes that person worse then someone asks "where did you here that crazy idea" and they lump the advice into "got from Brian Manzella's site".....well you can see where that is just a bit misleading.

Saying that, I posted my swing for the first time at Golfwrx and one of the first people to chime in was Kevin Shields, who at the time could have been anyone (meaning could have been amateur hack), but he said something to me that was so contradictory to what other people had been telling me that it made me actually try to research what the heck was going on in my swing. Net positive that would never had happened without that type of thread.

 

[Frans@France]

Medicine...are unlike drug dealing.....

 

[curtisj76]

I think anyone posting up a swing on the internet has to try and weed out the good from the bad. I posted up a swing of my 6 yr old boy and received some advice, one of those from Shields regarding his grip. I have faith in what Kevin says so I fixed his grip and he's swinging it great right now. I would have NEVER sent Kevin a pm with his swing because I wouldn't have wanted to bother him. I don't know if Kevin or the other guys want 20 swings coming there way daily either (correct me if I'm wrong).

What about posting up your swing and ONLY a "BManz dude" and the op can reply? That leaves out the bad advice from us hacks and we can still get some good discussions/help.

 

[wulsy]

I know you'd like to think that crooks routinely practice law or medicine. In fact, both professions require advanced study and testing to insure minimal competency. In addition, once you're admitted to practice, state disciplinary boards routinely investigate and prosecute practitioners who practice poorly or take advantage of their patients or clients. It is not a foolproof system but it is unlike many other businesses where services are offered for a fee. Medicine and law are unlike drug dealing or selling cars.

You are right Mike, you don't have to go to University to be a drug dealer or a car salesman. But how does that have an effect on your honesty or integrity?

There are some very honest car salesmen and drug dealers and some very dishonest doctors and lawyers, and of course vice versa. It all about money honey, it all about money.

 

[lia41985]

Saying that, I posted my swing for the first time at Golfwrx and one of the first people to chime in was Kevin Shields, who at the time could have been anyone (meaning could have been amateur hack), but he said something to me that was so contradictory to what other people had been telling me that it made me actually try to research what the heck was going on in my swing. Net positive that would never had happened without that type of thread.

Greg,

I'd submit that the lesson to draw from your story about the net positive isn't the right one.

The point is you got help from Kevin Shields. I don't know Kevin personally but he's been nothing but a class act to me in addressing my forum queries and private messages. He might not say it about himself because he's too humble but in addition to being a damn good player he's a damn good instructor. And Brian would submit that's why he's on Team Manzella.

The net positive isn't the odd golfer who gets the odd good tip based on feedback from whoever on some video.

That net positive that accrued to you was from getting help from someone like Kevin.

This is a damn good place to learn because people like Kevin and Brian and the rest of the team help out. That requires more than someone at the end of a free wi-fi connection typing up the random thought the person feels they should offer because somehow intuitively they know how the swing works (because they've read/seen/done/felt so and so) even though they don't have a high performance swing or even if they do they know they're like most good players and barely have a clue why (and instructionally so deficient in terms of the skill set required that they couldn't teach an apple to fall from a tree).

You know how you get repeat service in terms of lessons booked? In terms of forum registrations? In terms of daily sign-ins? In terms of the golf-aholic whose trying to load the welcome page on his smartphone while driving out of work?!

Good content. Not just volume of content (though there's plenty of that too here--the release thread was how many damn pages?). This ain't some middle-handicapper's wet dream piss-poor forum to educate golfers in the fine art of witnessing a mid-life crisis. This ain't some Twitter account from some dude tweeting to his twerps about his frustrations at waiting in the check-in line at Walmart.

This is a golf instructional forum by and for people who love golf and love it so much they want to maintain a high-standard befitting the endeavor that is a journey through this great game.

If you (not you, Greg, but anyone of you reading this) aren't down with that then don't read it/don't post/post about how you hate it but can't stop talking to all your "web friends" about it on your own forum and continue to read it in search of new "material" (which just ups the hit counts by the way).

This forum gets better with time--as the rules change in furtherance of improving the content. It'll continue to do so and I'm damn proud of the proprietor.

The hits keep on coming.

 

[softconsult]

Here is my view point. A few years ago I discovered the site that allows anyone to post swing video and also anyone to analyze. I did some analyzing, but always with the qualifier that I was not an instructor. What grew tiresome is that it boils down to takers and givers.
The takers didn't want to actually do any work and sometimes got very angry at constructive criticism. I stopped abruptly one day after some fool attacked me. The website creator asked me to return, but I did not.

I discovered Manzella. I bought the videos, took a lesson from Brian, took a lesson from Mike Jacobs, read the information, and gained some knowledge. In other words, I did the work. I would never post up some swings, and ask for free help. I don't think anyone owes me free help. Help takes time and time is money. Instruction is their business and they should be paid for their time.

I agree with the video ban and look forward to learning more from the site in the future.

 

[eric54]

Whilst i understand Brians point, as a resident of the UK, i do not have access to Brian, Kevin etc as an instructor. Posting a video of my swing on the forum is the only way i can get feedback from them. I would love to have proper lessons from them but sure you appreciate its not geographically possible

 

[gmbtempe]

Whilst i understand Brians point, as a resident of the UK, i do not have access to Brian, Kevin etc as an instructor. Posting a video of my swing on the forum is the only way i can get feedback from them. I would love to have proper lessons from them but sure you appreciate its not geographically possible

You need to read the message again, the opportunity is still there to get their feedback.

 

[lia41985]

Posting a video of my swing on the forum is the only way i can get feedback from them.

You'll get a ton of help by merely stating what the ball is doing with different clubs. You could add more detail by talking about your divot patterns. You could also explain the different sensations or feelings you have (i.e. "I feel like I'm stuck and I have to flip it to save the shot"). The idea that only video can help is so contrary to what's true and that great myth is the basis for the new policy. Video is a tool for a job but almost always never the best tool and often times it's disease in the soil of a garden.

 

[hp12c]

This is a great place to learn and the free and I repeat free help from the academy insturctors is amazing, tell me where does that happen? If something is stated to be free it usually means buy something and then something is free of equal or lesser value. This is the best golf place/forum/website period but what do I know Im just a 20cap hacker.

 

[Kevin Shields]

This has absolutely nothing to do about money.