Speaker 1: Hi, This is Fred Green from the Golf Smarter Podcast.
Speaker 1: This is part two of our extended series with Tony Manzoni,
Speaker 1: who passed away in twenty eighteen. Even if you've heard
Speaker 1: these episodes in the past, it's a great reminder to
Speaker 1: reiterate Tony's teaching methods that he communicates so effectively and
Speaker 1: based on your feedback, works incredibly well. What we're doing
Speaker 1: differently this year versus what we've done the last few
Speaker 1: years is that I'm replaying these episodes in the dated
Speaker 1: order they were originally published. Tony's book The Loss Fundamental,
Speaker 1: One Simple Move Better Golf Forever is once again available
Speaker 1: on Amazon, including the Kindle format, and his video of
Speaker 1: the same name can now only be seen online. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to gain access, please write directly to me
Speaker 1: at golf Smarter podcast at gmail dot com or click
Speaker 1: on the Heyfred button at golfsmarter dot com. To find
Speaker 1: out more. Please visit Golfsmarter dot com. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for your support and enjoy.
Speaker 2: For members only.
Speaker 3: Golf Smarter number two fifty four recorded on October twenty six,
Speaker 3: twenty ten, The Single Pivot Swing in detail with Tony Manzoni.
Speaker 1: This is Golf Smarter, sharing tips and insights from golfers
Speaker 1: and golf professionals to help lower your score.
Speaker 2: It's worked for your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 3: Welcome and thanks for downloading the Golf Smarter Podcast. A
Speaker 3: few episodes ago, we had a conversation with Tony Manzoni,
Speaker 3: who claimed to have unearthed the secret to Ben Hogan's
Speaker 3: golf swing. Tony calls it the single pivot swing, and
Speaker 3: he'll soon be opening this Single Pivot Academy down in
Speaker 3: Palm Desert, California, where he coaches and teaches at College
Speaker 3: of the Desert. Well after that podcast, not only did
Speaker 3: Tony get a number of calls requesting a coaching session,
Speaker 3: I received many emails wanting more in depth information. So
Speaker 3: I called him and luckily we caught Tony before he
Speaker 3: left the country for meetings in China, and he was
Speaker 3: more than willing to discuss his theories in detail.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Golf Smarter Podcast.
Speaker 4: Tony, Hey, how are you today.
Speaker 3: I'm doing well and I'm so glad that we caught you.
Speaker 3: I understand you're going to be leaving the country any.
Speaker 4: Minute, right, Yeah, I'm going to China and meet with
Speaker 4: some government officials about doing some golf courses there and
Speaker 4: also created some golf schools and kind of tied into
Speaker 4: what we're doing with golf illustrated here at College of
Speaker 4: the Desert.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's very exciting.
Speaker 4: It is, and it's my first trip to Asia, and
Speaker 4: I'm so excited about going to China because right now
Speaker 4: I think that's a hotspot for all the golf activity
Speaker 4: in the world.
Speaker 2: One of my business acted We're not just golf, yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, everything everything, and golf is kind of the
Speaker 4: criteria for people that are working in various industries to
Speaker 4: do business. In my golf management program, I get a
Speaker 4: lot of boys from Korea and China that have been
Speaker 4: sent here by employers so that they get some form
Speaker 4: of knowledge about the management of golf courses and then
Speaker 4: also a little bit about teaching, but primarily to get
Speaker 4: their skills up so that they can play golf and
Speaker 4: do business on the golf course.
Speaker 3: Very interesting. Well, and part of your College of the
Speaker 3: Desert program is golf management.
Speaker 4: Correct, that's correct, Yes, that's correct, Very very good.
Speaker 3: So when you were on the show and we had
Speaker 3: you talking about shot Watch and among other things, but
Speaker 3: we wanted to talk about your single pivot swing, and
Speaker 3: I've got to ask you a couple questions about it,
Speaker 3: and you were kind of vague about it, which was okay,
Speaker 3: but I was inundated with emails and phone calls from
Speaker 3: listeners around the world saying.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, I want more.
Speaker 3: You tease this as Ben Hogan's secret, and you really
Speaker 3: didn't even talk about it. So it's not much that
Speaker 3: I would call some back and say, hey, can you
Speaker 3: do a second episode, you know, in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: Usually we'll do long interview and cut into two, but
Speaker 3: this time we had to call you back and get
Speaker 3: you to talk more about the single pivot swing.
Speaker 4: I hope you well, I can do that. I can
Speaker 4: do that for you because it's really a passion of mine,
Speaker 4: and I think we've kind of got a ground swell
Speaker 4: moving right now with this thing. When I came up
Speaker 4: with the method, through years of research and especially watching
Speaker 4: Ben Hogan, I wasn't sure myself, because when you're thinking
Speaker 4: a little bit out of the box as an instructor,
Speaker 4: there's always a question, well, you know, have I flipped
Speaker 4: my wig here or have I really found something? And
Speaker 4: it took a while for me to realize that this
Speaker 4: is valid, this is what Hogan did, because there's been
Speaker 4: a lot of people saying they knew what he did,
Speaker 4: and I think this is an aspect to it. I'm
Speaker 4: not sure it's everything he did, but I know that
Speaker 4: I know that in watching some of the film that
Speaker 4: I have of him, especially in this later year, this
Speaker 4: is exactly what he did. Wow.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, and one of the comments that I
Speaker 3: received was, I can't believe he doesn't have a website,
Speaker 3: not even a simple one.
Speaker 2: So you need to explain this.
Speaker 4: And it's like, well, I'm finishing a book with a
Speaker 4: gentleman by the name of Paul Servantis, who's a very
Speaker 4: very fine co writer. Uh, and I speak in a
Speaker 4: certain way, so he's tried to keep that flavor in
Speaker 4: the book without editing me out of it. And so
Speaker 4: Paul does have a website that he's building at this
Speaker 4: present time, and we will have a lot of information.
Speaker 4: And then Golf Illustrated, because I'm working with them with
Speaker 4: a single pivot golf school. They have the Golf Illustrated
Speaker 4: has just gone online and they have a pretty large website,
Speaker 4: and we're going to be doing kind of golf viignettes
Speaker 4: that we'll be putting on there myself, Al Geiberger, Mike Lyons,
Speaker 4: and Brian Geiberger. That's the for some of us, and
Speaker 4: also a young lady by the name of Karen Gottwald
Speaker 4: who's our female instructor about to single pivot, how you
Speaker 4: have to set up to it, because setup is really
Speaker 4: important in making this happen. What we're eliminating in the
Speaker 4: single pivot golf swing is we're eliminating the lateral move,
Speaker 4: the shifts from the right leg to the left leg.
Speaker 4: And it's not an invention. There have been many great
Speaker 4: players that played off the left side, but no one
Speaker 4: has ever really explained it in detail how you do
Speaker 4: it and what are the functions and so forth. So
Speaker 4: that's what that's what my role has come has happened,
Speaker 4: is that I've I've watched this and of course I
Speaker 4: give lessons to a lot of people, especially elderly people,
Speaker 4: and now that this doesn't work for young people because
Speaker 4: my golf team are all you know, they all kill
Speaker 4: the ball and they're all playing off of one axis.
Speaker 4: But I saw that older people people that always said
Speaker 4: I can't get over the left side, I can't finish
Speaker 4: the swing anymore. I can't get any distance. I've increased
Speaker 4: their distance just two to three clubs by just putting
Speaker 4: them in the right position, by setting them to the
Speaker 4: ball correctly, and then keeping them there throughout the motion
Speaker 4: so that there's not a lot of weight on the
Speaker 4: right side, so they can clear their left side. They
Speaker 4: can turn their chest left of the target and get
Speaker 4: the right shoulder pointing at the target. And while they
Speaker 4: do that, the left arm stack is connected high on
Speaker 4: the chest. And that's the secret of this. It's playing
Speaker 4: off of one axis. Now we're not tilting the shoulders,
Speaker 4: so this is not stack and tilt. And I don't
Speaker 4: mean to infer that what they do is wrong. I
Speaker 4: don't like to get into those things. But you can't
Speaker 4: hurt your back doing this. When you're tilting your shoulders,
Speaker 4: especially on the through swing, you're going to end up
Speaker 4: in what we used to call a sea position, and
Speaker 4: there's a little bit of strain on the lower back.
Speaker 4: And all the people that played from that era that
Speaker 4: finished with the head back and the body kind of
Speaker 4: in a sea position, they all were troubled with their
Speaker 4: back in later years. And Hogan, if you see any
Speaker 4: pictures of him, he posts it up so that he
Speaker 4: was on a straight line because he didn't work that way.
Speaker 4: He didn't work down and under to hit the golf ball.
Speaker 4: When you do that, you have to turn your arms over.
Speaker 4: There's two ways to square the golf club. You can
Speaker 4: turn your arms over and hit it, or you can
Speaker 4: rotate your body and keep your arm connected to your
Speaker 4: body like it's a lever connected to a gear. So
Speaker 4: when you set up to the golf ball, the first
Speaker 4: thing you're going to do is you're going to set
Speaker 4: up sixty forty sixty percent of your weight on your
Speaker 4: left foot and forty percent on your right. And why
Speaker 4: you're doing that is because you're aligning your left hip
Speaker 4: to the outside of your left foot, and that's impact.
Speaker 4: Is when we hit the golf ball, whether we sway
Speaker 4: off the ball and come back to it, that's where
Speaker 4: we're going to end up. But with this concept, we're
Speaker 4: going to get against impact to start with. So we've
Speaker 4: positioned the legs in the proper position, and now all
Speaker 4: we have to do is rotate the upper part of
Speaker 4: the body and we're gonna coil the body without moving
Speaker 4: that center, and that's our head we're going to stay.
Speaker 4: Our face will be right down on the golf ball. Okay,
Speaker 4: So the right shoulder and the right hip are going
Speaker 4: to turn behind us, and that's going to pull the
Speaker 4: arm around the body with the rotation.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to stop you for a second here
Speaker 3: because as you're describing this, not only am I trying
Speaker 3: to do this, I'm standing up, I got a club
Speaker 3: in my hand.
Speaker 2: I'm doing this.
Speaker 3: I'm sure there are people who listeners right now who
Speaker 3: are on a commute train standing there doing this with So,
Speaker 3: so let me just let me just kind of visualize this.
Speaker 3: So when I'm bringing my hands back, I'm not bringing
Speaker 3: my hands up. I'm bringing my hands more.
Speaker 4: You're you're not well, yeah, but you're not bringing your
Speaker 4: hands back. Your arms are connected to your body and
Speaker 4: you're turning your You're turning your upper torso, and your
Speaker 4: arms are being moved to a position behind you. The
Speaker 4: arms are in front of you, okay, and they're going
Speaker 4: to stay in front of you in the addressed position.
Speaker 4: But as your body, as your body is rotating, it's
Speaker 4: it's turning, it's turning around. The right shoulder is now
Speaker 4: being displaced behind the spine, and the right hip is
Speaker 4: being displaced behind the so your right side is turning.
Speaker 4: There's no there's no lateral move back. There's no there's
Speaker 4: no sway back to low power. You're coiling. Imagine a
Speaker 4: wall against your right shoulder. Okay, you're going to turn
Speaker 4: inside that wall with your right side, and that movement
Speaker 4: will take the club back into a position. And everybody
Speaker 4: is different because we are all built differently. Some people
Speaker 4: have a lot of flexibility, some don't. Some are short waists,
Speaker 4: some are long legged. So there's no position you can
Speaker 4: say you have to take the club here. So by
Speaker 4: connecting the arms slightly on top of the body at address,
Speaker 4: we from a single axis, which is the left leg,
Speaker 4: and we we stay against that brace, almost the feeling
Speaker 4: of there's an imaginary wall on your left side. Okay.
Speaker 4: So now from that position, you're going to coil the
Speaker 4: upper body staying centered. Okay, so when we coil, we're
Speaker 4: not going to tilt our head to the right. We're
Speaker 4: going to stay right on that ball. So the right shoulder,
Speaker 4: right hip go behind us, and the club, the arms
Speaker 4: will follow. The left ear was going to go across
Speaker 4: the chest. This is a big this is the big key.
Speaker 4: It's going to go across the chest, and the left
Speaker 4: arm should sit fairly high on the left pectoral muscle. Okay.
Speaker 4: Years ago, there was a great player by the name
Speaker 4: of Dick Mayer. He won the US Open, the World Open.
Speaker 4: I had a little problems with alcohol in his later years.
Speaker 4: And I met him and he used to watch me
Speaker 4: hit balls, and he used to say, son, you've got
Speaker 4: to keep your left arm on your tit and he
Speaker 4: meant the nipple. Okay. And and he wrote a book
Speaker 4: subsequent to that that gerald Ford was in the gerald
Speaker 4: Ford Library. He gave me the book, and in that
Speaker 4: book it says that everybody has an area in the
Speaker 4: body that defines where the left arm should be in
Speaker 4: that'sh the left arm should be right above that nipple
Speaker 4: of the on the man on the left pectoral muscle. Okay.
Speaker 4: And he would watch me hit balls and say, you
Speaker 4: got to keep your arm up on your tit. And
Speaker 4: I used to think this guy's whacked out because I
Speaker 4: had no idea what he was talking about, until I
Speaker 4: learned that that was position is paramount to hitting the
Speaker 4: ball solid and straight, time after time after time, because
Speaker 4: when the left arm stays high in the chest, the
Speaker 4: only way it can move because it's connected to the body.
Speaker 4: Is the rotation of the body opening up through the target,
Speaker 4: kind of like if you've ever seen Anika Sorenson play,
Speaker 4: Anika was very It was a real rotator of the
Speaker 4: golf swing, and it looked like her body was facing
Speaker 4: the target at impact. And that's exactly what it was.
Speaker 4: So if people in the audience would stand up, if
Speaker 4: they can do this and put their arm right across
Speaker 4: their body and then take their right arm and hold
Speaker 4: their left arm high against the chest, and then just
Speaker 4: turn the body and see how the arm moves with it.
Speaker 4: It's not coming off the chest, it's still pressed against it.
Speaker 4: But if you keep turning left, the club will square itself.
Speaker 3: Now, you talk about seniors being able to do this,
Speaker 3: what kind of to me? The way you're describing this
Speaker 3: In this rotation, it seems like a lot of flexibility
Speaker 3: is required.
Speaker 4: I mean you have, Oh, no, none at all. I'm
Speaker 4: believing I'm about as flexible as a solid pretzel. I
Speaker 4: can't touch my toes. Okay, I'm lucky if I can
Speaker 4: get past my knees when I bend over. But I
Speaker 4: can do this, Oh yeah, I can do this. Hey,
Speaker 4: I'm seventy four years old. You know an atrophy is
Speaker 4: snuck in there somewhere. Now. I try to stay as
Speaker 4: limber as I can, but really I'm not going to yoga,
Speaker 4: I'm not doing stretching. But what I found is that
Speaker 4: all all, if you put your arms across your chest
Speaker 4: like you see guys criss cross their arms, and you
Speaker 4: get in swinging position, you set yourself off against the
Speaker 4: left side brace and just turn the top part. You're
Speaker 4: going to turn it enough to where your back is
Speaker 4: to the target. Even less than that is fine, okay,
Speaker 4: But if you're turning your right side behind you, this
Speaker 4: is the ticket. If you try to turn your left
Speaker 4: shold over to your chin, it's harder to do if
Speaker 4: you take your right side and pull it back behind
Speaker 4: behind you towards the target. That's the keyword, towards the target.
Speaker 4: Because at the top of your swing, your weight is
Speaker 4: now seventy thirty. You're braced against that wall and on
Speaker 4: your left.
Speaker 2: Side, the seventy being on the left side.
Speaker 4: Left side you started sixty forty. Because you're displacing your
Speaker 4: weight behind you and it's going behind you towards the target.
Speaker 4: You have now braced up seventy thirty. The left knee
Speaker 4: has not pulled back from the ball or pulled back
Speaker 4: to go towards the ball or behind it. The left
Speaker 4: knee is pointed straight to the toe of the left foot.
Speaker 3: Okay, rotation in your rotation, your your knee has pointed
Speaker 3: to your foot. You're not banking your knee on that rotation.
Speaker 4: Well, you're You're both knees are bent. Okay, I'm because
Speaker 4: I'm trying to talk you through this. Okay. As I
Speaker 4: as I turn my right pocket and my right shoulder
Speaker 4: behind me, okay, towards my left heel towards my left heel.
Speaker 4: As I do that, my left knee points towards my toe.
Speaker 2: Should on your left.
Speaker 4: Left foot, left foot, the right leg will elongate, it'll
Speaker 4: get it won't lock, but it'll get. It'll get steeper. Okay.
Speaker 4: So now you're now you're braced on your axis that
Speaker 4: you're going to swing around. Okay, So you're there. Okay,
Speaker 4: Now all we're all we're doing is we've coiled the
Speaker 4: top part of the body. Our legs are in position.
Speaker 4: So now all there is left by staying connected high
Speaker 4: on the pectoral muscle. Okay, we just unwind our chest
Speaker 4: through the target around the left leg, and we finished
Speaker 4: with the chest pointing left of the target and the
Speaker 4: right should're pointing at the target. And trust me when
Speaker 4: I tell you I have a I've got an eighty
Speaker 4: six year old man that when he first came to
Speaker 4: me and he took the club back, he looked like
Speaker 4: a tree falling to the right. He had no conception
Speaker 4: of turn. I've got him on his left side now
Speaker 4: and he's hitting the ball farther now than he did
Speaker 4: when he was in his fifties because he's hitting it
Speaker 4: with his whole body. He's not working down under so
Speaker 4: that his arms have to flip over so that the
Speaker 4: arms leave the body. He's hitting it with his chest,
Speaker 4: his core, his hips, and the last thing through is
Speaker 4: the clubhead, so as his body unwinds, the clubhead hits
Speaker 4: the ball. Now, if you're on the right side and
Speaker 4: you try to do this, you're gonna you're gonna spin
Speaker 4: out open. You're gonna spin open, but you can't get
Speaker 4: open enough. When you're on your left side. As you
Speaker 4: as you start unwinding, you can open up as early
Speaker 4: as you want, and you're just gonna hit the ball harder. Okay, Now,
Speaker 4: Now the key here, the key as we do this
Speaker 4: is that the left arm must stay on the chest
Speaker 4: as you open. Okay, So you're gonna be turning level.
Speaker 4: You are not gonna work be working down. You're gonna
Speaker 4: stay level like Hogan did in his later years, and
Speaker 4: you're gonna smash the ball. And the by product of
Speaker 4: this is that whether you pull it or push it,
Speaker 4: and we will do that for our life, no one's
Speaker 4: going to hit it dead straight at the pin every time.
Speaker 4: They're gonna push it a little right, but there'll be
Speaker 4: no side spin on the ball because the club the
Speaker 4: clubhead is held square throughout the heating area. There's no
Speaker 4: rotation to square it. It's square from the beginning to
Speaker 4: the end. Okay, So you'll pull it or push it
Speaker 4: dead straight. So your your shot dispersion is going to
Speaker 4: get real narrow, real narrows. So you're going to start hitting.
Speaker 4: You're gonna hit a lot of greens and a lot
Speaker 4: of fairways, and you're going to hit the ball much
Speaker 4: more solid, which will make your average hit further. See
Speaker 4: you when we move off the golf ball. And it's
Speaker 4: a trend in teaching. At one time, the Nicholas's the Palmers,
Speaker 4: they stayed right on the ball their head and did
Speaker 4: not move. It didn't move because they didn't make that
Speaker 4: little lateral move on the backswing. And then all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, instructures start saying it's okay to move your head,
Speaker 4: and I'm here to tell you that's a bunch of bs.
Speaker 4: It isn't okay to move your head because you got
Speaker 4: to move it back to the place you started, because
Speaker 4: that's your center before you hit the golf ball. And
Speaker 4: you know, unless you're neurria of or somebody like that,
Speaker 4: how do you do that, especially when you get past fifty.
Speaker 4: So that's why so many people. You know, we have
Speaker 4: a driving rain chair at the college and you see
Speaker 4: people and they're just locked back on that right foot.
Speaker 4: The ball goes right and their instructor says, will shift
Speaker 4: your weight. Well, that's that's the problem. They did shift
Speaker 4: their weight. They put too much weight on the right
Speaker 4: foot early. Yeah, once you get back on that right
Speaker 4: side unless you unless you have an athletic body. And
Speaker 4: even the athletic guys that are arm swingers every now
Speaker 4: and then, they're all all over the place. I mean,
Speaker 4: you look at Dustin Johnson, a tremendous athlete, tremendous strength.
Speaker 4: He can hit the ball two miles, but every now
Speaker 4: and then he can hit it so far off the
Speaker 4: Fairwey Mickelson another arms swinging around the downswing. But you
Speaker 4: can see it when the when the arms come down,
Speaker 4: the body can't. The body can't rotate and the arms
Speaker 4: come down at the same time. One. So if the
Speaker 4: body doesn't, if the arms come down, the body is
Speaker 4: going to follow the arms when they when the when
Speaker 4: you're a rotator, the arms always follow the body. And
Speaker 4: and and because you're not turning the club over, the
Speaker 4: clubhead isn't going to be opened a long time, closed
Speaker 4: a long time, and square for just a moment. So
Speaker 4: now you're you're eliminating one of the things that happens
Speaker 4: to all of us as soon as you get anxious,
Speaker 4: as soon it means something. You know, our eye hand
Speaker 4: coordination runs down our leg I mean that, I don't
Speaker 4: care who it is. Uh. You saw Dustin Johnson in
Speaker 4: that one tournament where he stood in a bunker. Well,
Speaker 4: he didn't have to be in that bucker if he
Speaker 4: could have just hit the ball in the far away.
Speaker 4: But because he's he has to square that club with
Speaker 4: his arms. As soon as it gets really important, you're
Speaker 4: gonna you're just you're gonna hang on or you're going
Speaker 4: to release it too early. See. And that's what Hogan,
Speaker 4: that's what he really figured out. And in his later
Speaker 4: years he made statements, I square the golf club with
Speaker 4: my body. Okay, well that's how. But he didn't tell
Speaker 4: you how to do it. That's what the single pit
Speaker 4: was school and concept is about. It tells you how
Speaker 4: to do it. And I want to tell you. Uh
Speaker 4: and I don't mean to brag, but I am going
Speaker 4: to brag. Since I've been teaching. Yes, since I've been
Speaker 4: teaching this, I have had nothing but repeat business and
Speaker 4: nothing but referral business, and people tell sending me emails
Speaker 4: and tell me I never hit the ball like this.
Speaker 4: I haven't hit it like this since I was a kid.
Speaker 4: Blah blah blah blah blah. And it works. I've got
Speaker 4: al Geiberger, who's a pretty good golfer in his day,
Speaker 4: doing this. Okay. Al geiber was voted as having the
Speaker 4: top one of the top swings of the top five
Speaker 4: best wings and he is now a single pivot player. Okay,
Speaker 4: I have a terrific teacher from Canada that was reluctant
Speaker 4: to this at first, although he tried to stay centered
Speaker 4: to the ball, But once he got all the pieces together,
Speaker 4: his following now is expanded tremendously because you get instant results.
Speaker 4: I know, one of the guys that heard your podcast
Speaker 4: came down to see me. Really yeah, oh yeah, I've
Speaker 4: had two actually I had two lessons, and there one
Speaker 4: young man. He said, great to hear, thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And what do you shoot? He says, well, I'm about
Speaker 4: a twenty handicap. So I said, well, I hit a
Speaker 4: few balls from me, and then immediately I saw he had
Speaker 4: his hands out of position and he's just swinging back
Speaker 4: on the golf ball and with no power. And then
Speaker 4: here he's in this probably early thirties and well built guy,
Speaker 4: and here I'm this over the hill pro and I
Speaker 4: get up there with a nine iron and I'm hitting
Speaker 4: the past where he's hitting the seven, and I mean
Speaker 4: way past. And he's where you getting on all that power?
Speaker 4: And I said, because you're hitting it with your flick
Speaker 4: of your wrists and I'm hitting it with my whole body.
Speaker 4: And I got him in position, and I'll tell you
Speaker 4: after about the fifteenth golf ball, he was blasting the others.
Speaker 4: I've never hit a ball this far in.
Speaker 3: My life, the chilly.
Speaker 4: Believe me when I tell you, it gives me the chills,
Speaker 4: because my passion is teaching, and I'm you know, we
Speaker 4: all want to make money, but I promise you this
Speaker 4: is this is like an elixir for me because I
Speaker 4: finally found something that really works for I don't care
Speaker 4: what level player, and I've got some I've got some kids.
Speaker 4: I've got a twelve year old, and I'm going to
Speaker 4: give a plane lesson too. She's had six lessons, and
Speaker 4: she hits it so far and so straight, it's just ridiculous.
Speaker 4: But she's she's blessed. But she's also she's also lucky
Speaker 4: that she got a fellow like me that didn't teach
Speaker 4: her shift to the right, shift to the left, because
Speaker 4: she'd be chasing that monkey for a long long time.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you, my passion is finding people like
Speaker 3: you to share this knowledge. So I'm glad that we've
Speaker 3: found each other.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: I received an email from a listener in Joplin, Missouri,
Speaker 3: and he had a number of questions. He says that
Speaker 3: I just finished it, and I had a lot of questions.
Speaker 3: Instead of writing to you, he thought he'd write to
Speaker 3: me so that maybe I can ask you again. And
Speaker 3: you mentioned a couple of times about Hogan's later year
Speaker 3: later years. He was just curious, is that the is
Speaker 3: those later years? Is that after he wrote the Five Lessons?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, way after.
Speaker 2: Way after, Okay.
Speaker 3: So he says that he's intrigued by what you're describing
Speaker 3: and he's read Hogan's Five Lessons and it really didn't
Speaker 3: help him as much as it would he would like.
Speaker 4: He wants to well, if you listen, if you read
Speaker 4: the Hogans, there's a lot of really great stuff in
Speaker 4: Hogan's but what he says in there, and you know,
Speaker 4: I mean they asked him near his death because he
Speaker 4: went to Golf Digest in the nineties to release a secret,
Speaker 4: but he wanted a six figure payment and they refused,
Speaker 4: and so I think he took it to the grave
Speaker 4: with him. But they asked him in his later years, well,
Speaker 4: what was your secret? What really was it? Because there's
Speaker 4: been a lot of speculation, and he said, they're going
Speaker 4: to have to dig it out of the dirt like
Speaker 4: I did. And I just love him for that because
Speaker 4: he had no gruz, he had no real video and
Speaker 4: nothing to work with. He had to get out there
Speaker 4: and just beat balls. But he got an idea in
Speaker 4: a dream state. And I know what that I really
Speaker 4: believe I know what that idea was. And it wasn't
Speaker 4: weakening his grip and all that pronation and suppornation stuff.
Speaker 4: I mean, he may have done that, but I've got
Speaker 4: film and you can look at him at the top
Speaker 4: of his swing, and his weight is on top of
Speaker 4: his left side. His right leg is so steep and
Speaker 4: so braced, and you can see he's right there ready
Speaker 4: to rotate. So he eliminated that transitional move that I
Speaker 4: don't care who you are, whether you're a tour player
Speaker 4: or a high handicapped player, it's difficult. You've got to
Speaker 4: move laterally onto the left foot and then rotate, and
Speaker 4: you have to time that rotation in a split second
Speaker 4: when that club is really really moving. And for some
Speaker 4: of these young guys that hit three or four ferris
Speaker 4: then blowing out of bounds right or left and never
Speaker 4: knowing what they know what I'm talking about because I
Speaker 4: was one of those guys. When I was a young man,
Speaker 4: I was a very good player. But every time I
Speaker 4: got into a tour event one hole or two holes,
Speaker 4: I'd hit the ball left and it'd be out of
Speaker 4: bounds or into some real trouble where I ran my
Speaker 4: score up, and I always thought, well, I just don't
Speaker 4: have it. And I just want to pass this information
Speaker 4: onto people, for those young people that are out there
Speaker 4: that really want to play this game. You've got to
Speaker 4: be connected and rotate that body so that you can
Speaker 4: control that clubhead. You have to know where that club
Speaker 4: head is through impact. If you're just guessing and hoping,
Speaker 4: you you got a long road and a rough road
Speaker 4: to go through.
Speaker 3: Well, you had mentioned the word coordinate, and I'm wondering
Speaker 3: what it. What kind of I guess coordination is the
Speaker 3: word that I'm looking for. Does it take a lot
Speaker 3: of good hand eye coordination? Does a lot of work
Speaker 3: to get that coordination together to hit it, to get
Speaker 3: it at that right spot.
Speaker 4: If you're going to hit the ball with your hands
Speaker 4: and arms, if you're going to rotate your arms hit
Speaker 4: the golf ball, you better have really good coordination. And
Speaker 4: then you better practice every single day for a long
Speaker 4: time because you can lose it immediately and you're going
Speaker 4: to lose it when you get anxious anyway. But if
Speaker 4: you're if you're scoring the club with the rotation of
Speaker 4: your big muscles, your your big muscles, your shoulders and
Speaker 4: chests really can't rotate on a lot of different planes.
Speaker 4: Your hands and wrists are much more appliable. They can
Speaker 4: they can flip over and flop and hang on and
Speaker 4: so forth. The body really can't do those things. And
Speaker 4: the body of the nerve endings are right at the
Speaker 4: edge of the body. So when you're nervous, the last
Speaker 4: thing you want to try to do is to do
Speaker 4: something with your fingertips or your hands. It's just not doable.
Speaker 4: You know when your handshake when you get nervous, but
Speaker 4: your chest doesn't shake. Okay, So if you can take
Speaker 4: that club and trap it across your chest and then
Speaker 4: the only way that that arm can move is for
Speaker 4: your chest to rotate, that clubhead is going to be
Speaker 4: in the same position time in and time again. I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm writing a book, I'm going to China. I run
Speaker 4: a golf management program, and the coach of the Ben's
Speaker 4: golf team. I don't have any time to go out
Speaker 4: there and hit balls. Okay, but when I go out
Speaker 4: to hit golf balls and to demonstrate this. There is
Speaker 4: no question in my mind that I can take a
Speaker 4: driver out seven iron witch. I don't care what it is.
Speaker 4: I'm going to hit it one way. I'm going to
Speaker 4: hit it straight. Now. I may tow it a little bit,
Speaker 4: I may heal it a little bit, but the ball
Speaker 4: is going to hold its line because my club head
Speaker 4: is not turning over, it's not tumbling.
Speaker 2: Just not a lot of spin on the ball when
Speaker 2: you hit it.
Speaker 4: No, I don't have any side spin at all. That's
Speaker 4: what I'm telling you. I don't have any side spin
Speaker 4: on my golf ball. My ball doesn't draw, my ball
Speaker 4: doesn't fade. My ball goes right or left a little bit,
Speaker 4: but never to the point where it would ever be
Speaker 4: in the rough. Okay, And unfortunately for me, I learned
Speaker 4: this to to at an advanced age. I don't I
Speaker 4: don't have the desire to compete, but I really have
Speaker 4: the desire to pass this on. Now. I can tell you,
Speaker 4: as a golf coach, a lot of the young men
Speaker 4: that come to me, they have they're pretty good players,
Speaker 4: I mean plus ones and scratch and so forth, and
Speaker 4: when they hear this and they don't hear it from
Speaker 4: a lot of people because this is kind of this
Speaker 4: is not new, but it hasn't been talked about. Let's
Speaker 4: put it that way. They're always very suspect, and as
Speaker 4: I tell them, look, I am not going to try
Speaker 4: to change the way you think or to play. I'm
Speaker 4: going to just show you the way I play and think,
Speaker 4: and then you make your own mind up on what
Speaker 4: you want to do, because I don't want to disrupt
Speaker 4: anybody in their game. And obviously there's a lot of
Speaker 4: ways to play this game, but I think I've found
Speaker 4: a way that really makes it easy for the advanced
Speaker 4: player as well as a high handicapper. I think they
Speaker 4: both profit from this. I mean I I I would
Speaker 4: get on the golf chair, I would talk to whoever
Speaker 4: on the tour and not be a little bit nervous
Speaker 4: about what it's about telling him this, because if they're
Speaker 4: an arm swinger, I can improve them. It's just it's
Speaker 4: just that simple.
Speaker 2: Wow, now you you mentioned that.
Speaker 3: Well, one of the things that it says in the
Speaker 3: Hogan's book is that the beginning of the downswing transfers
Speaker 3: the weight from the right foot to the left foot.
Speaker 4: Well, Hogan said, the first move of the down swing
Speaker 4: is to clear your left side. Okay, if your weight's
Speaker 4: on your right foot and you rotate your left side,
Speaker 4: you're on your right foot when you're hitting the golf ball.
Speaker 4: And that's why a lot of people, when they took
Speaker 4: his words verbatim, they could hit the golf ball because
Speaker 4: because he left out the parrot. The part in the
Speaker 4: letter I have by Ben Hogan to a friend about
Speaker 4: how to hit the driver, he states emphatically, at the
Speaker 4: top of my swinging, my weights on the instep of
Speaker 4: my left foot, not my right foot, my left foot.
Speaker 4: And when the first time I read that, I just
Speaker 4: blinked and said, well, Ben must have had a cocktail
Speaker 4: that day and or maybe a little dyslexia kicked in,
Speaker 4: but he meant right foot. And then as I continued
Speaker 4: my research and looked at film of him, and then
Speaker 4: saw quotes where he told Mike Austin, who was a
Speaker 4: pro from Los Angeles, from now on, I'm going to
Speaker 4: play off the left side. And then one time I'm
Speaker 4: with a conversation with Lee Trevino, Lee said, I've seen
Speaker 4: a lot of great players play off the left side.
Speaker 4: I've never seen anybody great that stayed for any length
Speaker 4: of time on the right side. But I didn't understand
Speaker 4: what he was talking about, and like most people, I
Speaker 4: was too embarrassed to say, I don't know what you
Speaker 4: mean by that. So through this period of time, this
Speaker 4: learning experience, and then also there was a lot of
Speaker 4: self doubt. Who am I? Who am I to say
Speaker 4: some of these guys are wrong? But then when Jack
Speaker 4: Nicholas made a quote in Golf Digest after the second
Speaker 4: so people pointed out to him that he was staying
Speaker 4: on his left side. Jack made the statement, and it
Speaker 4: was a very you know, brash statement. He said, anyone
Speaker 4: that teaches you to shift your weight on your right
Speaker 4: foot on the backswing doesn't know how to teach well.
Speaker 4: Led Metter and a lot of these guys hairsit straight up. Okay.
Speaker 4: And I know when I first wrote, you know, when
Speaker 4: I was writing my book some excerpts of it. When
Speaker 4: in the local sportsbook here a little golf book, a
Speaker 4: couple of pros wrote skating reviews of what I said.
Speaker 4: You're insane, You're a fraud, blah blah blah. You know,
Speaker 4: in the South side of Chicago, and me wanted to
Speaker 4: go over there. And punch somebody in the nose. But
Speaker 4: you know, at my age, I watched that stuff. So
Speaker 4: I just wrote back. I just wrote that, and I
Speaker 4: just said, well, you have your you know, you have
Speaker 4: the right. I don't think you should slander me, but
Speaker 4: you have the right to not agree. But but Al
Speaker 4: Geiberger and Jack Nicholas agreed with me, and that's pretty
Speaker 4: that's good enough for me. Yeah, but there really was
Speaker 4: a lot of self done. I must say to you
Speaker 4: that you know, I've been a hand player all my life.
Speaker 4: I had no formal training. I was a kid and
Speaker 4: I caddied like most of us did from my era,
Speaker 4: and that's how we learned to play golf. We got
Speaker 4: to play on Mondays at Caddy's Day and we had
Speaker 4: hand me down clubs, but we prevailed. And because I
Speaker 4: could play baseball pretty good and I was kind of
Speaker 4: blessed with eye hand coordination, I got to the point
Speaker 4: where I can play in a tour event, not to
Speaker 4: stay out there, but I was good enough to qualify,
Speaker 4: let's put at that point. But the game was always
Speaker 4: elusive for me, and I just said, I just came
Speaker 4: to the conclusion, well, I'm just not good enough I've
Speaker 4: put my tie in, but I'm just not good enough
Speaker 4: and I just didn't understand connection and rotation. And then
Speaker 4: a lot of people think that Jimmy Ballard was the
Speaker 4: one that was the first one to say that, but
Speaker 4: that's really not true. I've got books that were written
Speaker 4: in the twenties and thirties that talked about connection and rotation.
Speaker 4: And there was an argument at the time. Do you
Speaker 4: face the ball when you're hitting it or are you
Speaker 4: facing the target when you hit it? Because your face
Speaker 4: on the ball, your arms have to cross over in
Speaker 4: front of you when you when your body's facing the target,
Speaker 4: then your your arms are being pulled by the body,
Speaker 4: so that this this this argument has gone gone on
Speaker 4: for a while. Okay, and Hogan, you know, he was
Speaker 4: a very bright man. He had like I S one
Speaker 4: seventy five IQ, so he was close to genius. He
Speaker 4: he figured it out, He got a thought and figured
Speaker 4: it out and worked on it. And I don't think
Speaker 4: he ever really divulged his secret. But you can see
Speaker 4: it in his later film. You can see it so clearly.
Speaker 4: You can see his rear end is totally on his
Speaker 4: left leg, as was Nicholas. Even though Nicholas hoisted the
Speaker 4: club upright and Hogan took it around him. They were
Speaker 4: still against that brace. And I think that that is,
Speaker 4: you know, the playoff of one axis is it really
Speaker 4: eliminates a lot of the air made on the transitional
Speaker 4: move and then the coupi gra on. That is, if
Speaker 4: you can keep your left arm connected high on the
Speaker 4: chest so that the movement of the body rotation brings
Speaker 4: the arm into impact, then you got the best of everything.
Speaker 4: And that's what we teach. I mean, there's some finite
Speaker 4: things like when you set up to the ball, your
Speaker 4: right hip has to be on the inside of your
Speaker 4: right foot head address, and then when you go sixty
Speaker 4: four do you find that the left hip has to
Speaker 4: be in line with the outside of the left foot.
Speaker 4: So the legs are going to be reactionary to this
Speaker 4: winning You're not gonna have to drive the legs. You're
Speaker 4: not gonna have to move the lower body and then
Speaker 4: the upper body and all that stuff. That's all very
Speaker 4: very difficult. And really when we use the legs for power,
Speaker 4: that leverage comes from the ground up. It doesn't. It
Speaker 4: doesn't come when we're when we're moving laterally, we're actually
Speaker 4: not totally on the ground. So the more you're grounded,
Speaker 4: the more power you can get from your legs. But
Speaker 4: your legs have to be in a certain position so
Speaker 4: that you can so that they can stay grounded as
Speaker 4: you rotate the top part and then they just react. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: you can't see what I'm saying, but hopefully your listeners
Speaker 4: are getting a labor for this. And and you're.
Speaker 2: Being very descriptive. It's good.
Speaker 3: I mean, if if you know, don't not while you're driving,
Speaker 3: of course, but if you can close your eyes and listen,
Speaker 3: you can visualize a lot of what you're saying.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because this is this is really important, and I
Speaker 4: mean it's really important if you're if you're if you
Speaker 4: love the game I do, and you want to improve.
Speaker 4: And the beautiful part about this cool concept is you
Speaker 4: can do it from your chip shot to your drive.
Speaker 4: It's the same exact concept. You you are connected at
Speaker 4: the left arm and you rotate your body through the
Speaker 4: target and it pulls a club through. The club can't
Speaker 4: turn over, and you're going to hit really wonderful shots.
Speaker 4: And we're not trying to stay behind the ball, We're
Speaker 4: trying to move through the golf ball. Again, that's another concept.
Speaker 4: See when you drop your right shoulder down, your head
Speaker 4: goes backwards, it goes away from the target. Your body
Speaker 4: arches and your hands turnover and you hit the golf ball.
Speaker 4: But the true rotational person doesn't drop down and hit
Speaker 4: the ball. His right side stays level and he and
Speaker 4: he just slams his right side through that golf ball.
Speaker 4: He hits it, hits through the golf ball, his right
Speaker 4: side goes past the ball. If you're using the golf ball.
Speaker 4: And this is what I tell all my students. The
Speaker 4: golf balls a line. It's just a point of reference
Speaker 4: to align your club hit at the target. But you've
Speaker 4: got to move past that line. Your divot has to
Speaker 4: be on the other side of that line. It can't
Speaker 4: be behind that line when you put your golf club
Speaker 4: behind the ball. If you brought the club right to
Speaker 4: that spot each and every time, you'd be hitting the
Speaker 4: ball fat because the club sets behind the golf ball.
Speaker 4: So we've got to catch that ball and then the
Speaker 4: divit forward of it. Okay, so we've got to be
Speaker 4: moving through it. The more underneath you work. For all
Speaker 4: the people that hit it, thin and fat and thin
Speaker 4: and fat you're behind the ball, so you have to
Speaker 4: be in position to hit the ball with power. And
Speaker 4: most people are behind the ball too far, so the
Speaker 4: only thing they can fire is their hands, and they
Speaker 4: hit and fall back. They step back in the box
Speaker 4: like a lot of baseball players used to do. I mean,
Speaker 4: that move is prevalent in golf. There's PhDs with that movement.
Speaker 4: I can tell you that.
Speaker 3: This seems to be your creation, your discovery, not of
Speaker 3: your creation. Obviously you're you're basing it on on what
Speaker 3: you're watching from Hogan. But even if you uh were
Speaker 3: to put in a search engine on the internet, single
Speaker 3: pivot swing, it's going to pop back up with stack
Speaker 3: and tilt.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, and it's not. And believe me when I
Speaker 4: tell you the only similarity is that we we set
Speaker 4: up more weight left. But that's the only similarity. Stack
Speaker 4: until is totally different than what I do. And God
Speaker 4: bless them, that's that's their method. I don't I don't
Speaker 4: talk about their method because it's it's not my method
Speaker 4: and it's not what I believe. And I'm sure they're
Speaker 4: just as passionate about their method. Heck, they wrote a
Speaker 4: book and and and they did a tape. But I can.
Speaker 4: I can honestly tell you that when my article article
Speaker 4: came out and Golf illustrated, I got a lot of
Speaker 4: email from people that bought their book and bought their
Speaker 4: tapes and said, I can't do this. It hurts my back.
Speaker 4: But when I tried your method, I could hit the ball.
Speaker 4: Now does that mean I'm right? No, It just means
Speaker 4: that some people think that my method is easier. I
Speaker 4: do know one thing. Ben Hogan rotated through the golf ball.
Speaker 4: He didn't tilt. He was stacked. He was what we
Speaker 4: call posted, straight up and down. When he hit a
Speaker 4: golf ball, he did not tilt back. His chest was
Speaker 4: left with the target, and he was always in perfect balance.
Speaker 4: He didn't go down and search for that golf ball.
Speaker 4: He didn't need to do that. He could turn to
Speaker 4: the ball. He cleared his right side and his early swings,
Speaker 4: he was very long with the swing, and his swing
Speaker 4: looked the same, but there was a big change to
Speaker 4: his golf swing. His knee position was more towards the ball.
Speaker 4: As he turned. In his later years, his knee jetted
Speaker 4: straight out to the left foot, as did a gentleman
Speaker 4: by the name of James Barn in the twenties with
Speaker 4: Hickory Chefts. So again, that wasn't Hogan's invention. It was
Speaker 4: I'm sure Ben found that if when his knee worked
Speaker 4: that way, he was more balanced and braced, because that's
Speaker 4: the whole key here, is that your body has to
Speaker 4: be ready to make a really athletic move, and when
Speaker 4: it's drifting right and drifting left like a willow, there's
Speaker 4: nothing athletic about that.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that you haven't mentioned yet
Speaker 3: as a comparison or even its relevance, are the other
Speaker 3: terms that we hear so frequently are the single, single
Speaker 3: and two plane swing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, and Jim Hardy is it Jim Hardy? Yeah,
Speaker 4: he wrote the book on plane swing on the single
Speaker 4: plane swing, and he's a very fine teacher, and he
Speaker 4: even shows that Hogan got a little bit on his
Speaker 4: left side when he does his demonstrations. You know, I
Speaker 4: believe that the body rotation puts the club in a
Speaker 4: position just like when you're going to throw a baseball.
Speaker 4: You kind of wind up, but there's no specific position
Speaker 4: that you put your arm, and your arm goes to
Speaker 4: a place where your body feels strong so that you
Speaker 4: can make a hard throw, and I think the golfing
Speaker 4: it has to be that way. I think that when
Speaker 4: we set up properly, and if we're not changing our
Speaker 4: spine angle, if we just rotate the body and keep
Speaker 4: the arms connected to the body, that they're going to
Speaker 4: find the position that you should be in. I have
Speaker 4: never believed that you should try to get your wrist
Speaker 4: hinged at the top or flat at the top. I
Speaker 4: think that I think that that hurts people primarily because
Speaker 4: they're thinking about their hands and their position, and you
Speaker 4: can't shut that off. At the top, you're going to
Speaker 4: be thinking about your hands and trying to get that
Speaker 4: club flat at impact. And I've got scores of film
Speaker 4: of me hitting the golf ball where my left wrist
Speaker 4: is flat, and I can tell you that I have
Speaker 4: never tried to get left wrist flat. I believe lag
Speaker 4: and all of that are they're the consequence of doing
Speaker 4: something before that. So as I rotate and that club
Speaker 4: is being pulled, that club is going to be lagged
Speaker 4: and my left wrist will have to be flat. When
Speaker 4: my body stops and the club goes forward, that's when
Speaker 4: my left rist is going to hinge and it's going
Speaker 4: to cup. That's when you hit the ball weak, but
Speaker 4: that's because the body stopped. Okay, but there's no way
Speaker 4: that you can bring your arms out and try to
Speaker 4: keep your left wrist flat. I mean, that's insanity. I
Speaker 4: see people hurt themselves doing that and they hit everything
Speaker 4: weak right, And yet there are people that are teaching
Speaker 4: that today. And you know, that's one of the things
Speaker 4: that I've always said. I'm a pgm ember since nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty five, and not one person from the PGA has
Speaker 4: ever come over and said, Okay, let me see what
Speaker 4: you're doing to make sure you're not making people crazy here.
Speaker 4: And I think that a lot. There's are art teachers
Speaker 4: that are teaching out of a book and they're just
Speaker 4: not cognizant them Why things happen. There is cause and effect,
Speaker 4: and the left risk being flat of impact is an
Speaker 4: effect of something else. It is not because you purposely
Speaker 4: try to keep your left frist flat. I mean, that's
Speaker 4: just that's ludicrous. You're moving too fast. There's too much
Speaker 4: weight forward, especially when you have a driver in your hand.
Speaker 4: Even though it may be fifteen ounces or so, the
Speaker 4: weight of that clubhead is enormous as it's moving through
Speaker 4: time and if you're if you're if your body stops,
Speaker 4: that weight is gonna is gonna flip your hands you,
Speaker 4: I don't care how strong you are, they're gonna, they're gonna,
Speaker 4: they're gonna cup. And that's why a lot of people
Speaker 4: when they go to hit the ball hard, they hit
Speaker 4: that sky shot, they go straight up in the air
Speaker 4: and they get that mark on the top of their club.
Speaker 4: I know there's a lot of people out there now
Speaker 4: nodding there.
Speaker 2: I'm raising my hand. I'm one of those people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay, that's because you pull the club down steep,
Speaker 4: the clubhead turns over and you make contact with the
Speaker 4: top of the club, not the face the top. Okay, well,
Speaker 4: that's because the body is still and the arms are down.
Speaker 4: They're coming down and nothing is releasing except the arms.
Speaker 4: I can remember so many times when I, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm from another era. I played with per Simon woods
Speaker 4: and I'd have these pure woods and I'd take I
Speaker 4: try on a par five to kill the ball, and
Speaker 4: there there'd be a big white spot on on the
Speaker 4: top of my club. And I just hated myself for that.
Speaker 4: But I never knew why I did it. I always
Speaker 4: thought it was going underneath the ball, but you can't
Speaker 4: go under the ball.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: How many times you see people go, you know, I
Speaker 3: need to tee it up higher. Yeah, change change their
Speaker 3: tea position after they do that.
Speaker 4: It's nothing about that. So all of those things, the
Speaker 4: golf God was whispering my ear. Hey, you see what
Speaker 4: you just did? You know why? And finally, my inquisitive nature,
Speaker 4: and I was driven by the passion not to play
Speaker 4: any better anymore, but to be able to teach people.
Speaker 4: And also when I want to demonstrate, I don't have
Speaker 4: to think, God, hopeing will shank this one or something
Speaker 4: like that. I mean, I don't have those thoughts anymore,
Speaker 4: especially when my kids are all, like I say, really
Speaker 4: solid players. I've got a fifteen year old that's blasted
Speaker 4: in the sixties all the time, and he hits about
Speaker 4: three twenty off the tee and he's fifteen years old.
Speaker 4: I want to slap him when I'm trying to tell
Speaker 4: him to do this a little bit more. I've got
Speaker 4: to get up there and be able to produce. I've
Speaker 4: got to get up there and say, Okay, we'll watch this.
Speaker 4: I'm going to hit this fire and it's going to
Speaker 4: be dead straight. I'm going to hit that yellow flag
Speaker 4: and I'm going to make it fall right just a
Speaker 4: little bit. And I can do that. I have no
Speaker 4: fear about doing that in front of anybody, because I
Speaker 4: know there's a mathematical thing going on. If my left
Speaker 4: arm is trapped against my chest and I rotate my chest,
Speaker 4: my club's coming into that ball square. So if I
Speaker 4: align myself properly and those conditions stay in place, I'm
Speaker 4: going to hit that ball. Now. Have I ever hit
Speaker 4: it when I was trying to do this? Have I
Speaker 4: ever pulled one or push one? Absolutely, but I knew
Speaker 4: exactly what happened, and I'll say my arms went first
Speaker 4: that time and I reconnect bam. I hit it perfect.
Speaker 4: So there's no doubt in my mind that this works.
Speaker 4: There's no doubt in my mind that anybody can do this, male, female,
Speaker 4: young or old. And I think that it's I think
Speaker 4: it's what the Master figured out. And I've just kind
Speaker 4: of add little signature things in there that that I
Speaker 4: think are very really you know that that relate to
Speaker 4: what he was trying to do. And then make it
Speaker 4: easier again. The setup. You have to be set up
Speaker 4: against the wall against the brace and you can't you
Speaker 4: can't let your lower body go underneath your top top
Speaker 4: of you. So the slides under because it's got a
Speaker 4: slide back the other way. And then you're just you're
Speaker 4: you know, you're in Chinatown. I mean, it's it's it's
Speaker 4: over sell the clubs, buy a dog, go for a walk.
Speaker 2: If you're going to go for a walk, don't hit anything.
Speaker 3: So so well, you mentioned how you know, when you
Speaker 3: talked about popping the ball up off the tee, and
Speaker 3: then everyone always has advice about where your tea placement was.
Speaker 3: The Other thing that I frequently see from from armchair
Speaker 3: golf instructors are the people who say, oh, you lifted
Speaker 3: your head.
Speaker 2: Oh you lifted your head. Oh you lifted your head.
Speaker 4: And that's just insanity. You know. I tell I show people,
Speaker 4: you know, I have a number of because in a
Speaker 4: golf management program, there's a lot of boys that came
Speaker 4: in to learn the business, but they're not really skilled
Speaker 4: in golf. They're double digit handicaps. And I get them
Speaker 4: out there and I, you know, I try to feed
Speaker 4: them a little bit of this and try to help them.
Speaker 4: And they topped the ball on occasion and they say
Speaker 4: to them, you know why you top that golfley say, well,
Speaker 4: I looked up and I sa, are you sure? Are
Speaker 4: you sure? You looked up? And they see why? Yeah,
Speaker 4: I looked up and I said, well, let me show
Speaker 4: you something. You watch my head. I'm gonna be I'm
Speaker 4: gonna hold my head dead's still, and you're going to
Speaker 4: see my eyes are going to be a neck gulp
Speaker 4: ball and I'm going to hit the very top of
Speaker 4: that golf ball. Now you know, I don't have time
Speaker 4: enough to swing this club seventy miles an hour with
Speaker 4: an iron and hit the very top of that skin.
Speaker 4: But I'm going to do that, and I'll top that ball.
Speaker 4: I'll make a really hard swing and then the ball
Speaker 4: will go four or five feet and they'll say, how'd
Speaker 4: you do that? It was really easy. I anticipated impact.
Speaker 4: So what happens when you anticipate the impact you clinch.
Speaker 4: So when you tighten your hands, your arms get shorter,
Speaker 4: they pull in towards you, and that's why you top
Speaker 4: the golf ball. So for people out there that are
Speaker 4: top it a lot, especially with that faraway wood, it's
Speaker 4: because they're hitting to the golf ball. So there's only
Speaker 4: one cure for this. You got to be brave. Number one.
Speaker 4: You got to set up to that golf ball so
Speaker 4: that you don't get way behind it and then you're
Speaker 4: trying to catch up. You kind of focus on where
Speaker 4: you're going to go with your body and the club
Speaker 4: head and not the golf ball. So when you get
Speaker 4: it the coil, let's just say that's phase one of
Speaker 4: a two part swing. Then you got to unwind to
Speaker 4: the second part and hold that position. Look, you know,
Speaker 4: look pretty, look like someone's taking a picture of your
Speaker 4: follow through. And if you get your mind off of impact,
Speaker 4: then you'll quit trying to hit and when you hit,
Speaker 4: you won't have that response. So for everyone that's top
Speaker 4: of the ball, I can promise you you're tightening up,
Speaker 4: not looking up.
Speaker 3: That is phenomenal observation. We even had a listener right
Speaker 3: me and said once that his dad always used to
Speaker 3: say to him, if you lift your head, the only
Speaker 3: thing you're going to see is.
Speaker 2: A bad golf shot.
Speaker 3: When I watch Annika, it always looks like she's lifting
Speaker 3: her head before she hits the ball.
Speaker 4: Well, she looks like she was looking at the target
Speaker 4: because she rotated her body and because her head and
Speaker 4: eyes moved towards were moving following the ball. That's another thing.
Speaker 4: You don't stay down when you hit a golf ball.
Speaker 4: You let your eyes release. You have to because if
Speaker 4: your head is looking to the right and you're trying
Speaker 4: to turn left, your head is going to block your rotation.
Speaker 4: So you've got to release your eyes. I mean that's
Speaker 4: been said forever. There's a lot of great players. But
Speaker 4: Anika David did the ball at one time, and it's
Speaker 4: a shame that he moved away from his original swing,
Speaker 4: but he was that left arm was so across the chest.
Speaker 4: He had that club face shut at the top. But
Speaker 4: it didn't really matter because he just rotated through the
Speaker 4: golf ball and his eyes were really down the target line.
Speaker 4: When he was hitting the golf ball, he was looking
Speaker 4: where he wanted the ball to go. And Anika did
Speaker 4: the same thing becausefully in your spine angle, you don't
Speaker 4: want to focus on the golf ball anyway. I mean,
Speaker 4: they're old saying a good player sense where the ball
Speaker 4: is and bad players stare at it. And there's a
Speaker 4: lot to be said about that, because if you get
Speaker 4: stuck looking at that golf baller looking at a dimple
Speaker 4: on that ball and all that blowing that we've been
Speaker 4: told to do. You're gonna stay on that ball and
Speaker 4: you're gonna shut down your swing because the ball is
Speaker 4: not the golf swing. The ball is the center of
Speaker 4: the swing. You're going to decelerate like crazy if you're
Speaker 4: focusing on the back of the ball or anything, and
Speaker 4: you gonna use your hands. Your body's gonna stay behind
Speaker 4: the ball. I mean, you're going to be You're going
Speaker 4: to be just still when you're hitting it instead of active.
Speaker 4: And that's why so many people hits so short. I mean,
Speaker 4: I had a guy recently come up to me about
Speaker 4: six foot three and he says, well, I you know,
Speaker 4: I'm fairly new at the game. I've been played about
Speaker 4: a year. I said, okay, well tell me a bout you.
Speaker 4: So how far do you hit a How far do
Speaker 4: you hit a driver? He says, oh, I hit about
Speaker 4: one sixty five, one seventy And I said, you should
Speaker 4: be able to throw it that far for God's sake,
Speaker 4: with your size. And when I got through with him,
Speaker 4: you know, he was two thirty two forty because side
Speaker 4: was there the length, you know, he had a very
Speaker 4: long arm and then a club on top of it.
Speaker 4: So he had a huge lever, but he didn't know
Speaker 4: what to do with the lever. And so all of
Speaker 4: these things you know, are are they all relat If
Speaker 4: your body's in the wrong position. I don't care how
Speaker 4: strong you are, you can't hit the golf ball very far.
Speaker 4: I used to give lessons to gene Upjaw years and
Speaker 4: years ago when he was with the Open Raiders. Jeane
Speaker 4: was a massive man. I weigh one hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: pounds and I just drilled it by him, I mean
Speaker 4: one hundred yards okay, And he'd say, how can you
Speaker 4: hit it so far? My leg's bigger than you. Didn't
Speaker 4: blah blah blah. But when he got to when he
Speaker 4: got right, when he figured out where to be instinctively
Speaker 4: because he was an athlete, you know, he hit it
Speaker 4: two miles And I didn't know all of this then.
Speaker 4: But you get there. Every now and then, do you
Speaker 4: understand what I mean? Every now and then you clock one,
Speaker 4: you say, what did I do there? Your body is
Speaker 4: in the place. Well, now I know where that place is.
Speaker 4: That's the thing. I know. We'll put you and you're
Speaker 4: gonna you're gonna hit the ball farther. You're going to
Speaker 4: hit the ball straighter, and it's it's and it's not hard.
Speaker 4: I have people say, well, how many lessons do I have?
Speaker 4: And I say one, maybe two, and then then then
Speaker 4: I can pass it. I'm pass it on to you,
Speaker 4: and then you'll know every time you hit the golf ball,
Speaker 4: what that ball is doing will tell you what you
Speaker 4: did or did not do.
Speaker 3: Well, we're gonna come down to Palm Springs. I'm going
Speaker 3: to spend some time with you.
Speaker 4: Well, i'd problems you. It's not going to take a
Speaker 4: lot of time. And you don't have to be a
Speaker 4: great athlete. You don't have to be young and springy.
Speaker 4: You can you know, you can be just a regular
Speaker 4: guy that doesn't have eight hours to day to practice.
Speaker 4: And I'll show you. I'll show you how to hit
Speaker 4: the ball and hit it solid. And I mean that's
Speaker 4: a flat guarantee.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: I love that kind of flat guarantee. That is confidence,
Speaker 3: and that's what the game is about. Having that confidence.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, you know, I've been at this a
Speaker 4: long time. I've you know, I made my bones. As
Speaker 4: they say, I know how to teach golf and I've
Speaker 4: been doing this since. You know, I've been a pros
Speaker 4: in sixty five, but it's really the last fifteen years
Speaker 4: that I've learned how to swing the golf club. And
Speaker 4: I just wish I had done this a little earlier
Speaker 4: and really and where I really was sure it was right.
Speaker 4: It's probably been the last sixty seven years and now
Speaker 4: I and now there's a couple of guys on the tour.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to mention, but I just wish I
Speaker 4: could have a conversation with him. I don't want any money,
Speaker 4: I don't want anything. I would, in fact, I would
Speaker 4: do it anonymously, but unfortunately Egos they're not going to say, hey,
Speaker 4: there's a guy on a driver that could really help you.
Speaker 4: You know, it's just not going to happen. But just
Speaker 4: for the sake of the game, you know.
Speaker 2: So when do you come back from China.
Speaker 4: I'm going to be there a week. Hopefully that's going
Speaker 4: to be all. I mean, I'm enamored with it, but
Speaker 4: I have so much to do on this side of
Speaker 4: the pond. I've got to catch up. But I want
Speaker 4: to really try to to get some golf academies there
Speaker 4: and teach people how to operate a facility, because it
Speaker 4: doesn't make sense to me that they're going to build
Speaker 4: ten thousand golf courses in the next five or six years.
Speaker 4: And that's the that's on the drawing board. That they
Speaker 4: don't that their own people can't operate them. Doesn't make
Speaker 4: sense to me that they have to get somebody from
Speaker 4: Australia or America or whatever to run their golf course.
Speaker 4: So they should build their own base of employees, you know,
Speaker 4: so it benefits them just like we have we have here.
Speaker 4: We don't have to call someone in Australia to run
Speaker 4: a golf course here, and that's what they need. So
Speaker 4: they need junior programs and they need some management program
Speaker 4: so they get an understanding. You know, this is not
Speaker 4: rocket science. The golf industry is a service oriented business.
Speaker 4: To accommodate people. You anticipate what they're going to say
Speaker 4: before they do it, and you're ready to form that accommodation.
Speaker 4: And that's it. Learning to fold the shirt or sell
Speaker 4: a set of clubs. Come on, we can all do that.
Speaker 4: But the secret of this business is to make people
Speaker 4: feel welcome and not when they walk through the door
Speaker 4: and look at them and say, well, that guy's not
Speaker 4: going to spend any money. You know, you don't qualify
Speaker 4: people in this business, nor should you in life for
Speaker 4: that matter. But that's a secret of this business. And
Speaker 4: I've been lucky because that was taught to me as
Speaker 4: a young man. And I've made a lot of money
Speaker 4: in the golf industry and times when people didn't make money,
Speaker 4: and and you know, it's it's what I pass on
Speaker 4: to mysch students so that they can go out there
Speaker 4: and they can become successful.
Speaker 3: Well, if you receive two phone calls from the last
Speaker 3: episode that we barely even scratch the surface on the
Speaker 3: single pivot swing, I'm hoping you're going to get a
Speaker 3: lot more emails and phone calls. I will make sure
Speaker 3: to post your your email address on our blog site.
Speaker 3: And you told me T Manzoni at College Oftheesert dot edu.
Speaker 4: Correct, that's correct, And.
Speaker 3: Then let's let them contact you that way, unless you
Speaker 3: want to give the phone number that I contacted you.
Speaker 2: At this one.
Speaker 4: If they want to, they can call me in my
Speaker 4: cellular phone. If they don't agree with me, please don't
Speaker 4: call me and call me a bunch of names.
Speaker 3: If you don't agree to call me, just get a
Speaker 3: hold of me and my cell phone.
Speaker 4: My cell phone is seven to six zero five three
Speaker 4: four three one nine zero, and you have my email,
Speaker 4: and anyone that's interested in trying to find out more,
Speaker 4: if they're a little bit confused, you know, and drop
Speaker 4: me into or give me a call, and I'll be
Speaker 4: happy to help them in any way that I can.
Speaker 3: Well, like I said, I'm going to try to come
Speaker 3: down to the Palm Springs area around the first part
Speaker 3: of twenty eleven. And if I do and we get
Speaker 3: a chance to get together, I hope that you'll allow
Speaker 3: me to bring a video camera and and maybe even
Speaker 3: put a little bit on video on here so we
Speaker 3: can get that on golf Smarter TV too, to show people,
Speaker 3: because based on this information and the emails that I received,
Speaker 3: they want more information. They are intrigued by what you're
Speaker 3: saying and want to know more, So we've got to
Speaker 3: get it out there.
Speaker 4: Well, that's great, and I I appreciate, I really do
Speaker 4: appreciate the opportunity to tell you all this stuff because
Speaker 4: it's it's it's it's like, you know, I feel like
Speaker 4: I have a lightning in a bottle right now and
Speaker 4: it's trying to get out, and I want to get
Speaker 4: it out, and not so much to praise myself, but
Speaker 4: to help people with this game, because it's such a
Speaker 4: fantastic game, and and to suffer with it like I
Speaker 4: know I did for many years is ridiculous. If you
Speaker 4: get the right amount of information, it isn't that complicated.
Speaker 4: We're not building a rocket here, Okay, we're swinging a club.
Speaker 4: And if we just play on an access and rotate
Speaker 4: around that access, it makes it so much easier