“When teaching golf, I try to present a picture of a fundamental principle that applies to all golfers. It does not matter to me whether the pupil is a national champion or has never held a golf club. I try to explain exactly what he should try to do, somewhat in this fashion: What you must realize is, as Sir Walter Simpson explained 60 years or so ago, that there is only one categorical imperative in golf, and that is: to hit the ball. There are no minor absolutes. There is only one thing you are allowed to hit the ball with, and that is the head of the club. So therefore, the object is to use your power to transmit as much force as you are capable of producing into the clubhead. No one can do more than one thing at one time, and golf is no different from anything else. For instance, I refer very often to a circle; I point out that you do not have to know how many parts you can break it into, such as 360 degrees, so many minutes, so many seconds.
etc., but it is simply one line, perfectly round. And it is just the same with a swing. A swing is one continuous motion to and fro, backward and. forward. In 1917 I collaborated with Daryn Hammond in a series of articles entitled “The Essence of the Matter”, which became the basis of the book, “The Golf Swing-The Ernest Jones Method”. In that, it was pointed out that I was convinced that the golf swing could be readily taught and consistently performed only if it were conceived as one movement under one control – the hands. Further, that various members of the body (including the shoulders) were normally anxious to get busy too strenuously and too soon, and that the only way of insuring their working in deco-ordination with the other members of the body, notably the hands and fingers, was to treat them as disastrous leaders, but as wholly admirable followers. The basis of the swing was the proper action of the hands and fingers. Now, after thirty years of teaching, it has become an axiom that the only way to have control of the motion of the clubhead is through the medium of the hands and fingers. Emphasizing the Positive Today all golfers talk about their swing. Any kind of hitting or any kind of style in golf is referred to as that person’s swing. Practically every pupil
who comes to me for help wants to know what is wrong with his or her swing. Invariably I ask, “Do you think it would help you if I were to tell you what is wrong?””Most certainly I do,” is the usual reply.”Well, now, if I did tell you what is wrong, I would only be telling you something you should not do, or something to avoid. Don’t you think it would be much better for me to tell you what is right and give you a chance to learn something positive?” Anything you do that is possible to exaggerate is not only an imperfection-but you cannot overdo what is right, so let us begin with what you must be aware of doing. You are going to use your powers to generate as much force as possible into the head of the club. Now, your power means your strength, energy, which is in every part of your body. Force is speed times weight. The club has the weight, but you have to create the speed, so the next point is what kind of motion will produce the greatest force. The greatest force you can create is centrifugal, which moves away from and around a center.

At this point, I bring out a weight on the end of a string and, by whirling it around and around, demonstrate what centrifugal force means. Then I begin moving it backward and forward with a swinging motion to explain what is meant by swinging. (In all my experience I have not had anyone explain, when asked, what he means when he uses the term “swing”.) Most good golfers talk about altering or changing their swing. I have been told very often by some of the top players that they can swing in lots of different ways—upright, flat, inside out, outside in, etc. Now this is not possible. A swing is a positive, indivisible motion to and fro, or, in a golf shot, backward and forward. It has a definite form or shape, which is an arc, or part of a circle. It has perfect rhythm which can be put to waltz time music. It is a measure of time just as the pendulum of the clock, and is subject to Galileo’s law. The pendulum takes the same length of time to swing irrespective of the length of the swing. Thus, a short putt would take the same length of time to play as would a full drive if the same club were used and held at the same place. The idea of swinging fast or slow is not possible in the same length of swing. It must be made clear that a true swing takes the same measure of time; so therefore, the longer the swing, the greater the force, or speed. The shorter the swing, the less the speed, or force. Again, I often demonstrate Galileo’s law of falling bodies, which I find is very little understood. All falling bodies (except a feather or anything of that nature) take the same time to fall irrespective of weight. A table tennis ball will hit the ground at the same time as a ball of lead if dropped from the same height. But the lead would hit with much more force (force being speed times weight). A heavyweight boxer doesn’t hit faster than a flyweight, but he hits with greater force. Again, two horses cannot run faster than the slower if they are harnessed to a light chariot, but they have more power together. So many golfers are always suffering in trying to find out how to hit harder, instead of knowing how to develop speed in the clubhead. The Hogans, Nelsons, Cottons develop it through practice, practice, practice, and there is no other way. The whole point is to know what, and how, to practice. I am so sorry to have to say to many who come to me, “You must have worked very hard to get as bad as this, when the right way can be so enjoyable if you will only have the courage and trust in what is right.” Truth is simplicity, although it is elusive.”

The big news is that I have been working with a golf travel company in China.  We are looking for me to do golf schools there as well as bring golfers here for instruction.  Along with this I am also writing golf instruction articles for their golf magazine “Swing.”  I am very excited about this as I think China is the next big place in golf.  Golf is exploding in China.  I look forward to what lies ahead with them.

The PGA has a program that all assistant professionals wanting to become Class A PGA Professionals have to go through, Professional Golf Management.  There are three levels they must complete.  I have become an adjunct faculty member for the program.  I will be one of the faculty members for the instruction phase of each level.  Classes are held at the PGA Education Center in Port St. Luce and at universities and colleges throughout the USA that have a PGM program.  Helping these future PGA Professionals improve their skill instruction is a passion of mine and I look forward to every checkpoint.

I now also teach one day a week at the Myrtle Beach campus for The Golf Academy of America.  The GAA is a career college in golf.  I am working with the students to improve their golf games so they can pass the PAT (Playing Ability Test) as well as help them improve their teaching skills.

Finally I am as well working with my students at The Members Club at Grande Dunes.  I am looking forward to this 2013 season and getting their games too…Stay On Plane

Swing thoughts are not bad you just need to use the right ones.  “There are good swing thoughts and bad swing thoughts” says Dr Gabriele Wulf, a professor of kinesiology at UNLV and a leading expert on performance cue research.  “We have found that the swing cues that shift your attention away from your body, what we call external cues, are much more effective than internal swing cues, or those that focus on your body.  Dr. Wulf goes a step further and says, “In decades of research, I’ve never seen anyone improve by using internal swing thoughts.”  A pretty bold statement but I would have to agree.  I found a long time ago that the last time I checked the club face hit the ball.  So my teaching is about improving what the ball does by improving what the club and face do.

I have found through my extensive experience that I have to fix what the ball does and that means I had to fix impact.  So I needed to have a good idea of what the CLUB and CLUB FACE were doing at impact to produce both bad and good ball results.  The club and club face are external from your body.  So if a student way hitting a shot that goes off to the right I will ask them what the club face was at impact.  Was it open or closed? I am trying to get them to understand what the club and club face are doing to cause the result.  We then need to back up from impact and find what the club and club face are doing to produce that poor ball flight.   I will then focus on getting the club and face to do something better to produce a better ball result.

An external cue may be as harmless as “rotate your hands through impact,” but because that thought is focused on a specific part of your body, it tends to constrain the movements and make learning and retaining the move more difficult.  Replacing that thought with something as simple as “square the clubface” and then with me showing them with hands on examples what that is – proves to be much more effective.

I teach by evaluating, recognize, plan, repair, and review. Evaluate ball flight, and back up to what the club and face are doing at impact, downswing, backswing and address.  I then recognize the cause.  I plan my fix.  I repair what the club and face are doing and then review the results.  Results are what the ball is doing.

“It had been three weeks since my throat started to feel sore, and it wasn’t getting better. The pain was most acute when I spoke. So I decided to spend a few days speaking as little as possible. Every time I had the urge to say something, I paused for a moment to question whether it was worth irritating my throat.

This made me acutely aware of when and how I use my voice. Which led me to a surprising discovery: I spend considerable energy working against my own best interests. And if my experience listening to others is any indication, so do you.

In my observations, we speak for three main reasons:

1. To help ourselves
2. To help others
3. To connect with each other

That’s not surprising. All three of those objectives are legitimate and worthwhile.

What is surprising though is how frequently we fool ourselves into thinking we’re achieving those objectives when, in reality, we’re thwarting them. The more I listened, the more I noticed how we undermine our own interests.

Frequently, I had the urge to gossip about someone else. I realized that I did this to help myself (I will feel better if I think I’m better than that person) and to connect with the other gossipers. But clearly that would distance me from the people about whom I was gossiping. In fact, it would probably even distance me from my fellow gossipers too; who could trust someone who talked behind other people’s back? My attempt to strengthen relationships was, instead, hurting them.

I also had the urge to share information when I thought it would be helpful to someone. That’s a productive reason to speak. But several times I had the urge to say something simply to show that I knew the answer. Or to get attention. Or to increase my power in the group. It became clear to me that my urge to speak in those moments came from my desire to feel special. I wanted people to like me and to think highly of me. But who likes the guy trying to show off?

Sometimes I wanted to help myself by getting the answer to a question, or making sure I was counted in a decision. That’s useful. But other times, I just wanted to make sure my voice was heard over the din of the other voices. I caught myself wanting to speak over someone in a meeting. Or arguing a point to get others to agree with me so I’d feel more confident in my own opinion (which I’m hearing a lot this political season). Is that really helping someone else?

In fact, I was amazed at how often I wanted to speak simply to assure myself that I was here. I had a role. I was noticed.

As I sat silently, trying to preserve my voice, I had the opportunity to notice how and when other people spoke as well. And I noticed all the same tendencies.

If I were to reduce our counter-productive speaking to a single motivation, it would be this: We often speak to make ourselves feel better in the short-term.

But life and relationships are long-term. And when we gossip, raise our voices, speak behind other people’s backs, offer unsolicited opinions, or make jokes at other people’s expense we’re isolating ourselves over time.

There was some good news in my experience of talking less: I listened more. And listening, it turned out, was a much more productive way to achieve my speaking objectives than speaking.

When I listened, I helped myself, helped others and built relationships at least as effectively as I did speaking and with much less collateral damage.

I’m obviously not suggesting we stop speaking; we can’t achieve our three objectives unless we do. We need ask for things. We need to share information. And there are a number of ways — like offering compliments and rephrasing what we’re hearing — we can build relationships through speech.

I am, however, suggesting that we think ahead — long term — when we’re about to say something in the moment. And that, before speaking, we ask ourselves one simple question: Is what I’m about to say going to detract from one of the three reasons I speak? If the answer is yes, consider saving your voice.

My throat is better now and I can speak as much as I want. Which left me feeling a little nervous; now that I know how easy it is to be self-defeating, will I keep myself on the productive side of the speaking equation?

Thankfully, the sore throat left me with a gift: the memory of a sore throat.

These past few days, when I get the urge to talk, I find myself doing a little calculation in my head: If I only have so much speaking I can do in a day, is this thing I’m about to say a worthwhile use of my voice?

What’s amazing is that most of the time I immediately know.”

I think a lot of golfers are apprehensive about taking golf instruction.  Most golfers have been told that they will get worse before they ever get better.  I have always been confused by that statement.  If you went to a doctor and they made you sicker before you got better, you most likely won’t go back to that doctor.  I work with my students to develop control of the ball. By giving cause and effect analogies, coupled with hands on examples, I can create a relationship with you that will produce proven and positive results. That is what every golfer wants. For the golf ball to do something better, to do it more often and for the bad shots not to be so bad.  That is why my approach is so effective.  I find the cause of the problem and focus on that.  I don’t clutter your mind with a lot of swing theory.  I develop a plan and then “work” the plan.

Take a look at the special below and as always I look for to working with you again and getting your game too…

Stay On Plane,

Brad Redding

PGA Master Professional

Golf Magazine Top 100 Teacher in America

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When I first learned that Hank was going to write the book I thought “cool, it will be interesting to learn more about Hank’s and Tiger’s time together.  I have been a friend of Hank for over quite some time.  When Hank was working with Tiger we would exchange emails about Tiger and how the press was “beating” Hank up on the things he and Tiger were working on.  In fact, in a Sports Illustrated article I predicted that Tiger would fire Butch and hire Hank as his coach in 2003.

It is no secret that Hank has had a huge influence on my teaching and I credit him as being one of my main mentors.  I know Hank and the kind of gentleman he is.  I wanted to read the book with an open mind and not let my friendship influence my review of his book.

I am first amazed at how so many people have “bashed” the book and Hank who have not read it.  That is just foolish.  You can’t form an opinion without having all of the facts.  That is like not voting and then complaining about the results. Most people’s perception of the book comes from a careful leak of mostly spicy revelations. Most of these were taken out of context and so some people said that there was a teacher-client confidentiality breach.  Those people think vindictive humiliation as the primary motive of him writing the book.

After reading the book 3 times my view of the book was that Hank wanted to talk about his time working with what he says “the greatest player to ever play the game.”  As he said that they were memories of his time with Tiger.  I don’t think Tiger had complete claim to those memories.  I sensed Haney’s primary goal was to document an amazing time in sports history and his small-but-influential role in some of the best golf ever played.

Hank reveals Woods’ purposefulness, eccentricity and drive, which any sports fan suspects is at the core of the all-time greats. Not for a minute do you suspect he is making anything up for dramatic effect. Tiger is a workaholic who loves the game, loves trying to improve and likes winning majors. And for the first time in the history of golf literature, we get a behind-the-scenes look at how an all-time great works. Many times the details are not pretty, but most of the journey Hank takes us on reveals a relentless passion to thrive in an era when so many professionals appear content to occasionally contend and collect healthy checks.

I believe a lot of the back lash from other instructors comes from pure envy and resentment.  Many of them have not read the book.  This was their chance to thump Hank.  It is clear Hank’s tone is genuine and steadily modest throughout.  He only time he interjects a “plug” is when he clearly stats the fact that Tiger had more wins under his watch that he did with Butch.  But I will say he treated Butch with the utmost respect in the book.  This is a trait of all great instructors.

So if you haven’t read the book due to some of the malicious excerpts you have read.  Believe me they do not paint an accurate representation of the book.  It is carefully written, very fascinating and presents Tiger in a positive light.

If I were asked to recommend a book for an aspiring young golfer, The Big Miss would be the first title I’d select for most of today’s Tiger-wannabes. It would motivate them to work much harder than they currently do.

“The logical steps to correctly identify the swing’s originating mistake is to first trace the ball flight mistake to impact:  what the club was doing at impact to cause the ball flight mistake.  Once the club’s mistake at impact is understood, then trace what the clubs was doing to cause the impact mistake.  Next tract what the golfer was doing to cause the club to be swinging incorrectly.  Then understanding why the golfer was swinging incorrectly.  You are now at the root cause of the golfer’s mistake.  You have correctly identified the swing mistake because it is now directly related to the golfer’s mistake; his ball flight.  The method employed to fix the swing mistake might vary from one instructor to another, but if both instructors are working to solve the same problem, just using different techniques, they are both correct.  This diagnosis method is fool proof.  It allows personal freedom for swing shaped to fit the individual’s body shape and athleticism.  It explains all golf swings, why they work and why they do not.  It eliminates guess work and absolute conformity to a model.  If reinforces what we see in golf, that all great golfers do not swing alike.  What they all do is produce correct and repetitive impacts.

Conclusion

It is through this diagnosis method that we can see John’s greatest contribution to golf.  That contribution is the impact he has had upon the game’s instructors.  Yes, John has helped thousands of golfers through his instruction, either personally or through books, articles, and appearances; but it is the instructors he has influenced that represents his legacy.  John’s generous sharing of his life’s work with other professionals is unparalleled.  The hundreds, if not thousands of instructors that he has mentored in turn each teach thousands of golfers.  These hundreds of thousands of golfers now have the chance to play the game better more quickly, easily, naturally and to understand why they do so.  It is through these instructors, worldwide, that he has lifted golf instruction out of personal preference and guess work into the light of logical understanding.  It is because of this that John has earned the mantel of the true ‘Father of Modern Golf Instruction.’”

For me that last paragraph says it all.  I was lucky but also very particular who influenced my teaching.  When I first met Hank he was able to answer all my questions and helped to answer all my student’s questions.  He was only logical that I sought out his mentors.  John Jacobs, Jim Hardy and then back to Hank.  And now I have many aspiring instructors come to my lesson tee in search of being a better instructor.  I am proud to follow in the footsteps of the gentlemen who have helped me along the way.

Early in my career I was very careful who influenced my ideas and style on coaching and golf instruction. I was very fortunate to choose some incredible people. One of those was Jim Hardy. There is no wonder I sought him out, he was a mentor to one of my greatest influences, Hank Haney. Early in my career Hank gave me a great piece of advice. He said read everything you can on John Jacobs. Both Jim and Hank had worked to John Jacobs in his golf schools. While I never got the watch John teach I did get a chance to discuss coaching when he was inducted in the Golf Magazine Teachers Hall of Fame in 2008. I came across this piece on Mr. Jacobs written by Jim Hardy. This is the bases of my teaching as well and you will see why.

“I firmly believe John Jacobs is the father of modern golf instruction worldwide. His revelation on how to always correctly diagnose a student’s problems was revolutionary. It was ground breaking when he introduced it and still is today. Prior to John’s method of diagnosis and still to often today, the method used by instructors was to start with an examination of the swing relative to the fundamentals that the particular instructor thought was important. The focus was to make the swing conform to a certain preconceived fundamental shape. John’s approach started from an entirely different perspective. He started his diagnosis from the flight of the ball rather than the shape. His idea claimed the golfer’s mistake was the errant ball flight and you traced the cause of the mistake through a series of logical steps to the find its origination.

Jacobs’ Method
To understand his method, you first have to accept one of John’s rules of golf a true: i.e. ‘the sole purpose of the golf swing is to produce a correct impact – the method employed is of no significance as long as it is repetitive.’ That statement is at the root of John’s teaching and of his fault corrections. The swing may appear unorthodox- look and Jim Furyk, Lee Trevino, John Daly, etc…but if we are to understand golf, we must first judge the ball flight as to its correctness and repetitive nature. All the game’s great players with an unorthodox swing seem to defy swing fundamentals but produce correctness and repetitive impacts. If we can assume that a correct, repetitive impact is our goal rather than a correct appearing swing, then we made the first step in correctly diagnosing all swings. To correct a golf swing (or putt, chip, pitch, bunker shot) we must first understand what is wrong with it. The nature of the ball flight, (or roll) either it’s lack of correctness or repetition, is the student’s problem. Once we start at this point, then we can trace the swing problem to it origination. In this manner, all swing mechanics the instructor applies to the student swing will have a positive effect on the flight of the ball. Through this method, all students will see immediate improvement rather than suffer continued bad golf, or in many cases even worse golf.

John Jacobs

Brad Redding/PGA Master Professional in Instruction

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