A Week at Hank Haneys Golf Ranch, Dallas Texas

Well where to start.

What a fantastic week.

I spent a week at Hank Haneys golf Ranch and have a lot of great things to focus and work on that will really help my game get more solid.

I worked with Kevin Johnson there and would highly recommend him. As a instructor, he quickly focused on a few key swing positons and in doing so, really didnt try to change up a lot, which was a huge relief. It was greaty having a well trained set of eyes looking over all aspects of my game.

The big points Ive take from the week are:

2 key sing moves: workin on my take away, keeping the shaft from getting "inside" (working with a small wrist hinge drill to do this)

then: initiating the downswing by dropping the hands and shifting the left hip forward. This keeps my right heel from raising and allowing it to move towards the target.

Also concentrating on firing down the line, leading with the left hand. I have a small swing drill to do this and the ball really flies when I get it. My left hand nwas breaking down a touch before impact, with my right hand "taking over" and flicking the club head throught the impact.

I also worked on putting the ball back a touch in my stance and really trying to square up the club face at address (I have a tendancy to open it/lay it back)

The other big help was some key short game/putting work:

on chips keeping my weight on my left foot as well as my wedges. Not shifting my weight back to my right foot ( I think i was even doing this slightly on my putts) This is a huge help as I was blading/chunking alot of short chips and couldnt figure out why. It was wrecking my confidence over the ball.

On both wdges and chips: leading with te left hand and no scooping with the right.

Also getting a gap wedge (im thinking a 52 since me pw is 48) and getting a 58 instead on my 60 degree wedge (these 2 i will do quickly)

On putting: Ive set up an alignment line here at home. It allows me to see the clubface at set up and going back.

I also re worked my routine a touch. Ball more in the middle of my stance. Align the clubface w/ the right right hand at address first, then build a stance/grip around that. Also concrentating on good smooth acceleration and leading with the left hand.

Basically all of this will allow me to control my distanceson putts and chips, which has been killing my scoring from 100 yards and in.

I got some nice stat ideas to look at that will give me an idea of how im doing and monitor my shots at 2 key short game points (wedges and chips)

What a great facility. Kevin was a great instructor and gave great, focused feedback and was able to quickly communicate little faults and approaches to fixing/addressing them. He was a fantastic player too and could really dial in his shots from 100 yards and in. My game was pretty rusty but he was great at keeping postive and focusing on the task at hand for me.

Hopefully I can go back down at the end of the season to see how things are progessing and coming along.


Again a great time and hugely beneficial to me... money well spent!

Remembering Moe Norman and Golf in Canada

As a 13 year old, I played 4 or 5 holes with Moe Norman.

Moe used to play at my home course every morning and Id see him go by as a few of the finishing holes went by the practice range where Id be working on my game. My Dad knew Mr Norman from his early assistant golf days when working at Don Valley Golf Course in the early 50s.

The OGA (Ontario Golf Association) revoked Moe's Amatuer status early in his playing career when they found out he was selling his prizes for cash to live on. This began a long career of what Id refer to as the "Typical Canadian Syndrome". Basically Canada has a strange way of treating their own.

My dad said that when Moe played in the Masters he withdrew after playing poorly in the first round. He said he wasnt playing to the level the tournament deserved. This is a pretty amazing statement when you think of it.

Mac Frost ran Spring Lakes (my home course for a while) and was one of the few people involved in Canadian Golf and the OGA/CPGA/RCGA (Royal Canadian Golf Association) that knew what a treasure Moe was to the game of golf in Canada. This was in the early 80s when people still regarded Moe generally as an introvert, rather than the genius ball striker that he was. Thankfully Moe finally received the recognition he deserved at the end of his life.

Since my Dad knew Moe, he encourgaged me to go up and ask Moe if i could join him one morning. Moe said ok.

While I dont remember much from those holes i do remember this: Moe played 5 balls and they were all within 5-10 yards of each other.

This was the days before long tees so Moe used to sometimes tee it up on a pencil. As juniors we'd do the same thing on longer holes and call it our "Moe Norman Shot" (id usually sky the crap out of it tho ahah).

Then he'd hit the same 5 balls in around 10 feet, putt one and pick the rest up. He did this for all of the holes we played. He didnt say much but basically let me tag along. I think he said something quick like "Nice swing, nice swing" to me ..hed always talk really fast in short sentances and sometimes repeat things.

Later I swung for George Knudson (who finished 2nd in the 1969 Masters, losing in playoff to George Archer and who still holds the most wins on the PGA tour for a Canadian at 8) when trying out for Ben Kerns Junior Progran at the National (that Knuston had a hand in running and developing). Dave Morland and Brennan Little (Mike Weirs Caddy and fantastic junior golfer) were playing in the program at the time.

It was a pretty amazing experience. He has us all swing with a short wieghted club he had developed and this was during his "start/finish" stage of approaching the golf swing.

Basically he was stressing balance. He said that he really didnt care what happened during the swing as long as you started with a good balanced setup and finished with your wieight on your left foot and body pointing towards to the hole.

His thinking was that if you attained these 2 ideal postions, itd be hard to go too far off track between them. Simple and to the point. (I must has done these 2 ok since he admitted me to the program)

I guess Im pretty luck to have had a chance to interact personally with these 2 players. They are generally regarded as the finest ball strikers after Hogan in someways. It always was a hinderance in someways as a junior, because I didnt concentrate enough on my scoring and focus on the course, which is what i really needed to compete in a Top 10-20 level nationally, due to my small size and lack of distance as Junior.

But being older and coming back to the game, I feel Ive been able to get into that and take it on. So we'll see how things go this year.

But its nice to have these experiences. Canada is a strange place sometimes.

"The Magic Move"

Harvey Pennick called getting into the slot on the downswing "the Magic Move".

Ben Hogan regarded it as the most important move in the golf swing. Getting everything ready for the supination of the wrists at impact.

Whatever we call it, the idea that Pennick talks about in both the "Magic Move" and "Slow Motion Drill" pages in the Little Red Book is, in someways, "the secret of Golf".

Its important for a number of reasons and Ive really being trying to work on it and get the feeling of the best way to initiate it in my own downswing.

Basically the right elbow moves in towards the body on the downswing following the hips, allowing the wrist cock from the top of the swing to stay unchanged as the arms move towards impact. This allows that angle to build up stored enegery which is released at the bottom of the arc, as the hands finally release after the ball.


Im watching some old Hogan tapes, its incredible to see it in action. In some slow motion footage of Hogan, you can actually see his wrist cock staying complete almost until impact..its incredible.


Same with Phil Mickelson. Theres a swing sequence shoot in a recent Golf Digest which you can see his wrists still cocked deep into the downswing.

Basically Hogan describes this as the "free ride" the wrists and arms take as the hips, then the shoulders are "fired".

Vijay Singh works on this constantly.

So Ive been working on this for the past few practice sessions and its been of great help.

Ill post some more on this after I get back from the Golf Ranch and see what input and ideas they have and how they releate it to the swing plane.