Gross Misrepresentation of Truth

[RichardGreening]

Hi All,

As some of you may have seen over the last few days there has been some discussion over two different types of instruction.

The owners of this website (also own Purestrike) challenged us to provide them with a Swing or some Methodology behind Straight Talking Golf as they are tired of people posting on here how good STG is.

Well guys, who are we to disappoint!

I look forward to seeing some healthy discussion :-)

[Golfingdad]

A couple of things ...

1.  You are comparing your swing (nice swing, by the way) to Mike showing us some drills.  That isn't his actual swing.

2.  The 5SK teachers are all damn good golfers with good swings, so I'm not really sure why you are bothering with that comparison.

3.  You guys (yes, I'm lumping you in with Dalton, WillR, and the rest of the "Straight Shootin" gang) don't really seem to understand what "meat" is.  It's already been said, but these posts are just like late night infomercials.  Show me a picture of a fat slob, then show me a picture of him in good shape, then TELL me that he got that way using your product, and your product only.  But heaven forbid, don't tell us anything that might give us a better understanding of how, exactly, he got that way.  You want to create a bunch of skeptics, (and perhaps lure in a few gullible ones) then that's the perfect formula. :)  Good luck with it!

[David in FL]

So how does the STG swing and teaching methodology differ from that of 5SK? All I see here are videos of a couple of golf swings. What's the process by which you get there?

[poser]

I honestly haven't seen all the debate but, you are very cocky about your swing and it has plenty of faults also.  You're theory on the instructor having a good swing for the student is flawed also.  Look at the PGA tour and their instructors... I'm sure the don't want you advertising your non-free theories on their site.  If you were giving the information away for free I doubt they would have a problem at all.

I would take my old instructors swing over both of those anyways.

[Russtopher]

Is this a joke?

I'm serious here. Is this a joke? Mike and Erik go out of their way to help as many people as they can, along with so many others on this board. The other thread was rightfully closed down, and this pops up instead?

I don't think anyone wanted a debate - posters in that thread wanted to know some of the ideas and techniques behind Straight Talking Golf, and what made it such a great program. They didn't get it, and now there's this video?

Guys, if this was your idea to get the name of your program spidered more often by Google, I shudder to think of what potential researchers of your DVDs are going to find out.

[RandallT]

I don't see much to discuss, Richard, so your hope for a healthy discussion will likely fall flat. Nobody here wants to bad mouth your swing or your product. We just are interested in the key philosophies. There was some hint of it in the last thread, but it was like pulling teeth to get it out. If you'd like to discuss the key aspects, great. We are all ears. Otherwise, not much to discuss. Good luck to you guys selling whatever it is you sell.

[Hacker James]

Trying to dissuade or persuade anyone from a defensive position rarely works. What does work is to state facts, show method, produce results and let those results speak for the effectiveness of the method.  I can already see where this thread is going to the same dead end as it did before.  Good looking swing - definitely!  BUT getting there, what are the differences? What are the specific keys? Exactly how is getting the club face squared at impact accomplished in terms of the proposed methodology?  What's new or different?  What I believe is that this is still a marketing ploy to somehow lure a few out of curiosity to look into it and maybe make a purchase. You won't get the nay sayers, but you might attract a few curiosity seekers and it did not cost any thing and if only one sale resulted, it served its purpose. That more or likely has already been accomplished and we may never know unless the purchaser(s) were disappointed and reported back and that is unlikely as they would not want the embarrassment of having taken the bait.

I'm done.

[tristanhilton85]

WTF? The only thing that anybody asked of you was to provide meat as to what Straight Talking Golf is all about. In other words, what do you teach? For example, what is it that you would tell that 12 year old kid that is in the end of your video to help him improve. What things do you say he needs to work on?

Having personally worked with Mike and Erik, I can vouch for their teaching abilities. It wasn't all that long ago that I was over a 20 index and after this next revision I should be in the 12s... Golfing Dad has made huge improvements going from a 9 to a 6 just this year. The same can be said for multiple members. And if you go into our My Swing threads you can see how we did it and the kind of coaching/instruction we received. If you go to the 5SK Video thread you will see exactly what it is that Mike and Erik teach.

All we want to know is, WHAT DO YOU TEACH? Do us all a favor and forget about 5SK and what they teach; we all know that stuff already, we want to know what you teach.

Oh, and for what it's worth, I've seen a bunch of the 5SK guys swing and would take any one of those swings in a heartbeat. It was at best a little disingenuous of you to use a drill by Mike as his swing in the video you put together.

[geauxforbroke]

There are a lot of golfers with great swings that don't know a damn thing about how it works, or how to explain it to someone else. Showing me a video of your swing, no matter how good it looks, tells me nothing about your teaching methodology. I really don't understand why it's so difficult to have a discussion about the golf swing. Instead you make a video trying to slam other instructors. Frankly, it's rather sad and pathetic.

[Mr. Desmond]

Not again! :-)

[jamo]

Things "having a good swing" is different than: -Being able to teach someone ... anything, really. -Identifying the strengths of your swing, and being able to impress those things upon someone else. -Pointing out the weaknesses of your swing, or the the weaknesses in the swing of any good player for that matter. -Evaluating someone's swing and prioritizing the things that someone needs to work on. -Developing drills and feelings to get someone who has been struggling to make a change finally get it. -And, finally, being able to find an accurate representation of Mike McLoughlin's swing that isn't a drill, despite the fact that he has made over 4500 posts on the forum, has his own "My Swing" thread, and has dozens of videos of his swing on his YouTube channel. ;-)

[mvmac]

Richard,

What an odd way of trying to get free swing advice Also don't know where you got the idea that Erik and I were owners of Pure Strike, we're not.  I just randomly picked that hip video as an example of substance, not as an example of the 5 Keys swing or 5 Keys in a nutshell.  For more on 5 Keys go here http://thesandtrap.com/t/61376/5sk-video-thread or here http://thesandtrap.com/t/55426/introducing-five-simple-keys

Here are examples of 5 Simple Keys swings.  There is no model, 5 Keys swings are just swings that fulfill all 5 Keys

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

A couple of things ...

1.  You are comparing your swing (nice swing, by the way) to Mike showing us some drills.  That isn't his actual swing.

2.  The 5SK teachers are all damn good golfers with good swings, so I'm not really sure why you are bothering with that comparison.

Yeah like I said, just randomly picked that video and you can clearly see it's not a full motion swing.  It's more of an informational video I did with Dana Dahlquist, who isn't even a 5 Keys instructor.

As Erik has already said:

Mike and I have delivered THOUSANDS of posts with thorough, helpful information (and the reasoning behind it) on this site.

No other instructors can say that and I'm proud of the work we do and information we share on the site.

Quote:

-And, finally, being able to find an accurate representation of Mike McLoughlin's swing that isn't a drill, despite the fact that he has made over 4500 posts on the forum, has his own "My Swing" thread, and has dozens of videos of his swing on his YouTube channel.

Must be the same research team that discovered that Erik and I were owners of Pure Strike

[jclark]

You have a product you are trying to sell. Your product doesn't clearly show how or what you are trying to convey. I would not buy that product without more information, facts, research behind it. Bottom line.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

1.  You are comparing your swing (nice swing, by the way) to Mike showing us some drills.  That isn't his actual swing.

This is true.

Additionally, nobody asked you to post "meat" so that they could "rip it apart" - that's a simple and obvious lie on your part.

I'll spare everyone from listing the other facts that you either twisted or got wrong.

I've left the other locked thread and this one public because, IMO, they don't do you guys a service or any good at all. The posts are public, and while your side is calling us names and playing the role of the victim, I think a neutral third-party can plainly see that we've been MORE than fair and generous in extending you EVERY opportunity to explain SOMETHING, and every courtesy in doing so, going so far as to ask several simple, clear questions which go unanswered.

And your response is this thread - which you posted after spamming members via Private Messages and vowing at least two or three times that you were done posting here.

Originally Posted by RichardGreening

I look forward to seeing some healthy discussion :-)

In my experience it is not possible to have a "healthy discussion" when one side comes to the table from such a disingenuous position.

Stay classy, Richard.

[RichardGreening]

Hi GolfingDad,

I've very happy to share.

I started playing Golf 15 years ago and Dalton's videos where the first thing I ever watched (or read) that actually got me off the sofa and made me look in the mirror at my golf swing.

I had zero hand eye coordination skills and even to this day I am still a 'Golf by numbers' man rather than a 'feel player', but if I can do it anyone can, trust me! At the time  (like most) I had a picture in my head of my swing looking like Tiger Woods. and of course when you really see it for the first time it is nothing like that! :-)

I will try my best to give you my take on the first videos, my favourite thing about them is that Dalton manages to get you to drop everything you think you know about Golf at the door so you start from scratch by telling you some stuff about the Golf industry, club fitting, etc...

I remember before I watched the videos asking someone for some tips for my swing and they said 'start again', I took that as a real insult and it made me very angry at the time, but he was right! the point is Dalton said it in a way that made you happily start at the beginning as you felt you would come out the other side hitting straight shots. I haven't watched PureStrike, but I have never seen any instruction on Golf that manages to de-programme you and then re-programme you with a whole new swing like Dalton's. I often wonder why more coaching videos haven't followed suit as this to me was the real key. (Learn one technique from scratch, rather than just adopting bits from different stuff).

The fundamentals he teaches are pretty much 'Hogan's Five Lessons' and he references this in both the old and new videos.

The 'Big Key' to why so many people get and love his teaching is the way he teaches it and the why he words stuff. The best way I can describe it is like the lyrics of a song, He takes something that would take me 4 pages to describe to someone and does it in a paragraph, therefore it is so much easier to understand. Rather than your brain trying to retain loads of information as someone talks 'at' you, he explains it very simply and often uses little 'key saying' that you will just remember for the rest of your life. So when you go to the driving range and you are working on stuff the 'saying' pops in to your head rather than trying to remember everything your 'Pro' told you at your last lesson. He is probably not the first to do this, from talking with him, he is a massive fan of Harvey Penick's Little Red Book and again he references this in the new video.

The best example of 'meat' I can give you from the first video is the way he explains the grip. before watch the video I was using and interlocking grip and I'd had a couple of lessons where the Pro changed me to an overlapping grip and it took weeks/months to even feel right. When I watched Dalton's old video for the first time he didn't just explain the grip, he explained how the muscles in my arms work. He explains that your little finger, ring finger and middle finger control the inner muscles in your arm and these are the controlling muscles and your index finger and thumb are connected to your outer muscles which are your power muscles. He was the first and only person in 15 years to teach me that!

Within 3 months of watching the videos I went from never breaking 100 to shooting in the mid-low 80's

In the interest of be constructive, the issue I found with the tapes was hitting my Woods, I became very good at flushing my irons, but would often leak my Woods right (I later discovered I had a very steep swing plane) , while trying to improve my tee shots I started having lessons and my local Pro totally ripped my swing to pieces.

I spent the next 10 years going from reading books, to watching videos, to having different lessons with lots of different Pro's and watching my Golf go up and down.

A couple of years ago I decided to embark on another swing re-build (which I have done many times!) as I wanted my swing to look picture perfect on camera as I was going to be doing a lot of club testing. The guy I ended up working with for about six months (I'm guessing) taught some of the principles of "The Golf Machine". He had my clubface closed at address, my first move was up and out, rotating to a 70-80% rotation (if you consider the club head parallel to the ground at the top 100%). On the down swing I was trying to hold my wrist angle as long as possible to a low and left finish. I got to admit is was super straight! the biggest problem I had was a little block right if my timing was off.

There were a couple of "alarm bells" over the six months I worked with him, the main one was "The Long Thumb", he wanted my grip very strong with my left thumb as long as I could make it which lead to a couple of strains and pains in my left hand.

Later that year I played in a Charity Pro-am with the Senior European Tour. I was paired with a guy called George Ryall, who I have played with a couple of times in the past and we get on really well. So we used the day as a bit of a catch up, he told me about the Tour and I told him about the stuff I was up to. I said I was finally getting more confident with the level of Golf I play and will probably look to do more Golf stuff next  year and that I may even finally do my PGA, to which he replied "not with that swing". After a long conversation with him and some of the other Tour guys (All Senior)at the dinner table I ended up spending three days with him doing a 12 hour a day boot camp.

What George wanted to teach me was effectively "Clock Face Golf" (which undone the other technique), as we went over the fundaments again and again, everything he was saying just reminded me of watching Dalton's videos, when I got back the first thing I did was re-watch them (first time in 8 years), which is where I'm at now (with a slightly flatter swing plane).

I think the reason I find the original technique works so well for me is it is the first technique I learnt and that has created "natural tendencies" in my golf swing, when I rebuild/change my swing I find myself fighting these tendencies, which I can do on the range no problem, but "coming down the straight on Sunday" is sometimes a different story.

To give you an idea of the differences between 'The Golfing Machine' swing and 'Straight Talking Golf'. With the Golfing Machine I was always fighting to try and keep my right foot planted to allow space for my arms on the downswing, with STG that is not an issues for me I can just let my body turn as it wants to. Also as I am not trying to 'Lag' the club anymore and 'hold off' my release I generate a lot more club speed with a lot less effort. The other technique may work really well for some Tour players but I am nowhere near at strong  as those guys, Tiger is like (He-Man). I also find that the STG swing allows me to hit the ball 'dead straight'. Which means I now find it al lot easier to shape the ball both ways (with the Golfing Machine it's very hard to hit a draw).

As I said before I am a 'Golf by numbers' kind of guy here are some of my Stats:

Golfing Machine Swing:

• 3 iron, Club head speed 87mph, Ball Speed 120, Distance 192

• 6 iron, Club head speed 83mph, Ball Speed 115, Distance 165

Straight Talking Golf:

• 3 iron, Club head speed 92mph, Ball Speed 130, Distance 210

• 6 iron, Club head speed 88mph, Ball Speed 118, Distance 180

*the distances do not really matter so much as I have several different sets of clubs, but these numbers were taken with the same set. (I have several sets of blades and cavities and they all launch at different angels so travel different distances, but I I'm guessing this is a discussion for another thread).

So my friends, this is the geneses for 'Straight Talking Golf', I contacted Dalton last year and after a lot of discussion we decided to work together and we set about re-shooting the old tapes. I have spoken with a lot of very happy students this year as I was trying to figure out how we could improve them. I also had an input I on the things I found hard to understand the first time and hopefully the new version is an improvement on the first (If that is possible).

The reason people are reluctant to share information with you is simple, it works! :-)

.

[iacas]

I typed a whole little response, then deleted it. Then I just restricted Richard from this thread.

I really, really don't like people who lie. We don't ban people very often here, but if you lie - especially about me, Mike, or other members… that's too much.

Richard, you've lied. Dalton's lied. I'm tired of it. This doesn't serve any purpose except to advance your "victim" mentality, when we've gone out of our way to give you umpteen chances to share actual information.

The record will stand and I am comfortable with the conclusion a neutral third-party will reach should they visit these threads in the future.

[Pretzel]

All he appears to be doing is advertising even when he thinks he's showing what you call "meat". I can understand why they may not want to share information for free that they could get paid for instead, but it still baffles me as to why this person is trying to pass off these misrepresented comparisons as solid information.

We're not here to pick apart your method, but most people would be interested in genuinely comparing and contrasting different focus points of different swing methods.

Lastly, that most recent "comparison" appeared to be between a 3/4 swing and a true full swing. The first one had very little shoulder turn, which would be the likely reason for improved distances. It also likely accounts for the ability to draw the ball better, since you would be less likely to come over the top in an effort to try and hit the ball further.

[Hacker James]

well, looks like "they" got 16 pages of advertising in the way of "free press". (see my original post as to motivation). Even with the long dissertation on the value and success of the methodology, not one scrap of instruction or explanation other than "this is what I used to do before seeing the light of the Dalton swing". I am surprised it went this far.  The best thing would have been for nobody to respond at all, but OTOH, allowing it gave ample opportunity for explanation, so I guess that was fair.

post script:  I would bet that the next thing you will hear( on other forums)  is that TST blocked this commentary because the owners were afraid of the competition or some similar nonsense.