A Teaching Professional Responds

To my love affair with Brandel Chamblee's book "The Anatomy of Greatness"

Golf Nuts,

Following is Doug Hansen’s reply to my recent post in which I shared my favorite parts of Chamblee’s book.

Doug (Certified Golf Nut #1863) is a long-time teaching professional and a 42-yr member of the Professional Golfers of America (PGA). He is also one of my best friends, but this is War! OK, maybe not a war, but at least a serious skirmish over golf instruction theory.

Here is #1863’s missive received at Nut House earlier today…

Dear Head Nut (#0001),

As I read your latest missive I became struck with a combination of anxiety and nausea heretofore never experienced when it comes to my 46 years of teaching and the 42 years I've spent as a Member of the PGA.

So I jumped in the Trans Am and headed north on the Baltimore Pike to the only place I find my "true gravity". "My" battlefield. As I sat at "The Angle" the maelstrom going through my mind was as fierce as the maelstrom that was going on, on July 3, 1863, at the very place I was sitting. How fitting.

[Editor’s Note: Doug lives near Gettysburg, PA. Hence the reference to “The Angle”]

Without digressing any further, you should know that I had the absolute honor of working for Craig Shankland, PGA. Craig's motto was "Decrease the Motion and Increase the Swing". And on those nights when I couldn't find a date I would lie in bed thinking about that quote and wondering why I wasn't at "The Cobblestone" Bar & Grille because, hey: I was only 22.

But I got to thinking: What does that brilliant quote really mean in the way I think about the golf swing? To me it meant: "TAKE OUT ALL OF THE JUNK AND EXCESSIVE MOVEMENT YOU HAVE IN YOUR SWING THAT DOESN'T NEED TO BE THERE AND MAKING YOUR GOLF SWING TOTALLY RELIANT ON TIMING." Picking up that target side heel is one of them.

Sure, Jack did it - but Jack also put it down in a different position than it was at address. So you pick up your target side heel - do you put it down in the same place? Do you put it down at the same time swing after swing after swing? Do you move off the ball BECAUSE YOU PICK UP YOUR TARGETSIDE HEEL???

"Jean Claude," I said to a student who actually worked for the watch company, "You want to be a sundial - not a Rolex." He looked at me like I had four heads. I said, "Look, as long as the sun is out, both tell time equally as well - one, however, has significantly fewer moving parts." "Ah, oui, oui, monsier."

At the studio where I do most of my instruction, I have the luxury of a Trackman 4 at all times. It's a nice piece of equipment to have - almost more for the student than it is for me. My "Holy Trimvirate" is FACE - PATH - ARC. And nothing - NOTHING - is more important than clubface position at impact. What is your body doing to achieve a positive FACE - PATH - ARC swing after swing after swing? How much does a player's excessive (needless?) motion affect that consistency? The more movement you have in you swing the more you had better be out there hitting a lot of balls and solidifying that timing.

Mr. Hogan had "The Secret". Moe Norman had Mr. Hogan's "Secret" (but Moe would only show it to you - he wouldn't tell you what it was - kinda messed up if you ask me).

But look at the difference between their two swings: Gosh - they couldn't look any more different, Look at the purity of Tom Purtzer's swing, the seemingly effortless grace of Freddy Couples and compare them to Jim Furyk. You think David Duval ever "saw" impact? Or Annika?

What I wouldn't have given to ask Mr. Hogan in September of 1989 during dinner at Shady Oaks in Ft. Worth: "Mr. Hogan - you said that if you took a day off it took you three days to get it back. Why?"

[Editor’s Note: Doug has had the good fortune to visit the Hogan Equipment Co. and have dinner with Ben Hogan as one of their premier club professionals.]

I'm sure Mr. Hogan had a totally different set of standards compared to most professional golfers - maybe with the exception of Moe. There's no right way - there's no hoyle beyond FACE.

Because, as John Bliss put it so succinctly, "At the end of the day, what is the golf ball doing?"

With the kindest of regards and deep respect,

Douglas J. Hansen, PGA (#1863)

—

Thanks, #1863. Well said.

My reply would be as follows…

Brandel isn’t saying there is only one way to swing a golf club. He is saying that in studying the greats, they had several similarities. That is the essence of his book. In fact, as I read the book, I was struck by the stark differences in the swings of the greats he discussed, but equally struck by the similarities in the areas studied by Chamblee. So, on that point, Brandel would agree with you!

As for motion in the swing, the whole golf swing is a series of moving parts. You can’t eliminate all of them and even take the club back! The whole premise of the book is that there seems to be a consistent way to take those moving parts back and through, and that there should be more movement than currently being taught. On that you and he would disagree.

By the way, there are three things mentioned in the book that I failed to mention in my post: 1) All great players move off the ball on the backswing, 2) most of the earlier great players straightened their right leg on the backswing, and 3) they didn’t try to resist with the lower body on the backswing. Here is what Chamblee had to say on that topic:

Somewhere in the 1980 it became fashionable to maintain a lot of flex in the right knee in the backswing, the idea I suppose being that one builds tension by squatting into the right leg and that squat resists the hips’ movement which in turn allows one to build torque by turning the upper body against this resistance, like the loading of a spring we were told. The premise of this theory is so massively incorrect and its problems so numerous that for over thirty years it has almost completely divested the PGA and LPGA Tour players of their ability to build on the methods of a previous generation, not to mention their athleticism, rhythm, and health.

To start with, the muscles and the fascia of the body do not have the same properties of a coiled spring. Regardless of how much torque or axial tension one thinks they are creating with the resistance of the lower body, there is not enough spring-like effect or automatic release of energy to offset the corresponding loss of turn. This capital crime of expository commentary has been packaged and sold to amateur and professional alike and it is pure myth.

Here are photos from Chamblee’s book of Hogan & Snead at the top of their backswing, supporting Chamblee’s claim.

So, there you have it, Golf Nuts, a retort from fellow Nut #1863 followed by my reply. I hope you enjoyed the conversation and even learned a little bit more about the golf swing. All I know about the swing after 50+ years of chasing The Secret is that the golf swing is not hard. It’s Impossible! But the chase is fun as hell.

Speaking of Snead, he once said, “The golf swing is simple, just not easy.”

Thanks, Sam! Big help. LOL

The Head Nut

#0001