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Gotta brag on my swing coach for a minute....

Brassie

Brassie

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He just qualified for the 2020 Kitchenaid Senior PGA Championship next May at Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor MI. He was in the top 38 out of about 300 entrants at the Omni Barton Creek Resort event in Austin, TX the last 3 days. That's my man! He's really, really good.

His instruction for me in rebuilding my swing is learning the fundamentally good positions and teaching me how to feel them, so when he isn't around, I can find them. This has been really effective for me. He has all the gizmos and that sort of thing but he's old school on position and feel. I truly like this a lot.

He played on the regular PGA tour for about 15 years. He qualified and made the cut for 5 majors and the last one was the 2004 PGA at Whistling Straits. He has won our state PGA POY award 5 times. Great guy! and knows what he is doing on teaching. Had to brag on him a bit as I'm thrilled he won a spot in playing in the Sr PGA Championship next May. I'll probably go over there and support him during the event.

https://public.pgascore.net/leaderboards/lobby.cfm?eventid=5256
 
That’s really awesome and always nice to see your own instructor having success from what he teaches.
 
What's his name ?
I've played with a few of the guys who are on the qualifying list you linked; Stuart Smith, Mitch Lowe, Jeff Combe, Jeff Brehaut. Of these four only Stuart Smith qualified, he is at -10, about 5th place.
 
DG_1234 said:
What's his name ?
I've played with a few of the guys who are on the qualifying list you linked; Stuart Smith, Mitch Lowe, Jeff Combe, Jeff Brehaut. Of these four only Stuart Smith qualified, he is at -10, about 5th place.
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Roy McA... Sorry!! Got carried away. :ROFLMAO: Roy Biancalana. He was 5 under, T22.
 
I attended the Senior PGA this year. It was well worth it.
 
I definitely like the idea of having a tournament winning pro as an instructor. Most instructors fake it, taking money for teaching without truly knowing what matters for good golf swings. Your instructor is a proven player so he's the real deal, not faking it.
I am not suggesting that a teacher with no credentials as a tournament winning player is incompetent. I am saying that most instructors are incompetent and fake it. Not all, but most.
However, a proven tournament winning player definitely knows what truly matters to good golf swings and good scoring, so having one as an instructor makes good sense.
 
DG_1234 said:
I definitely like the idea of having a tournament winning pro as an instructor. Most instructors fake it, taking money for teaching without truly knowing what matters for good golf swings. Your instructor is a proven player so he's the real deal, not faking it.
I am not suggesting that a teacher with no credentials as a tournament winning player is incompetent. I am saying that most instructors are incompetent and fake it. Not all, but most.
However, a proven tournament winning player definitely knows what truly matters to good golf swings and good scoring, so having one as an instructor makes good sense.
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Aside from the swing mechanics, he is very interesting to talk to about his tour experience and how you deal with things during a round, the mental side, freeing up your swing under pressure and shot selection for best opportunity to avoid risk. He's also helped me with putting... this has already paid dividends.

My 6th lesson with him is tomorrow. We have a lot of things to work on. Bottom line: I'm putting in the effort and he sees that... and that inspires him to help me even more. If that makes sense. It's an interesting dynamic.
 
Canadan said:
I think it's so awesome you have a strong instructor at your disposal who clearly has a passion for the game.

My envy is real.
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Thanks! I sought him out, specifically because I'm almost 8 years older than him but he understands what I'm dealing with, trying to restart my golf game after a long layoff. I think younger instructors may not fully grasp what the issues are as aging takes it's toll. Roy is living it and doing well himself. Our long term goal for me, is to get me back to single digit hdcp, where I used to live and enjoy the game.
 
Brassie said:
Thanks! I sought him out, specifically because I'm almost 8 years older than him but he understands what I'm dealing with, trying to restart my golf game after a long layoff. I think younger instructors may not fully grasp what the issues are as aging takes it's toll. Roy is living it and doing well himself. Our long term goal for me, is to get me back to single digit hdcp, where I used to live and enjoy the game.
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I'm glad you're here on THP so i can follow along!

Will be a blast to read about your game transforming.
 
Canadan said:
I'm glad you're here on THP so i can follow along!

Will be a blast to read about your game transforming.
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Well.... today was a humbling lesson. Roy took me to full upright swing plane with big arc. The feel was just so foreign to me... as he said, you were taught old school, with hands arms doing the turn... collapsing the right arm into your rib cage and now you are doing core rotation and a lot more upright... you are going to feel it to be very uncomfortable and make a lot of bad shots at first, until you acclimate and your timing comes back. I worked hard on this today at the range after Roy left. I was missing shots thin but no fat shots and the ones I hit pure, were way better than my old good shots. You know good ball flight off of a 7 iron.... those steep boring high velocity shots that get to the apex and then just fall. I hit some of those today. This is what we are after on a consistent basis.

I'm in for the long haul. We even discussed today how to get through the winter by going to those inflated "bubbles" and working on my swing when it is cold out. I'm going to get back to single digits, whatever it takes!

What blows my mind, is that I got to a 6 cap back in the 90's with the wrong flat swing plane and was hitting accurate drives consistently over 300 yds using old tech balls and equipment. How can that be?
 
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