The Haney Project: Rush Limbaugh

[Mr. Desmond]

Prediction:

The show will be entertaining.

The golfer will show improvement one week, failure the next (typical of Haney students).

We'll all see glaring holes in Haney's method of instruction.

We'll all want to see more of Hank's wife.

At the end, golfer will say, "I learned a lot, Hank is great, I've just got to do what he says."

Uh, no, please don't do what he says.

[Phil McGleno]

Originally Posted by Mr. Desmond

We'll all want to see more of Hank's wife.

My son told me she's what the kids these days call a "butter face" whatever that means.

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by El-Boogie1975

Hey, guys, thanks for your input. I'm sorry to take it away from Golf, so I will get it back to that.

In the preview I saw, he asked Hank what are they going to the driving range for?

I was thinking to myself, WOW, really?

Rush made no secret of the fact that he never spends time on the range, even to warm up before a round.  Sounds like my kind of golfer.

Watching the first episode, I found it more entertaining than anything I saw from either of the first 2 seasons .  Even when he is away from his EEB microphone, he still manages to be entertaining.  He just seems to be naturally comfortable in front of an audience.  I'm hoping that the series continues to be as good as the opening segment.

[Quinn07]

Originally Posted by Phil McGlenno

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Desmond

We'll all want to see more of Hank's wife.

My son told me she's what the kids these days call a "butter face" whatever that means.

I think the correct spelling for that is "but-her face". Insinuating that she is hot "but her face" isn't.

[inthehole]

Originally Posted by TheGeekGolfer

Will NOT watch this... Rush is a blowhard and an raving lunatic!

Don't you know he represents "talent on loan from God"

[Mr. Desmond]

Originally Posted by Quinn07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil McGlenno

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Desmond

We'll all want to see more of Hank's wife.

My son told me she's what the kids these days call a "butter face" whatever that means.

I think the correct spelling for that is "but-her face". Insinuating that she is hot "but her face" isn't.

She doesn't have the typical "Cheerleader" or "All American" Look. She is not a classic beauty in the face.

But I think, in the opinion of many, they would classify her face as pretty, cute, sexy, or even exotic in some ways.

http://www.golfspelledbackwards.com/2010/05/hank-haneys-wife.html

[iacas]

Butter face. Ha ha ah ahahahaha.

Funny stuff Phil.

Anyway, let's try not to go down the "let's talk about chicks" rabbit hole too much. Or, at least save it for the stupid upcoming episode where they put her in a bikini... because we all know that will be relative to whether Hank can get Rush Limbaugh to improve his golf game...

[Mr. Desmond]

Gosh, I need to stay out of this thread!

Because when there are no real golf issues to discuss, it goes every other way but good.

And back to topic, I suspect we'll see the same thing from Haney -- you want club flat here (demonstrating), then you want to swing your arms out to right field....

"But Hank, what do you do with your lower body?"

"Don't worry, it'll follow your arms."

(after 10 unsatisfying, unexplainable, frustrating years with Haney instructors that almost drive me nutz, one can predict)

[Harmonious]

Originally Posted by Mr. Desmond

Prediction:

The show will be entertaining.

The golfer will show improvement one week, failure the next (typical of Haney students).

We'll all see glaring holes in Haney's method of instruction.

We'll all want to see more of Hank's wife.

At the end, golfer will say, "I learned a lot, Hank is great, I've just got to do what he says."

Uh, no, please don't do what he says.

I might have misheard on the show, but didn't someone (can't remember who) say that Haney had given 50,000 lessons, and had worked with 200 tour pros?  I haven't seen "glaring holes in his methods", I have seen glaring holes in Barkley's and Romano's mental states that prevented them from improving. Limbaugh seems to be willing to listen to him a bit more.  Why all the hating on Haney?  I'd be willing to guess that he probably knows more about the golf swing than we do, and has been at it for many, many years.

[bkoguy07]

I watched the show again this morning, honestly it appears to me Rush has the most potential out of the 3 so far.  His swing isn't complicated or difficult looking, it just has odd timing.  I think once he gets his mental game down, confidence up, and learns a easier way to get his arms and body in synch he'll improve more than any of them.

[sacm3bill]

Originally Posted by Fourputt

Quote:

Originally Posted by El-Boogie1975

Hey, guys, thanks for your input. I'm sorry to take it away from Golf, so I will get it back to that.

In the preview I saw, he asked Hank what are they going to the driving range for?

I was thinking to myself, WOW, really?

Rush made no secret of the fact that he never spends time on the range, even to warm up before a round.  Sounds like my kind of golfer.

Well also, IIRC they showed more context of that clip at one point and Rush's comment stemmed from the fact that they were going to the range *after* a round.

Originally Posted by Harmonious

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Desmond

Prediction:

The show will be entertaining.

The golfer will show improvement one week, failure the next (typical of Haney students).

We'll all see glaring holes in Haney's method of instruction.

We'll all want to see more of Hank's wife.

At the end, golfer will say, "I learned a lot, Hank is great, I've just got to do what he says."

Uh, no, please don't do what he says.

I might have misheard on the show, but didn't someone (can't remember who) say that Haney had given 50,000 lessons, and had worked with 200 tour pros?  I haven't seen "glaring holes in his methods", I have seen glaring holes in Barkley's and Romano's mental states that prevented them from improving. Limbaugh seems to be willing to listen to him a bit more.  Why all the hating on Haney?  I'd be willing to guess that he probably knows more about the golf swing than we do, and has been at it for many, many years.

Up till Haney Project we've only seen or heard about Haney working with tour pros who already had freakish talent. Hard to look bad when you're instructing one of them (although many would argue he made Tiger worse). Now that he's having to deal with high handicaps, it's exposing his inability to coach.

[JetFan1983]

Originally Posted by Harmonious

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Desmond

Prediction:

The show will be entertaining.

The golfer will show improvement one week, failure the next (typical of Haney students).

We'll all see glaring holes in Haney's method of instruction.

We'll all want to see more of Hank's wife.

At the end, golfer will say, "I learned a lot, Hank is great, I've just got to do what he says."

Uh, no, please don't do what he says.

I might have misheard on the show, but didn't someone (can't remember who) say that Haney had given 50,000 lessons, and had worked with 200 tour pros?  I haven't seen "glaring holes in his methods", I have seen glaring holes in Barkley's and Romano's mental states that prevented them from improving. Limbaugh seems to be willing to listen to him a bit more.  Why all the hating on Haney?  I'd be willing to guess that he probably knows more about the golf swing than we do, and has been at it for many, many years.

Since I'm a high handicapper, you may find this post amusing, but....

For one, I don't agree that Ray Romano had a poor mental state, especially when juxtaposed with Charles Barkley. Romano's problems were fairly clear I thought: He came over the top, he flipped the club over the plane severely, and he didn't push his hips forward enough. As a result, his weight was constantly on his trail foot, and he struggled mightily with clean contact.

Haney also had him "loop" his backswing, which IMO is a wasted motion. He has you take the club out away from your body on a straight line path (which is off-plane) and then looping it back to the inside. Why not just tell him to bring his hands to the inside immediately?

Haney never once discussed the concept of the flat left wrist with Ray. And the flip was never addressed once in Ray's season. The only time I remember the left hand ever being mentioned was when Haney would tell Ray to "square the back of his left hand up at impact." Unfortunately, this didn't work so well for Ray. It seemed to actually make his flip worse.

Haney has never once discussed the ballflight laws, and I'm pretty confident if he did, he would say that the club path causes the initial direction of the ball, not the face angle. This is just a guess though.

*

Ray does some things well. He loves the game, and he seems to get a lot of time to practice. He certainly has a long way to go, but a good start would be him gaining an understanding of why the ball flies the way it does (so he can diagnose his ballflight mid-round and make the necessary tweaks to be able to save rounds), understanding that his weight needs to be much more forward at impact, and understanding that he can't break his left wrist at impact.

Never once were these things discussed. I just saw them beating balls. Haney would throw out the occasional course management tip, which usually is a pretty solid tip, but that's not going to cure these glaring swing flaws.

Weight too far back; losing the flying wedge; no extension through the ball.

[Harmonious]

The show is entertainment, not golf instruction.  It is far funnier to see Romano screw up a shot and then make a funny comment than to show two hours of Haney talking swing planes, "flying wedges", impact postions, ball flight laws, etc.  For all we know, he did just that.  It just wasn't included in the show.  But they included Romano's poker games, pro-am appearances, playing one hole against his comedian friends and other non-instructional parts.  Take the show for what it was.

[JetFan1983]

Originally Posted by Harmonious

The show is entertainment, not golf instruction.

Oh, okay. That makes it better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harmonious

The show is entertainment, not golf instruction.  It is far funnier to see Romano screw up a shot and then make a funny comment than to show two hours of Haney talking swing planes, "flying wedges", impact postions, ball flight laws, etc.  For all we know, he did just that.

Or he didn't. And explaining these concepts can be done in about 5 minutes. You still haven't defended why the Jim Furyk loop is a good thing to be teaching a mid handicapper pushing 50.

[Harmonious]

Originally Posted by JetFan1983

Or he didn't. And explaining these concepts can be done in about 5 minutes. You still haven't defended why the Jim Furyk loop is a good thing to be teaching a mid handicapper pushing 50.

I'm not defending anything.  I was just trying to explain why it isn't an instructional show.

[Mr. Desmond]

Originally Posted by Harmonious

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Desmond

Prediction:

The show will be entertaining.

The golfer will show improvement one week, failure the next (typical of Haney students).

We'll all see glaring holes in Haney's method of instruction.

We'll all want to see more of Hank's wife.

At the end, golfer will say, "I learned a lot, Hank is great, I've just got to do what he says."

Uh, no, please don't do what he says.

I might have misheard on the show, but didn't someone (can't remember who) say that Haney had given 50,000 lessons, and had worked with 200 tour pros?  I haven't seen "glaring holes in his methods", I have seen glaring holes in Barkley's and Romano's mental states that prevented them from improving. Limbaugh seems to be willing to listen to him a bit more.  Why all the hating on Haney?  I'd be willing to guess that he probably knows more about the golf swing than we do, and has been at it for many, many years.

Went to Haney instructors for 10 years - nothing wrong with my ability or flexibility, have no physical or mental limitations. Play a good game of tennis, basketball, and have a very good short game in golf since I did more research, taught myself a bit with DVDs, books, etc, and went to Pat O'Brien for putting and short game.

I'd go to Haney's Ranch and watch him teach, had his primary assistant(s) teach me during the '90s, and early 00's. The Haney method is not good at teaching the basics of the swing. They push your body here, there, and say little ... that's the Hank way .... keep it all secret and keep you ignorant. They are terrible with teaching the basic arm/body connection and the lower body movement. My experience is they want the club at a certain spot at the top, and don't really give you the basis of how to get there consistently -- ie, the Furyk loop is what often results -- the disconnect of the arms from the body, but moreso than Furyk in many cases. From the top, the basic mantra is swing to right field in a balanced manner. They teach you the exaggeration of what they want (normally, the opposite of what you're doing), and then don't stop you when you do the exaggeration -- weirdest teaching I've ever experienced. Finally, when you see the video, you see you're doing the exaggeration and say, "Hey, why didn't you stop me when you noticed I was doing the exaggeration?" No answer is what I got.

That's it.

All it led to was inconsistency. We'd go into a video room -- I'd see that Furyk crap in my swing, in my case, a bigger disconnect -- and tell the instructor, "I want that crap gone. That's embarrassing. I spend too much money to look like that. Do something, anything."

They couldn't do it or would not do it or would not emphasize the cure. One said that it wasn't important!  They either wanted my money or these guys had no idea -- all they had to say was keep that left arm tight against the chest, and get a feeling of turning the chest, keep the hands quiet, and that will eliminate most of the issue. Nope, they did not. I don't think his instructors understood the golf swing.

Go into a golf shop in Dallas, mention Haney's name, and except for a few ignorant loyalists, all you'll get is a roll of the eyes. All I heard were horror stories.  And I kept going -- I was an ignorant loyalist, until even I couldn't take it any longer. I felt as if I was scammed. Really.

At the same time, it's not only Haney's method -- there is just a lot of bad instruction out there -- poor teachers. I went to a top Hardy guy - he didn't mention the left arm tight against the chest or handsiness, or the right elbow pointing more downwards on the backswing ... or solutions.

Then in the midst of this instruction desert, I found TGM and Stack 'n Tilt, and finally, something that works consistently to improve my game. I am drinking good stuff. In fact, I went to a TGM guy, and during my first lesson with him -- he said, "Hey, keep that left arm tight against the chest.... "What did Haney do to you? What bull_ ."

Still, it's all about the quality of the teacher and what he teaches, how much he cares, whether it's working, and how well the instructor communicates with you, and how much you're willing to listen and work. I've had great guys who aren't allowed to teach what they know because they are hemmed in by a "method," or just don't know. It's a bit of a crap-shoot out there.

[Harmonious]

@Mr. Desmond:  So you didn't like Haney's teaching teaching very much?  Sounds like a terrible experience.  But I do have to ask the question:  If it was so terrible and you didn't see any improvements, why the heck did you continue with it for 10 years???  If I didn't like what I was getting out of the first couple of lessons, I'd find a new teacher.  Happens all the time, even with Tiger.

[TourSpoon]

Tiger stuck with him for more than a few sessions as I recall, but then again, he won a couple of tournaments too.

In response to Desmond's comment, I was thinking that any instructor who is hemmed in by a method has more invested in the business model than they do your golf swing is practicing "Keep 'em coming back" at your expense...Literally at your expense!

The one thing that I realized watching this show and viewing this thread is how loaded Rush is...those are some spectacular places he plays.  I should have been rich instead of good looking.  LOL!