Instruction
It’s OK To Be Different
T
he golf instruction industry has
been stale for many years with
instructors teaching cookie
cutter swings to the masses
based on appearing fundamentally cor-
rect. With more emphasis on the swing
and less on ball flight, the national hand-
icap simply wasn’t improving and a large
percentage of golfers were hesitant to
take lessons due to fear of getting worse.
However, the latest trends should
finally create actual improvement, as the
world of golf instruction is in a new wave
in 2020 that is highlighted by uniqueness.
Being different is not only acceptable, it
is celebrated.
With the understanding that being
different is OK, there is a new focus on
two key factors: building a swing to the
player not a player to a swing, and the use
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by JOSH APPLE
of power for maximum distance. These
two keys ignore the traditional aesthetics
of the swing. Unorthodox swings like Dustin Johnson’s are proving
they have a place at the highest levels of golf.
GANKAS BREAKS GROUND
The biggest name in golf instruction in
the United States is George Gankas, a
man who is helping transform the lesson
tee through his viral videos. His uncon-
ventional teachings and methods were
validated when one of his students, Mat-
thew Wolff, won on the PGA Tour in 2019
as a rookie soon after winning the NCAA
individual championship.
Wolff has one of the most unorthodox
swings the tour has ever seen. Starting
with a weak grip, he takes the club outside
the line on the backswing with a loop and
gets the club across the line at the top, all
with his lead heel way off the ground. According to Gankas, “Understanding
that people do things different is OK, as
long as they’re matched up.” He repeats
this phrase at the start of every video.
A match-up is essentially a compen-
sation for something that a player does
naturally in his or her swing; something
that gets the player back to the ball to hit
it on line. Using the Wolff example, he
goes into a much deeper hip and shoul-
der rotation on the backswing than the
average player, then again rotates much
deeper than most in the downswing,
which shallows the club and drops it into
the slot. This is very similar to the move
Jim Furyk makes to get the club square at
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Unique is the New Normal for Instruction in 2020 //