[quote=phillygolf]
Thats the thing. I know recently I have been questioning alot of hte 'minutia' of TGM - but it comes from wanting to understand better. And where better then here? With friends?

PC,

You had better discuss this stuff here and not in the general public...or they'll send someone to take you away!
EC

Finding the Truth in TGM
 

Here is another little piece on finding/discovering TGM...


I discovered TGM in less than a year of playing golf...so I really don't know what it's like to play the game without it...When I picked up the game of golf in September of 1990....I made the decision to see if I could find a method, philosophy and/or text that spoke the truth about the golf swing in scientific terms.....I had been a professional musician up until that point and studied percussion with some of the top drumming instructors in the country....really world class instructors.....for any of you musicians turn golfers.....I studied with a drum instructor Gary Chaffee who taught Vinnie Coluiata (Frank Zappa, Sting, Gino Vannelli), Steve Smith (Journey), Joey Kramer (Aerosmith)...I studied with Jazz drumming legend Joe Morello (pianist Dave Brubeck), Joe was a big influence on Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham and I also studied with Top Studio Drummer Gary Chester (taught Chick Corea drummer Dave Weckl)....all of these instructors laid the foundation for me to seek out instructors who teach at the highest levels within their field....that's what lead me to the golfing machine. In less than a year of playing the game I picked up a copy of Golf Illustrated, the July 1991 issue and read the article about Tom Tomasello....I was fascinated by the interview.....Tommy's approach seemed to be radically different than any golfing philosophy that I read about up until that point. One month later, a copy of TGM arrived in the mail....within 30 seconds of opening the book I knew this was the sh_t. Studied the machine for two years before contacting Mr. Tomasello which was at a point of total frustration with the text...I had to contact this Tomasello guy....at this point, I don't know how I got a hold of him...back in 1993 we didn't have the internet (or at least not at the level it is today, I know I didn't have it)....yeah, no forums, man you were on your own then...like the stone age of golf instruction compared to what you can experience with a click of a mouse today.

So, in October of 1993, I made the trek to Myrtle Beach more specifically the southern part of the grand strand...Southside Beach, Deer Track Golf Resort where Tommy had his indoor studio, if you have a copy of Tom's interview, all of the pictures from the interview are from his indoor studio at Deer Track. On Tom's desk, there was a copy of the 1st edition of TGM and next to it was a copy of Ben Hogan's "Power Golf". On the wall behind Tommy's desk there were pictures of two golfers in mid-swing, one swinger and one hitter, the two golfers were Ben Hogan and Moe Norman.

As far as my three day school is concerned....first, my swing during this time period was very flat (my swing model at that point was Bobby Clampett)...I had no concept of educated hands and the delivery path concept....my swing was so flat..too much inward on the three dimensions, Tommy didn't let me try his incline swing plane in fear that I would break it (yikessss)...much like the device you see in TGM with golfing model Diane. I have about 50% of my three day school on cassette tape, both the indoor sessions just going over the concepts and the outdoor sessions on the driving range...out on the driving range a lot of my instruction was focused on educating my hands to the straight line delivery path and developing an understanding of the magic of the right forearm. For the first day on the range, I had a hell of time getting the ball in the air....it wasn't until the third day that I began to hit good shots....Tommy was a great story teller...at lunch during the three day school he told me the story of Homer's start as a golfer....supposedly Homer was an excellent Tennis player!!! I believe Tommy said Homer's boss invited him for a round of golf and that first round was a disaster for Homer….as you all know the next 28 years produced one of the most thorough analysis of the golf swing (1st draft!!!!)..One funny moment with Tommy was at the end of the three day school...we went over to a local bank so I could cash some travelers checks so I could pay Tommy...as I was receiving my cash, the teller asked me with a big smile and a sweet southern accent, "am I going to see you on TV". Tommy taught golfers from around the world, Top Amateurs, European PGA tour pros, and PGA Tour pros…I believe this woman wasn’t kidding, I believe she saw some of Tommy’s students on TV. While we were going over TGM concepts in Tom's studio, a student of Tommy's called from NYC (TV station owner) and wanted to tell Tommy the sensations he was feeling with his number 3 pressure point. It appeared to me from that conversation, Tommy really enjoyed supporting his students after they left his school....as I left his studio on the third day...Tommy handed me the video tape that many of you have contacted me for a copy....I hope all of you who have a copy have enjoyed it as much as I have....it really is a great piece of instruction and it's a great record of how Tommy taught....solid..straight to the point instruction!!!

DG

11-05-2005
 

Even though the last post in this thread is 5 years, 5 months and 12 days old I felt the need to post here.

I had heard of The Golfing Machine in high school. This was probably in about 1994, it was a story in one of the golf rags about the "lost generation" of golfers that had shown promise in the 80's but had lost it. I think it included Hal Sutton, Scott Verplank (before their comebacks) and Bobby Clampett among others. The thing I remember from the story was how TGM "ruined" B.C.'s swing. His swing "got quicker and flatter the more mechanical he got".......yada yada. So of course I HAD to see what it was all about :laughing9

I checked the book out from the library, I remember trying to read it and feeling like I must not know the english language because I had NO idea what the heck H.K. was saying. I wasn't ready for it.

I was an ok player by my senior year, averaging 40.3 in our 9 hole league matches, but I knew I was never going to make it as a golfer so I picked a real major (music....hahaha real major). I continued to play golf, a lot at the beginning of my time in college. My first year the University course had a student membership for $250, unlimited play. I wore it out, but eventually they raised the rates, school was getting harder and I met my ex-wife (if only I had known she was a "swinger".....) so I played less and less. Graduated, got a job, got married, got divorced, so playing golf took a back seat to life. I still got out 8-10 times per year and could still scrape it around in the low 80's with some luck.

I couldn't stand not playing much and not really playing well when I did so last summer I started browsing some online sites to find info. On this other site the big stuff seemed to be stack and tilt and Sean Foley.....and some TGM info. I remembered my earlier exposure and started looking around. I met our friend KevCarter "over there" and he helped my understanding of what I was learning and where to look for the good stuff (translation: pay attention to anything on Lynn Blake Golf).

My learning is just beginning but I am very happy with what I have been working on and the progress I've made. I have tweaked just about every aspect of my swing that can be tweaked. The thing that I love is that so far is I'm hitting the ball SO SOLID. I played 9 holes for the first time last weekend and shot 39 with out making any putts. The most impressive thing to me is that every iron shot was solid. I played one ball for score and a couple more just to try stuff out and while I didn't hit every shot straight they were all solid. It was a nice feeling, now if I can just make some putts :sad2:

I'm actually looking forward to the golf season now, maybe I'll play a little more this year. I have some big goals for my game in the coming years as I get back to work (took time off to go back to school full time) and can spend more time and money on the game. I hope to make it down to the swamp someday, I'm literally saving my pennies and nickels. I'll make it some day, for now this site is my guide. Thanks for all the help and happy G.O.L.F.ing :golf:

Great to have you here!

My little band of goofballs from Minnesota have had wonderful success paying attention to our alignments through impact by focusing on basic motion. Luckily, basic motion is about all we can do all winter... Those who have to go beat drivers all day seem to progress A LOT slower than those patient enough to follow Homer's formula. Those alignments really do work their way into your total motion when you focus on basic... you wouldn't believe the success Jerry G. is having with his golf team using basic motion!!!

just another piece of advice from the not so wise but a good follower... :-)

look, Look, LOOK!

Kevin

I have known about TGM for years but didn't pay much attention to it. I knew that Clampett was the purest striker in his day until he ventured from TGM. Then last fall I went to see Rick Murphy to heal my ailing game and the concepts were applied TO ME. Then thru Rick I met Lynn and spent a morning with him. Although I don't understand much of it, I believe in the alignments. I believe in FLW. When I do it, it feels like nothing before.

I can be impatient at times but I hear you with this. Basic motion is hard but so important. My favorite right now is acquired motion, really focusing on down out and forward to a good horizontal hinge and both arms straight (AFTER impact). Really gets me focusing on being on plane back and through, tracing, and gets me into position to swivel back on plane. I have problems with that last part. Any time I get going wrong in total motion I go back to this and it gets me right again (for a few swings :laughing9).

I am so excited about what I'm working on. Like I said, irons were solid though not always where I'm looking. This is a huge improvement. Now if I can get the driver and putter working.....look for me in the U.S. Am :eyes:

I hope at some point you have a chance to work with Lynn. I really want to go see him again...

It's one thing to learn the proper alignments, and quite another to have them brought into your own swing, your way. Lynn is THE master of finding and communicating what will be best for you... everybody is different!

Kevin

That's the goal though at this rate the little green guy might be another 900 years old......I need to win the lottery. I'd show everyone how to blow a couple million in style :golf:

Trust me- Lynn is worth the cost, which is actually very reasonable.

I read Bobby Clampett's book, talked to KevCarter about that and he introduced me to the hallowed work of Homer Kelley. Then he conjured up a day with Yoda for us. I've been drinking the Kool-Aid ever since.
I am an absolute sucker for Basic Motion. Through basic motion I find I can isolate so many different components and work on just one particular component at a time. A year ago I would hit 10 sets of ten balls in my basement using BM. I would be lucky to hit 7 out of 100 as I would want to. Now my odds have increased significantly.
As a JV golf coach, I watched my guys on the range hitting balls and watching flight and not thinking at all of what the concepts were that I had tried to introduce. Now we go somewhere other than the range and do basic motion to work on our Feels. Then we go to the range and I get to see many more divots in front of the ball rather than behind the ball. Sure, not all of them are there yet, but many are and it is just a treat to see that Eureka look come over their face.
Yup, I'm very at home in TGM.

I have to add that I am also very at home right here at Yoda's place where all you cats come together with all the valuable insights.
Thanks,
g

Cheers Bar
 

Thanks, Taffy. You were terrific at Greensboro!

:salut:

Actually, Jerry, I think of this as OUR place. I'm just the lucky stiff who happens to be the proprietor!

:occasion:

I hope nobody got the wrong impression from my post- I agree that Lynn's rates are quite reasonable. I was just looking at some prices online. Butch Harmon-$5900 for three days at his school....wonder how much time those in attendance see Butch? David Leadbetter- 3 hours for $3900. WOW. Not to mention the quality of "information" is quite different.

I'm coming from the angle of an unemployed full time college student, where "2 eat for $20" at Applebees is extravagant :laughing1

I know exactly what you mean. It's tough out there right now!

I can't speak for other teachers, but I'd also add that when Lynn is with you on the tee, he is totally engaged and 'on' the entire time. Not only is he great at what he does, he works very hard at it.

I started playing golf in 1998 at the age of 36. I, like many others, struggled with the instruction I was receiving. My first instructor showed me a picture of Tom Kite at impact in one of the rags and he actually said to me: "That is what I want you to look like at impact." He then told me to work on that. NO how to, just look at the picture and try to emulate what I saw. WOW - Needless to say I didn't go back to see him.

After a lot of study on my own, videos, books, golf rags,Golf Academy Live and a lot of practice I could shoot in the low to high 90's most of the time. Even got to where I shot in the 80's a quite few times, of course a score of 100 was always a couple of bad shots away because, I now know, I really didn't understand how to swing a club and when something went wrong, well, I had no clue what it was.

Second instructor was in 2000. I liked the instructor, taught me to slide hips to cure OTT move. Bought a series of lessons for 600 bucks or something like that and then bam, the next week the studio was closed and I couldn't find them anywhere, whole thing went bankrupt. Then went to the Tec guys, for me it was just a practice facility, instruction consisted of showing me videos of golfers and telling me to swing like them. Not really a pleasant experience at all.

Gave up game in 2003 for a couple of reasons, mainly because I was quite frustrated with not improving despite the money I was pouring into my game. New equipment, video this, book that, the latest training aid that would cure all that ailed my swing.

Played two or three times since 2003, then in January of 2011 I decided I was going to get back into the game. Played a round in February and sucked, bought some new irons, played a couple of times in March and actually improved from shooting 110 to 92, but I knew my swing was not good. Too inconsistent. I want to swing like a pro, or as close to it as I can get.

Was searching the Internet trying to find an instructor that could actually help my swing. I am a geek and always want to know the why and how, not just the what. I did an internet search, stumbled across Manzella's site and TGM. Liked what I read and researched about TGM.

I then stumbled across Yoda, and well I'm here and I ain't going nowhere else. I'm taking lessons from Yoda's Luke, well one so far, calling to schedule another. Plan on seeing him again and again and again... :eyes: Ted is a super nice guy and very knowledgeable, I like the cut of his jib!

Everything I am learning about The Golfing Machine is helping me and my swing. Being here at LBG is a feeling of being home. Someone else said that already, I think. TGM explains all that I never understood or thought I could learn about the golf swing. Yoda is a great communicator, great teacher, he cares and he teaches! Yoda also cares about the the TGM heritage, keeping the history alive and from what I read, Yoda is keeping H.K.'s dream alive of what TGM should be, for all those who seek a great G.O.L.F. experience. All the great folks who are part of this special community of Lynn Blake Golf are also keeping the dream alive, sharing, talking, teaching, learning.

New Personal Best in Canada - Thanks Lynn Blake!
 

Earlier this summer I read an interview with Lynn Blake:

Q: "Is there a best way to apply these principles?"

A: "You bet. Start with the short shots, the little chips and pitches. Thousands of them. Here is where you learn the basics of grip, stance, posture, the stationary head, the straight left arm and the bending right arm, the right forearm position and right triceps extension, tracing the line, the impact hands location and clubshaft forward lean, and most of all, the motion of the hands through impact.

Here is where you rid yourself once and for all of the old ‘bending left wrist, flattening right wrist’ throwing motion at the ball. And you do it by concentrating on keeping the left wrist flat and accepting nothing less until it is. Only when you’ve mastered the flat left wrist should you expand the program to include the full pivot strokes. That’s because, without it, nothing else works very well, and more information means only more confusion.

Unfortunately, few instructors insist on this staged process and even when they do, most students won’t stick with it. And without this discipline, we come full circle to your first question: Nothing changes and handicaps remain high. The flip side of the coin is that, once mastered, this alignment becomes the gateway to a lifetime of better golf".

http://www.iseekgolf.com/golfinstruc...ith-lynn-blake

Then I watched a video on YouTube of Lynn demonstrating "basic motion".

I am an obsessive golfer, with the discipline to build a firm foundation for a sound swing. I have since hit thousands of 10-15 yard chips in my back yard, with a sand wedge, endless repetitions of basic motion.

In my first 5 rounds this year, my average score was 99.4. Last Sunday was a typical round, 99 with 41 putts.

This Thursday, I had a breakthrough. I shot 40-46=86, with 31 putts! I am beginning to feel like a player. I still had at least 4 or 5 shots where I threw the club from the top, resulting in pull hooks long and left. And I lost several strokes to my driver, which is going back into the basement! I can reach a 481 yard par-5 with two 6-irons, and an 8-iron.

Icing on the cake, when I got home Thursday, my mailman had delivered a copy of THE GOLFING MACHINE, my very own yellow book!

I am inching my way through chapter 14. I now have set my sights on breaking 80, which I have not done in almost 40 years.

I am 64, started in playing in 1956. My first lesson was with Lionel Hebert, although I honestly don't remember a word he said.:eyes:

Great job RHH7!!!

Keep up the good work. Go slow with the book, ask lots of questions! :salut:

Kevin

got addicted to golf in 2000...here in the igloo land of quebec canada, winters are long so i started looking at golf forums and ran upon a caracter named Randy Sparks...a TGMer and a Homer fan...i challenged him with my lack of knowledge...a couple of years later, here i am on msn every morning with him and Dave, the dude from OZZY-LAND exchanging vids of our swings for a couple of years, trying to ingrain TGM...

Got to meet Randy in his hometown of Destin and spend a day of "HITTING", wich was a surprise for both of us...He let me talk to Chuck Evans on his cell after sinking about ten 12 footers per hit stroke...geez...those were the days...

Too many years have gone past since this meeting and the internet exchanges, but life gos on. I would love the do it all over again, and my passion for TGM lives on, especially through this forum although i am quiet, i'm still around and listening and learning.:book:

standard address
 

WHEN STUDYING THE TGM BOOK TRIANGULATE A CoNCEPT USING THE SEARCH FUNCTION OF OUR FORUMS, THE VIDEOS, AND THE BOOK BETWEEN LESSONS. STANDARD ADDRESS AT MID-BODY DEMANDS A CORRECT GRIP ALA HOGAN AND THE MACDONALD MARCHING DRILLS AND CROSS THOSE WITH HOGAN LOWER BODY VIDS ON YOU TUBE! WHEN YOU MOVE FREELY LAGGING UP AND DOWN PLANE YOUR FLAT FROZEN LEFT WRIST APPPLIED TO THE HINGES WILL GIVE YOU GREAT BALL CONTROL.
:golf:

What brought me to TGM? Very simply, a scientific system that I could depend unwaveringly and not one that changes with the whims and fancies of self anointed gurus, who if they cannot convince you, will confuse you.