What do you think of Mark Crossfield?

[hacker101]

We watch his videos all the time, there are others on the web that are okay, but Mark is consistent and seems to cover a lot.

Plus when he is playing with his mates they all seem to have a good time. The more the kids have a person like this the better it will be for golf and the industry. I can tell you my son have seem everyone of them.

[kingofcola]

For comedic club reviews, check out Slinging Birdies Channel which includes trying out Miura's "Like Butter" reputation by hitting a buttered iron off a short stack of waffles as a tee.

[BrownCoast]

I don't mind his videos, I like that he compares all types of clubs, irons in the same category and even some that are slightly out of the game type category but will tell you what the differences are and how they might stack up against each other if that is what you are comparing. All in all I like his videos and find them very informing. sometimes it seems that he isn't negative enough on some reviews but I guess when you play at a low level cap or scratch golfer you can make most clubs do what you need them to do.

[BogieBob]

I enjoy all of Mark's presentations be they club evaluations or swing improvement.  I just wish I could do the things he advises to correct my slice.

[dkolo]

I adore Mark Crossfield. I love the way he teaches, I love the way he explains things, and I love the way he gives me new ways of looking at my golf game. Even though not all (or even most) of what he says in swing videos applies to me, it gives me new tools for my own mental toolbag for analyzing my own swing in the future. I adore his course videos with Rory and Buzza. I think his equipment reviews are very honest and thoughtful, especially since he approaches so much of the claims manufacturers make skeptically. I'm on his channels every day. Love it.

For Christmas, I got surprised with these personalized golf balls referencing the fact that I crib his catchphrase in day to day life. Complete waste of money, but God, did I have a good laugh.

[Leo Bond]

I was wondering why with a 13 handicap you have ping 15 driver with a steel X shaft, me thinks you should go and a golf fitting session with a PGA pro.

[dkolo]

MeandmyGolf is okay, but what separates Mark Crossfield from them is the club reviews. Meandmygolf is mostly geared towards lessons and drills because it just seems they're either devoted or sponsored by TMAG.

I also watch Rick Shiels, who is similar to Crossfield in that he does give tips, advice, and club reviews. Some of his reviews of new clubs comes out days before Mark Crossfield gets to it. When he gives swing advice to selected golfers, he does show a before and after to show some improvements after one session.

I like Rick Shiels a lot, and I've been getting more and more into his videos because he's been doing at ton of interesting reviews. I just think he's a little scatterminded sometimes and gets things wrong because of that (like messing up what the effect of the gravity core was supposed to be in the Callaway Big Bertha). I don't think his instruction is quite as analytical or in-depth as Mark's, but he's a lot of fun to watch, especially when he's carrying drivers over 300 yards. Great googily moogily.

The Meandmygolf guys are hard for me to take in big doses. Just a little too dry for my tastes. But very solid and helpful instruction. Their video on hitting spinny chips was very useful to me.

[golf-noob-bruce]

The Meandmygolf guys are hard for me to take in big doses. Just a little too dry for my tastes. But very solid and helpful instruction. Their video on hitting spinny chips was very useful to me.

Same here. I'll watch meandmygolf vids if they have specific golf instruction stuff I'm interested in, but there's just not much personality on camera to make me come back for more. Parfield's stuff I watch mostly for entertainment value.

[Steven Joseph]

Mixed feelings towards him these days. I enjoy the course vlogs and some of the Q&A;'s and techy talk stuff, but his ego is through the roof these days, his club reviews are all exactly the same, predictable and repetitive and his social media conduct (especially twitter) is rude, cocky, condescending and annoying to say the least. If you dont agree with him or offer another opinion he openly mocks you and belittles you (believe i know).

What annoys me is he mocks 'old school' methods, teachings and teachers for their 'out of date' approach. I just wish he was a little more respectful and his #originalcontent hashtag is b.s. and petty.

[colin007]

What annoys me is he mocks 'old school' methods, teachings and teachers for their 'out of date' approach.

You have any examples? A lot of the old ways of thinking are flat out wrong. Like not even up for debate. Oh, and Gorilla James is a beast!

[golfaddict1]

How about his annoying insistence on saying club is 'twisted around angle of shaft' instead of 'open/closed' just to be different? Everyone knows what open/closed means and implies and he's just trying to be clever and different for different's sake imo. His regular mockery of pro's swing thoughts and ideas about the swing?

Yes in real terms the only thing that literally matters to be a good golfer is that you can strike the ball well and consistently with a good face to path to target etc. But there is a reason all the top players have very similar looking swings and there are some traditional adages, which are useful swing 'thoughts/feelings' (not necessarily literal), which he disparages.

[colin007]

How about his annoying insistence on saying club is 'twisted around angle of shaft' instead of 'open/closed' just to be different? Everyone knows what open/closed means and implies and he's just trying to be clever and different for different's sake imo. His regular mockery of pro's swing thoughts and ideas about the swing? Yes in real terms the only thing that literally matters to be a good golfer is that you can strike the ball well and consistently with a good face to path to target etc. But there is a reason all the top players have very similar looking swings and there are some traditional adages, which are useful swing 'thoughts/feelings' (not necessarily literal), which he disparages.

Again, maybe an example would be helpful.

[saevel25]

Yes in real terms the only thing that literally matters to be a good golfer is that you can strike the ball well and consistently with a good face to path to target etc. But there is a reason all the top players have very similar looking swings and there are some traditional adages, which are useful swing 'thoughts/feelings' (not necessarily literal), which he disparages.

Top players, if you want to consider the PGA Tour + European Tour are the top players in the world. We are talking about 200 golfers out of millions of amateurs. They do not have all the same swings. They do not look similar. Does Furyk's swing look similar to Rory's. Does Tiger's look similar to Rory? How about Ricky Fowler, or Dustin Johnson. What about Bubba? None of these golfers have swings that look the same.

The only common adages that apply to these golfers are 5 Simple Keys:

Still in the end, feel isn't real. If you want to teach golf by using generic feels you wouldn't be a very good instructor. Each golfer needs to develop their own feels to match what the club is actually doing. These can be complete opposites when comparing golfers. A good instructor helps a golfer develop these feels that benefit their swings. Just throwing out generic golfing adages is terrible instruction.

[dkolo]

Still in the end, feel isn't real. If you want to teach golf by using generic feels you wouldn't be a very good instructor. Each golfer needs to develop their own feels to match what the club is actually doing. These can be complete opposites when comparing golfers. A good instructor helps a golfer develop these feels that benefit their swings. Just throwing out generic golfing adages is terrible instruction.

Which, in fairness, is exactly what Mark does in his video swing analyses and in the private lessons that he posts online. He gives particular and narrow swing ideas to the player to help them correct whatever issues he's seeing based on video or GC2 HMT data and then, in the live lessons, goes back to the launch monitor data to see if that made a difference.

I'll grant an earlier criticism made in this thread that he's somewhat childish at times on social media (the contrast is mostly stark because of how professionally and thoughtfully he handles himself in the in-studio videos), but it's entertaining and is meant to be a creative or recreational outlet for him. As with anything online that's offered for free, if you don't like it, the proverbial door is on your left.

I will take issue with one of the criticisms with his club reviews as being repetitive. He says it often himself: these clubs largely perform the same. They're built to similar tolerances and any differences will largely be matters of preference, which is what he focuses on: sound, look, feel, etc. The numbers are almost always within a pretty narrow band for each type of club. He does reviews because people want to see them and I get the impression now that manufacturers are sending him stuff to demo on his channel, whereas I felt like he used to review clubs he'd have laying around or got his hands on from fitting or demo carts (I say that because his reviews now come online around the same time others online do for particular clubs, so I infer that he's abiding by manufacturer embargoes). The other big Youtube guy Rick Shiels is in a similar boat with all of his reviews seemingly being the same (I take bigger issue with his reviews because his swing is more erratic than Mark's, which muddies the numbers more than he seems to admit sometimes, and because he gets some stuff wrong about the tech, like what the effect of Callaway's Gravity Core is; but that said, I watch the videos gladly for their entertainment value).

They've done a bit of it here and there piecemeal, but I would love for Mark or Rick to actually go through what a clubfitting looks like in a video; from beginning to end, showing what factors they feel drive decisions about selecting between different equipment and things like loft, lie, shaft, weights, etc. They always stress the importance of going out to get custom fitted, but then they always seem to review clubs with fairly stock settings on the clubs, with whatever tinkering does in fact happen happening behind the scenes. I'd find it fascinating.

[saevel25]

Which, in fairness, is exactly what Mark does in his video swing analyses and in the private lessons that he posts online. He gives particular and narrow swing ideas to the player to help them correct whatever issues he's seeing based on video or GC2 HMT data and then, in the live lessons, goes back to the launch monitor data to see if that made a difference.

Well that is true for those who think actually sending him one video is going to make a difference. He's going to give advice based on what works most of the time form what he's personally experienced giving instruction that is correlated to data he's collected with launch monitors or what not.

That really doesn't bother me because it is whats to be expected if you are not going to Mark for routine lessons. The best he can do is hope what he sees mostly happens helps your swing.

They've done a bit of it here and there piecemeal, but I would love for Mark or Rick to actually go through what a clubfitting looks like in a video; from beginning to end, showing what factors they feel drive decisions about selecting between different equipment and things like loft, lie, shaft, weights, etc. They always stress the importance of going out to get custom fitted, but then they always seem to review clubs with fairly stock settings on the clubs, with whatever tinkering does in fact happen happening behind the scenes. I'd find it fascinating.

Golf shafts are not that big of a deal. People are going to know what fits them, well smart people who don't overestimate their game. I can take 5 drivers, each with different shafts, but they would all perform with in a very modest range. Unless you try out an A-flex senior shaft or something, most stock shafts should fit an average golfer. If golfers follow a bell curve, than golf companies are selling to with in a standard deviation of that average. So really all stock shafts should fit in that range, with a few options that get towards one end or another.

[dkolo]

Golf shafts are not that big of a deal. People are going to know what fits them, well smart people who don't overestimate their game. I can take 5 drivers, each with different shafts, but they would all perform with in a very modest range. Unless you try out an A-flex senior shaft or something, most stock shafts should fit an average golfer. If golfers follow a bell curve, than golf companies are selling to with in a standard deviation of that average. So really all stock shafts should fit in that range, with a few options that get towards one end or another.

I completely agree, and he's done a video series where he's hit an A-flex and an X-stiff and showed how little difference it makes. I just added it to the list because it's something you'd at least consider in a full fitting, even just trying different ones to see which one you liked best, no so much what impact it had on the data. I'm almost certainly going to be buying a new driver at the end of this year when Black Friday sales come around, and depending on whether I get a full fitting or not, shaft's the least of my concerns, certainly at my high handicap. Mark Crossfield always talking about numbers in his reviews inspired me to pay attention to the non-distance numbers on the launch monitor the last few times I've hit on them at Golfsmith, and I don't get much difference between R and S flex, other than maybe 2 or 3 mph that could be entirely just subconsciously swinging harder. It's actually increased my enjoyment of his reviews because I've realized that, consistency aside, he and I have very similar clubhead speeds and yardages on the course, so I can live vicariously a little through him and his videos

[natureboy]

Like his stuff. Solid information. Generally well presented and explained. Not too jargony (or explains terms decently). Good mix of data and feels. Relaxed vibe and videos decent length to cover idea / theme without going too long.

I think 5-10 minutes is the sweet spot for golf instruction vlogs.

[InTheRough]

I am a big fan of the Crossfield videos.  His swing instructions are helpful in understanding the golf swing and his course vlogs promote having fun on the golf course with friends instead of taking the game too seriously.

Also, some interesting comments flying back and forth on Twitter and on his recent videos the past couple of days.  His less than stellar reviews of the new Nike vapor range of drivers has apparently ruffled some feathers at Nike and they have dropped their support for him (even though he played a covert driver for a while and is currently playing a covert hybrid and has repeatedly said good things about Nike).  I like that MC is willing to give honest reviews and doesnt get sucked in by all the hype some of the manufacturers create around their clubs and i lost a lot of respect for Nike because of their response.