The Eight Step Swing

HarperResource

Chapter One

The Jim McLean System

An Overview of the Entire McLean Program,
Including the 25 Percent Theory

Let me say straight out that I do teach a Jim McLean system at all of our schools. That means we have a certain way we teach the game of golf I am very aware that most teachers refuse to admit they teach a system or they do not teach any system at all. I believe they are making a big mistake. For sure, a great majority of teachers are teaching one thing this year and then they will change it the next year. They may change even more often than that. To me, there are three basic types of teachers:

1. Pure method teacher
2. Semi method teacher (system)
3. No method (no system) teacher

The worst type of teacher for you is a (no system) no method teacher, because there is no consistency. Often a no system teacher is someone who has not taught very much, nor has a clear concept in his or her mind of what they are teaching. They probably teach what they are currently working on in their own game. This type of instructor will teach you something he read in a golf magazine or something that interested him on the Golf Channel. The biggest problem with this kind of teacher is you will work on something for a time and then come back and get a new way of playing or swinging from the same person. I have seen this type of instructor and they are certainly not people that I would want to work with myself This very inefficient teacher is inconsistent and is someone most people will pick up doubt from. It is pretty easy to see this type of teacher does not really know what he is doing. On the other end of the spectrum is the pure method teacher, who has a strict set of rules and a precise picture of the golf swing. They teach the same basic lesson to everyone, and they get very good at it. Over time, that teacher can have a set answer for any question. There are several well-known teachers who are pure method teachers, but who say they are not, they definitely teach the same thing to everybody, at every level. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. just slightly different is the semimethod teacher. These teachers have a system that is more flexible. I created this category for myself so I could have my system fit into a category. That is, I have a strict way our instructors teach the game of golf, but a very flexible way to use my system. My strict way of training my instructors came from many years of observing the best teachers in the world, watching them teach many different types of players, and taking hundreds of lessons myself. There are several teachers who were extremely important to me, however, none more important than Carl Welty, whom I met back in Seattle thirty-five years ago. Carl has been a great friend ever since. I observed his indoor teaching method and was tremendously impressed with the progress of his students. I believe his study of the game is unmatched by anyone in the history of the game. I watched and worked with teachers like Jimmy Ballard, a great pure method teacher. He was very good for the more advanced player and he had a great system for teaching his ideas. Nobody was better organized than Jimmy and many modem teachers have stolen his material with no credit. He is the most criticized yet most misunderstood teacher I have ever known. Still, he was undeniably very successful. I then worked a great deal with Ken Venturi. What a phenomenal break that was for me. There are many things I have written down from him and I read them periodically to this day. One is, "if you take a lesson from me today, you will get the same lesson from me twenty years from now, because I am not changing; I also would have taught you the same lesson twenty years ago." He learned his ideas and fundamentals from Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan. Ken would say the lessons he received from Nelson and Hogan had already been proven on the battlefield. They also worked for Ken. I was tremendously privileged to work with Venturi and to learn many things from him. It was probably the most exciting thing that happened to my teaching and my long-game instruction has been hugely influenced by Ken. To work extremely hard with someone who was a U.S. Open Champion, play about one hundred rounds of golf with him, and watch him work with all types of students including Tom Watson, John Cook, and Tom Weiskopf was training you could never pay for. Knowing that Ken Venturi shared ideas he learned from two of the greatest players and greatest ball strikers in the history of the game of golf was very special. Ken would always tell me how crucial it would be to my career to teach the fundamentals of the game and to be very consistent. I also watched Johnny Revolta teach a lot in Palm Springs and took lessons from him myself and he had fantastic ideas. Both Venturi and Claude Harmon got many of their ideas from Revolta. Jackie Burke has been a mentor to me in both golf and other aspects of my life. Jackie helped me get every job I applied for and gave me tremendous ideas on the golf swing. I relied heavily on his advice on so many things. I worked with Harry Cooper at Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York. Claude Harmon worked for Harry Cooper in Chicago and always had the highest praise for his swing ideas. I also spent large amounts of time with Claude Harmon. I listened to him talk about all aspects of the game and I took several bunker lessons from Claude, who is fairly labeled as the best bunker game teacher in history...

Excerpted from The Eight Step Swingby McLean, Jim Copyright © 2004 by Jim McLean. Excerpted by permission.
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