i think wishon is coming from where most club guys come from, namely prescribing equipment that will maximize the players current shot results. there is no doubt that advanced equipment makes a 300 yard drive easier to accomplish etc. the ball spins less etc. the fact of the matter is that if do not have the time, cash and inclination to do the modules (or just hitting ball working on similar things) then old gear will hurt your scores. for the future minded golfer. Most golfers I know do not spend much time practicing (including impact bag stuff) I do not think that old gear without the modules or a teacher that knows what they are doing will do anything good for the average joe.
You got to love that! Unlike most, not just talk the talk but walk the walk. I wonder if any other teachers offer this?
I agree. But that’s the problem, the golfing world is now filled with ‘clubfitters.’ Wishon really knows his stuff, but you’ve pretty much nailed his goal with fitting a golfer. The same could be said for the other clubfitters out there.
IMO, I think golfers would be willing to go to blades with thin soles and work at it if they could get some assurances of better golf. But that’s not the case.
3JACK
Bio,
Let’s cut to the chase. No disrespect but can you strike the ball as pure as Lag? Have you played at his level? If the answer is no, I will choose to listen to Lag. I am sure other scientists will find your theory interesting but for me I want to hit the ball.
sounds like a catch 22 to me! seems that by that token you have to have lags striking ability to understand what he is saying about his striking ability! 
i would say that lag must be in the top .5% of ball strikers. this suggests that ball striking is not of primary importance, but then good players for decades have down played the importance of the same. an international player who I junior golf with his son once told me that golf is like a ham sandwich! the two slices of bread were the puzzle solving, shot selection/prep and the way you process the good and the bad for future use in slice 1. the ham was ball striking. he went on to say that most golfers are obsessed with the ham! in his case he pursued golf technique with a Hogan-like fervor and feels to this day he did not get a sufficient return on his investment of sweat capital (although he was invited to the Masters on two occassions. the swing is a vehicle, not the destination, unless of course that is your stated intent (something that acts much a default program setting) I watched Corey Pavin slap the ball around Southern Hills to finishe 2nd to Billy Mayfair in the '95 Tour Championship. As a college player I teed it up on that course every week. If I had played from where Corey hit it I would not have come close to breaking 80. Yes, Pavin works the ball like crazy, and he is put at a disadvantage with the the new gear. He bunted it around (and not always straight mind you) and had a chance to win the tournament. A big factor that week is that Southern Hills is a superb traditional design. Tiger’s 62 1/2 in 2008 was scary good (to many dog legs to overpower it with the driver…he worked the ball pretty well that day, and Nick Price was on like donkey kong in '94 (pretty much the purest ball striker I have watched with my own beadies) i am part of a small percentage of windmill tilters that want to hit the ball pure. i have shot -1 hitting 4 greens in regulation on a tough track with great competition. i was not happy! scrapping it around, getting up and down out of a ball washer is not my idea of golf. intent is like a person shadow. so all of that to say why would anyone come on to this site whose stated purpose is to improve a players ball striking and quibble over what is essentially a person’s intent. lag is 100% correct in my view that mod equipment does not make the same demands on your technique as the older stuff, therefore the best of yesteryear were better ball striker than the best of today. I have watched all the tournaments (2 US Opens/2 PGA/2 Tour Championships/1 US Amateur) played at Southern Hills since '94 and the best I saw (ball striking wise) was Nicky Price. So when Price echoes Lag’s sentiments (or visa versa) I listen!
Excuse my poor proof reading ! 
Great coaching needs a few things. Firstly, you need to understand what you are teaching at a more than decent level. Secondly, you need to understand how to build up the core attributes of those skills, not just get people to work on the skill itself. Finally, you need to be able to connect with people.
If we were to flip this around, I’d say 85%+ of coaches fail at the connection stage alone. I went through 15 seasons of cricket without seeing a coach who knew anything about people. There was always one specific type of person who would thrive under each coach, and all the rest of the people generally disliked the coach. It’s pretty hard to learn much when you think of your coach as close minded.
Next, these guys were almost always former top level players, with one problem. They don’t know how they became top level players. They pretty much got there because they had talent and determination, but rarely even understood what made them better than me. Often their form of teaching was, get your front foot forward and hit it hard, here watch me, bang. Great, but I can’t do it like you do, how do I work on improving… well … just keep trying that shot, you’ll get better. Not good. Where am I lacking, foot speed, co-ordination, strength, technique, give me something to work on. I was a bowler and it was even worse. My technical coach was my TV, watching guys like Lillee, McGrath and others for countless hours and try to work out how they are doing it. And I can say one thing, this is far from an ideal way to learn for most people, with exceptions being guys like Two who just pick things up from watching the greats.
I know of an athletics coach who does this all very well. He was a shot putter, but learned from a strong European athletics coach. He is very analytical, and didn’t accept just being good, he wanted to understand it, so that he could improve to even greater levels. By the end of his career, he had a great understanding of most of the track and field events. On top of that, he had an understanding of how to train to maximize those skills. Being a good runner is not just running 100m sprints, it’s a variety of gym work, co-ordination (he was big on getting runners to learn weight lifting, javelin, discus etc to improve co-ordination), and many different running drills. But most of all, he had a bunch of up to 50 athletes, from all walks of life and with all different attitudes, and was able to inspire and deal with most of them. He never ran 100m at any decent pace, but effectively got the most out of several runners and got them into olympic medal contention. And like Lag, this guy lives a very humble life, not seeking the huge pay check other forms of work would have found for him, happier seeking hard working people to spend hundreds of hours with seeing real long term improvement. By the way, his initial commitment to his athletics program? 5 years!!! He isn’t in this for a quick fix, he wanted to build up all the strength and co-ordination the correct way, and was happy to have his athletes fall behind for a few years while building things up properly. I haven’t seen any of the people get to 5 years and not be the best in the state/country if they were already half decent when joining and committed to the program properly. And he isn’t seeking out great athletes from around the country, he’s simply taking whoever walks into his athletics club, and tells them he can make them good if they want to work hard at it.
Does any of this sound familiar? It should, we have such a man running this program. Hopefully we are all here for the long term and not some quick fix. It is still shocking to me how hard mastering a swing is. I know it’s not going to happen probably this year at all for me. If I accept that now, I can happily flatten my swing and watch in horror at some of the short term results of trying to do that.
I don’t know that it matters to me at all how Lag hits a ball. If a hacker had the same way of talking and effectively ran these modules, I think I’d be just as committed to the program. I’m not after the guy with the most tournament wins and best player resume. I want someone who can teach ME how to swing a golf club. That’s why I’m here, and I’m not leaving anytime soon.
Cool thoughts, SB. I agree that the quality of player doesn’t necessarily transfer over to ability to teach, so I don’t buy the old ‘if you can’t beat me you can’t teach me’ argument- though it depends on what’s being taught… how to play the game, or how to swing the club- they’re very different animals. There does need to be some deep understanding of, and ability to play the game at a good level in order to fully grasp what is required of a swing, I think. There are always exceptions to so-called rules though. I also don’t think it’s absolutely necessary for major surgery in order to get the most out of your game, it tends to depend on your personality as regards that, or the depth of negative teaching received in the past. Some people need to clear the hard drive and start over in order to make progress, while others can role with a thought here or there. And with so much bad teaching and thinking, the former may be more often required than not. That seems to be what’s going on here at ABS.
It’s an interesting topic actually, lots to think about it.
I do think it is important to be a good ball striker if you are going to teach good ball strikers. I was playing with Barkow the other day, and he is doing a piece on Hall of Famer, Joanne Carner. She worked with Sam Snead. Snead was her only teacher.
She told Al that Sam could fix her in three swings.
This can happen with good players because they already know how to do it… but sometimes they need a tune up, or just a good set of eyes on them.
I agree that not all pure strikers would necessarily be great teachers… but I think they would have a much better chance of being a great teacher if they were to be asked the right questions. I have learned a lot on ABS from the constant barrage of questions from students, because sometimes I might have to pick up club and take a swing or two to answer an unusual question.
It is not always easy to be consciously aware of everything, every moving part of the swing at every moment. Good players need to do the right things, but they don’t have to be aware of them.
Personally I have always been a tinkerer and a bit of a deep thinker about the swing. It may be from my childhood, as my father was an eletrical enginneer by trade, and my mother a master artist. I suppose the desire for a deeper understanding is simply fun. I have always asked, is there a better way? I was always intrigued by the Olympics growing up, and the idea of striving for human perfection I found appealing. Exploring the possibilities of what we as humans can do. I always admired the discipline of technique and form in many of the Olympic sports.
I probably view new balls, space age giant clubs, and so forth, similar to if they built big springs into the base of the pole vaulters pole so they could get up an extra 20 percent. Or if swimmers jumped into the water with fins… then broke all the records. It was nice to see them role back the slipperly swimming suits. It doesn’t make the athletes better. It might make them worse if it becomes a crutch.
I do believe there are optimal ways of doing things. I don’t see the golf swing as having that much personal freedom. It appears that way… because of how players set up… load it up… and finish their swings… but if you really look at the very polar aspects of hitting vs swinging, there is really not all that much room for deviation from P3 to P4 if you are going to strike the ball consistently well.
So what do we study here? Why not the best? I’m not all that interested in mediocrity. Stats were not kept all the way back in time, but there are some still alive… that saw it, or some really compelling stuff. Knudson was said to have hit 70 out of 72 greens when he finished runner up at The Masters in 69. We are not going to see that anymore… and there are reasons for this. Some might argue there is a lot of urban folklore going on… but we do have some strong documented support for what some saw, and some of the Shells matches.
I saw some great things with my own eyes while I was playing. These kinds of stellar ball striking rounds are not impossible.
When I won on the Canadian Tour I hit 66 out of 72 greens… so I know that Trevino, and Hogan, and Knudson could do much better than I did.
I have spent many years as a trainer in the restaurant and financial services industry. I have trained managers and executives and I would be the first to agree not every person that excels in his or her craft makes the best teacher. A good trainer is education and application focused. In other words, if you are going to be good you have to know your craft and perform it well.
The other side of the coin is: I also spent many years persuing a blackbelt in Karate. I had the opportunity to train and be promoted under one of the true Japanese Master’s at that time. I went to Europe from America to train under him. I went as a 3rd degree brown. He (Hansi) stripped me of all of my rank and sent me to the back of the line. I worked my butt off for a long time under him until he finally promoted me to 3rd degree black. This was back when Karate was becoming poplular because of Bruce Lee and before it was basterdized by American’s to make a buck.
Hansi was a 10th degree at age 32 and his Master was the top student of the teacher who brought it out of the underground in Okinawa and introduced it to Japan. So was Hansi good at his craft? The answer is yes…scary good. Could he teach? Yes, it was his passion to pass on what he learned and he did it well even with broken english.
The reason I bring this up is: If Hansi challenged me to a fight and I could take him in 2 out of 3 times (trust me I knew better) he wouldn’t have had the credibility for me to have faith in and train under. I believe in order to be a good credible teacher, you have to be very good at what you do. If you are not, to me, you have no credibility. The second part to this is; if you can’t communicate to the level where I can learn from you no matter how good you are I will move on. There is a saying in training, “if the student hasn’t learned the teacher hasn’t taught.”
To me, and what apprears to be the other students in ABS, Lag is both credible and he can teach. In this case the student is learning and therefore I stay.
Lag,
I’m intrigued as to where you place, or what your thoughts are on, the upright shoulder swinging(not swinging in your terms, just the general meaning) consistent strikers throughout time, for example- Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Greg Norman, Colin Montgomery, etc. In the thinking that a flat shoulder turn is optimal, where do these people fit in? In terms of ‘polarized’ motions, which side are they on?
I wouldn’t put Norman in that category,
but the others use swinger releases…
I think it’s much harder to time, and requires more maintenance I would think… certainly from my own experience it did.
Swinging is very difficult to teach… because it is very much a "can you feel this kind of thing? or not…
Much like a great vocalist… you kinda have it or you don’t. It’s hard to teach that kind of feel… much like swinging…
Some people will simply never get it…
Anyone can learn to hit, and from both a geometry and physics standpoint I will go with hitting anytime.
If you can feel the soft hand dump… then I have no problem with it. If someone can do it… then they should… but most that are here are on the side of… “I’m not sure this is the best for me” … so I offer a viable solution.
I can hit a golf ball either way… quite well… but knowing what I know… I would not go back in million years.
Thanks for that, Lag. Norman would be different in terms of his pivot use I assume, but in terms of an upright shoulder plane he’s got to be considered the same or at least close, right? I was answering a question in another thread and it made me think of this stuff. I think you mentioned Hale Irwin somewhere else as being a good upright angle of attack player. IMO he was kind of flat going back and then came over his initial plane to then be kind of steep with his club ending up being pretty vertical in his follow through. That seems to be the way he saw it working, and it worked rather well to say the least. This stuff has an endless fascination for me…
What about in 20 years though? As we get older and lose power, will swinging be more appropriate?
I don’t necessarily think so…
One of the things I noticed when watching the ceremonial tee offs at The Masters over the years of many of the great players is their loss of post impact pivot flexibility and rotation. But the guys that were the best at this seemed to keep their swings intact much later into their lives. I remember watching Snead tee off… and he would nail it pretty good… while Sarazen really stalled. Gary Player is still playing, while Nicklaus is not due to back problems and so forth.
If you KNOW that this is important, then I think you can keep working on this until your last days. Maintaining your strength and flexibility I think would be extremely positive as you get older. I can’t say I can speak from direct and personal knowledge, but this is simply what I have been aware of from observations over the years.
Hogan was said to still hit the ball very well even into his 70’s using super stiff and heavy gear. He never went to the lighter gear even though it was available. I think this was a conscious and well thought out decision so he could still enjoy striking a bag of balls out at Shady Oaks, or playing few holes from time to time. If anything, using heavier gear will only help an older player stay fit. As soon as you go lightweight, you are starting your descent into ball striking mediocrity.