Take Ownership of Your Swing. Now Repeat It! with Tony Manzoni (RIP)

0:01 Hey, This is Fred Green of golf Smarter with our spring back into golf season with the late Tony Manzoni. This episode, originally number four hundred eight, published in October of twenty thirteen, was the fifth time that Tony blessed us with his wisdom and insights to the effectiveness of his single pivot swing. Now, at this point we hadn't spoken to Tony in about eighteen months, so we brought him back to pick his brain for two weeks in a row. His book, The Loss Fundamental is available on Amazon, and his DVD, which we converted to a private link online, is also available when you write to me. For the most comprehensive information ever collected about Tony Manzoni, please go to Golfsmarter dot com. If you'd like access to the video, please write to me directly golf Smarter podcast at gmail dot com or click on the Heyfred button at golfsmarter dot com.

1:00 Golf Smarter number four hundred eight published on October twenty nine, twenty thirteen. Take ownership of your swing, now repeat it with Tony Manzoni. This is golf Smarter sharing tips and insights from golfers and golf professionals to help lower your score. It's worked for your host, Fred Green. Welcome back to Golf Smarter, Tony. Thank you, Fred. It's great to be back. It has been way too long and since you know's it feels to me like recent history, but it's really not anymore. But we just surpassed four hundred episodes on Golf Smarter, and I've been looking for those instructors who've been on the show numerous times over the last eight years and said, who can I bring back to help celebrate four hundred episodes? You know, having the four hundred episode was kind of like a hole in one, or maybe even like when the Red Sox won the World Series the first time. It's like you just an dissipating it so much and then it happens. You can go, that's it.

2:05 Yes, you want a duck to drop dollars. And guess as a grog, get it right exactly. But it's amazing to me the response that we've always had when when you come on the show, because people just love the loss fundamental, Well, I'm. Glad to hear that and and I get kind of the same results. The great thing that happens is when I give a golf lesson to someone and then I get a note maybe a month or two later saying I'm playing so much better and blah blah blah, or someone buys my book and calls me or sends me no saying I'm gonna stay enjoyed. Now. You know, that's every professionals dream that that you made some sense and you help them, And that's what that's what we're all trying to do, is we're trying to take somebody and improve their game. I think the majority of guys like me are really in it for the passion of watching someone grow in the game and get a little better and maybe even want to play the game more than than the money that we make.

3:14 Well, it's kind of yeah, yeah, I mean it's kind of like where we come from in the podcast world. It's all about engagement, right, engaging engaging with your people, whether your customers, your clients, your patients, your listeners, whatever, it's engaging with them and getting that feedback it's incredible that you've earned it. Well, I like to think so. I've put a lot of years studying the game, and I made a lot of drastic changes in the way the way I present the information and hopefully it's getting better and more succinct. Uh. It's typical to talk too much when you're giving a golf lesson, but then you can't talk too little, so you can't have any dead spots like on the air when you're when you're broadcasting. Uh. And as I teach to my golf management students how to teach this game, it's really important that you create an atmosphere of learning and allow the person to be relaxed and not worry too much about hitting a bad job in front of you. Uh.

4:19 Yeah, I think that a lot of people walk away from lessons, uh overloaded with information. Uh. It feels like on a lesson, especially, most people go in for one or two lessons and they're like, I'm going on vacation, fix my swing right, And so there's this information dump that comes from an instructor, especially that once to change everything that you do. And you're saying, I just want to hit my irons better, and you're like, well you've got to, You've got to change your swing. Yeah. If anyone's been played for any length of time, what you really want to do is take what they have, maybe set them up a little bit better the ball, but make sure that you can get them to repeat their action, because in the final analysis, you've got own your own swing. No matter what the concept you're trying to do, you've got to be able to repeat that.

5:04 I mean, you know when you look at Trevino or the guys that ain't quite a bit left and blocked it right, or Furic that has that very loopy swing, but they repeat it, and that's the key. And that's definitely the key. Now. I think by not shifting a lot of weight to the right and then having to shift it all the way back, that eliminates that big timing element that most people can't do, especially after you get passed for it becomes almost impossible. So those kind of things you need to know. You need to know where your body is relative to the ball. But if you hoist it or you take it a little flat, I really don't think that means much as long as you do it every time. And I can't tell you how much impact that little piece that you just tossed away had on me, not just when I came down and played with you and had a friend of mine take a lesson from you as we videotaped it, and the golf Smarter TV video that we put on called Ben Hogan's Secret revealed that is just short one. It's received more views of any video that we've ever done here. It's it's so incredible that it's it's not about Oh, I'm talking about the hips way and that the slide to the right. Once I started keeping my lower body quiet, I was making much better contact and my back ache, my back aches at the end of a round were gone.

6:32 Sure, because you're not indianping to reverse city. You're ended up what we call posted up in the swing. And you know, it's really nothing new. I mean the old times to stay stay in the barrel, Well, there's a lot to that. There really is a lot to say staying center to the ball. And if you look at film of Sneed or Hogan or Palmer or Nicholas or the guys that had long careers, they didn't move off the golf ball. They stayed on the ball, and they didn't purposely try to stay on it. It was the way they moved that kept them on the ball. And that's the key. You can't tell somebody don't move your head in the swing. That that's counterintuitive. What you want to say is, Okay, if that right side goes behind you, then the head can't move right if you if you're turning from the left side, you're going to you're gonna push back a little bit away from the ball, and then you have to get back to that starting position and get a little open and hit the ball. That's a lot to do in that millisecond. The down swing cakes.

7:31 So uh, I hope it was just he figured this out, and I know he took it to his grave. But there is film that you could look at and if you, if you're a crazy person like me that will sit in front of a camera video and watch it over and over and over and slow it down and keep looking at it, you'll start seeing little nuances of the things that that man did. And he for sure played off the left side. Well, if you're a crazy person, then we're all crazy. I think. You got to really want to learn, you know, because as I tell my students, there's never a day that I don't I don't learn something about the golf swing, some little thing. I'll be teaching someone and I'll say something and I'll think to myself, I got to keep that as a mental note, and as soon as I'm done with this lesson, I got to grab a ball in a club and try that, because it's it's like it's like jazz singers. You know, you're improvising constantly. You're not hitting that same note you're on the melody, but you're hitting a bunch of different notes. Teaching is kind of that way, because that light bulb goes on with a phrase, but that phrase could be totally different for each and every person, even though you mean the same thing.

8:45 I've had people take lessons from me for four or five lessons and I and I am repeating the same thing over and over again, and they'll say, oh, you've never told me that before, And I said to them, well, I guess I'm gonna have to tell you to you in another language because we've been speaking English most of the time and have been saying it over and over. But people here at times and don't. And as a teacher, you have to really be cognizant of that. That you have to be really clear, and you have to even ask the question you understand what I mean. And not only do you understand what I mean, I want you to show me what I'm trying to get you to do. When you can get on that kind of a basis with someone, then they're learning and you're teaching.

9:32 Well, I want to do a quick recap for people who are just being introduced to you to the first time, because you know, there are always new people discovering golf smarter and I greatly appreciate that. And you have been on so many times. We've been face to face, we've been on the phone. But I'll give me a brief history of when you started playing golf and what your golf career was and where you are today. Well, I started as a caddy like most people from my era. I was about eleven years old, went through the caddy ranks, borrowed clubs from the pro that he discarded, got a mixed bag of club to start playing the game.

10:16 I was a pretty good baseball player, so I had good eye hand coordination, so I immediately hit the ball pretty far from my size and that carried on through my golf life until now. I'm a little older, so get along the two that don't hit it as far as I work on my shirt gain. But during that period of time, I came up with what I saw and what I heard is how to deliver the golf club to the ball, and not knowing that the majority of what I saw and what I heard were cliches that had been passed on through the years and not really based on any real truth fact. There was really more theory or what someone felt they were doing. And we know that a lot of terrain pros will write a book and they'll say this is what I do, but then when you watch them in film, they're not doing that. It's just that's the sensation they have. So you have to be careful about words. Are they actually are they actually the motor that drives a swing? And as I continue my education, you know I was a very handsy arm swing player free arm swing. I bought it into that and I played pretty good, but under pressure, I always hooked the golf ball. I always hooked it and got myself in trouble. And through the years, you know I played, I was good enough to play by qualifying to play the tour, and that we didn't have the right to qualifying systems that they have today. You just went on Monday and like they call us rabbits, and you try to qualify and I did on a number of occasions, and I got to play, but I

11:47 always hit that wall. I was. I was quick out of the gate two three hundred, real quick, and then whip one out of bounds and then blocked the next one right because I'm trying not to ofk the next one and so forth. So that fought that, and I realized that I didn't have you know, and and not rightly so, because I felt like, well, I just don't have the talent for this. But the truth was I didn't have the information, and unfortunately for me, I got the information too late to do anything about it. So I decided, you know, I'm going to give this information to people that have had the dream of being a player, to have the dream of playing, or somebody that just wants to play better and not have to practice so much.

12:28 So as I evolved as a teacher, one lucky day, a gentleman came in my office and said, I've got a letter copy of a letter written by Ben Hogan about the golf swing, and also video that really wasn't authorized, was kind of home video, and you know, Hogan didn't like his swing video. After I read the letter, you know, it said something in there that was read flag to me. He said, when I'm at the top of the swing, I'm on the instep of my left foot, and I thought, well, doesn't he mean right foot? And then I watched the video and it was exactly that. And I went out and I started hitting balls that way because in my mind I was thinking, well, am I going to reverse my wight shift? But I didn't. I got more on the ball and address, and I moved through the ball during the impact, and all of a sudden, my iron play got real crisp. I quit it in a thin and fat and I started. I started using some students of minus guinea pigs, trying to set them up more left sided, and so that they because you know, no matter how you take the club back, you've got to be on the left side of where you're hitting the golf ball. So I got them a little bit more on the left side, I say, sixty forty, and I did that, and this thing started evolving. I thought, Holy Macro, I got lightning in the jar. And a bunch of my students said, you've got to write a book. You've got to get this information out. And in the process of writing the book, stack until came out, which is

13:59 it's similar and so out of but not in the action action because they they really finished in kind of a reverse sea and I don't believe in that. I think that creates a lot of strain on the on the body, and I think that's actually an unnatural way to finish. I think posted up as better. Uh, and my elderly players who never get off the right side found that they could get to the left side for the first time in many, many years. And that's the proof of the pudding for me. Amazing. And then you went on and started coaching on the college level after you know how. Yeah, as I told you, I got involved. I got involved with Callowey Golf. It wasn't Callowey Golf and I was involved with it was called Hickory Stick and I made the cold call to Elee Calloway to get him involved with increased the golf club company. In the first call, he came down to look at him, walked away and said, I wish you could luck. And then about two weeks later, because we couldn't make payroll, I called him again and he said, it's funny that you call. I've been thinking about being involved with you, and he bought up partners out and then made myself, Richard Parrenti and Elie Calloway.

15:08 We were all thirty three and third partners in a new company called Callawai Stick and then it became Calallei Golf, And of course the story is a beautiful story because it's a billion dollar company. And I think I made one of the great cool calls in golf, for sure. And then from that point after I left, Calloway cashed out in my stock and so forth, I wanted to do something in golf give back. College of the Den had a piece of property that I raised the money to build a golf facility on a driving range, classrooms and a little museum, and it's continued to evolve. I got lucky and got the golf team, and this is our twenty seventh year in a row. We won the conference championship. That's going to be a record somewhere.

16:00 Twenty seven years in a row. You've won the conference championship. Twenty seven years in early and we're going to try to win it this year, the twenty eighth. We won the state championship a number of times under my tutelage and we won. We won what we call the Southern California Regional Championship a number of times, and I've you know, I've been blessed. We're in a wonderful area. We were one of the few campuses that as a driving range in a golf academy on campus, so that helps. I'd like to think that a percentage of the success came from me, from my teaching. But it's been a win win for me. And as I tell everyone, this is the best thing I ever did in golf. And I mean I qualified for the Senior Masters, and the day I qualified, I think I probably called everyone I ever met to tell them that I qualified. And I've had some moments in golf, but nothing has fulfilled me like working with young people and teaching them golf and teaching them what how they're supposed to act when they win and lose, teaching them, you know, character and some of the things that I've seen from the greats how they acted.

17:10 Arnold Palmer is a perfect example of a guy that conducts himself so well. Everyone loves Arnie. You can't help but love him. He's just a great man. And I try to pass those things on to the especially in today's world where you got kids with their pants down, you see their underwear, all that stuff like that, And I try to explain to them why that's to turn. I understand. When I was a kid, my folks hated the music I listened to, and I think that's with every generation. But I try to tell them, you know, how you have to prioritize and how you have to have a goal now and you have to start working towards that goal and these other things like music and style, those are okay, but that can't be unless you're a hip hop artist or you're a music artist or something.

17:55 You can't go well looking like that because everyone's judged the first cliance, know so, So I found my niche. I really like mentoring and I love coaching, and I love to watch some of these kids hit that ball farther than I ever dreamed. Wow. All right, and you've you've revealed a couple of things here, but I hope you don't mind me asking how old are you. I'm a seventy seven as of July Tause when you. Said from my era, no one says that unless you're from that era. Yeah, Well there was there was big animals walking the land. Oh well, that's because you're in the Palm Springs area and it's just everyone's away.

18:38 Well, I'm very lucky. I I want to say, knock on wood, but it's hard to find wood nowadays, but knock on plastic. I am in really good shape and I work at it. I have to work at it. And being around young people helps me work at it because typically they're all pretty fit these days, and so we can of about nutrition and doing all the right things. And you know, I love to hear Gary Player talk about put Kouman on everything you eat. You know, he's a marvel that guy. And more people that would copy him and some of these other artists, they'd be better off for it.

19:19 And at seventy seven years old, I'm sure you know, like this is going to enhance credibility for you, Like crazy, what are you shooting these days? I still shoot far? And how far do you drive the ball. To sixty five? Well? I pop it. I can get it off for about to ead. I don't know. Yeah, but everybody gets really well downhill. I mean, when you're on a normal drive, is that really what you're doing on normal. Di My normal drive is in the it's over to fifty, you know. With me, I'm in that to sixty range. Like I say, every now and then, I cook one and you know, you get a turnover a little bit and it'll get out there. I can get out there pretty good still. You know, I can still reach par fives and stuff. I used to hit it well over three hundred yards and I was just a skinny kid, but I was very flippy wristed, and you know, and that was with a percimon would. But I can still move it a little bit, you know. I mean my golf team, everybody hits the three hundred yards. They got arms three inches around and they hit a three hundred yards.

20:21 It's just crazy. So what kind of new things have you discovered with your recent crop of young studs over at College of the Desert. Well, you know what, I'm finding, they're not so reluctant to listen. They're more curious about the golf. So again, part of it is because they see the record we've compiled. And I'm not going to say that every player that plays for me plays off the left side, but a lot of them have changed to it. And when I explained it to them, they realize that mathematically it could makes sense. It's not very It's just that, look, if we got to get to the left side, and when we hit the golf ball, the farther we get to the right, the harder is to get to the left.

21:08 There's a whole bunch of things happening on that downsling that you've got a time and we want to eliminate timing as much as we can in the golfling. And so if we can rotate on a axis instead of two but one, if we can trap the club against our body via the connection of our arms to our body, then as we rotate, the club face stays square through impact. And it's easy to do physically. So you know, for the older generation out there, they say, yeah, but that you've got to be young to do that. Know, it's the opposite. The older you are, you know, you're going to find it much more efficient. And the key here is that you can square the club to the ball easier, so you get a lot of square hits. You know. I've got clients, believe me, late in their eighties that are said, tell me, they're hitting the ball farther now than they did fifteen twenty years ago because for the first time in their life, they know they they're hitting the sweet spot. When you're throwing that club from the top, they're trying to roll your hands over. Good luck, Charlie, because you may hit on a year, or if you're practicing out eight hours a day, then maybe you can do that. But who practices over a half hour a day, you know, So it's a godsend. I was very lucky that someone walked in my office and gave me a letter in a video because it changed the way I teach, and consequently it's helped everyone I work with, whether they're I've got a girl that I worked with two years, player of the Year last year. Her name is June Jangs.

22:37 She's on my video and she's winning everything and she's now going on to the regionals of the state. And I mean, you watch you hit a ball, you just go crazy. I mean, she's a fifteen year old girl that can hit it to sixty two seventy. And that's not an exaggeration because when we play, she keeps it up with me. When she busts, when she's got to ride by her buy me and I tell her don't do that anymore. But it's it's wonderful. And I just took on a seven year old Korean boy that I'm going to tell you. I'm gonna tell you something. I'm going to film. I'm going to take a film of the Indian golf ball and I'm going to send it to you, and it's going to shock you. Seventies are seventeen seven years old, seven years old, seven years old and clocks.

23:19 I mean, I mean, he hits an out there where you say that's not possible, and he puts like a madman. And I can't take a lot of credit for this. His dad came to me and I watched this little boy on the on the driving range, and it was like watching a little Ben Hogan. And his dad came. He said, which you take give my boy lessons? And I said, well, yeah, but you know you've done a really good job. He says he won't listen to me. He won't listen to me anymore, which is cracked up. So I took him on. And of course I don't charge kids. I'm you know, it's for me. I get such a reward by teaching him and watch him. And the first thing I found is when I talked to him.

24:03 He was really shy all I. He was a top of his head. So I said, you know, you have to look at me and I talked to you. So at the end of the lesson, I said, sim, okay, Ivan, what have you learned today? He said, well, you told me I have to set up a little better at the ball and take it back a little bit more with the bigger should return. And I have to look at you when you talk to me. And you know, I just I just thought, oh, man, you know that's that's really cool that he was listening. Wow, And can you share his name? I don't even know the last name. His name is Ivan, and he's a he's a I said, Korean. He's a little Japanese. I excuse me, a little Chinese boy, okay. And the next time I talked to I'll tell you that the girl June Jang and she's Korean uh, and she's going to be you watch. You will see her on the tour and not only will she make the tour, she will win on the tour. She's that good.

24:52 Wow. Wow. Yeah, Well, please send me video. I want to see this and we'll definitely put it up on the website and let people see it. If you've got to see this, I got to just give you a quick little story. After a lesson of this last Tuesday, I brought him over back to the We were on the turf way back, and I brought him back to the front of the range where a lot of my golf team, where I said, okay, guys, I'm going to show you how's supposed hit a T ball. He teed that ball up and he hit it. I don't know how far he hit it, but it was crazy far for a kid that and he's a small seven, but he's got this lag right at the bottom that God gave him. Okay, and he busted it, and I said, I just want to show you that that wasn't luck. I pied another one up and get this a little farther.

25:34 I mean, he's got you know, he just can't wait to show off. So it's it's a beautiful thing. Yeah, he's seven, of course old. He wanted to show people what he can do. Well. You know, it's so interesting because I've had many conversations with people and have asked this question of many instructors and you know, about getting young people started, because I you know, people go hi, how much my ten year old practice? Or how when should I? What should I? How do I get get interested in golf? And I always talk about just start at the putting green, the practice putting green. It's it's free, it's easy to figure out. It's a way to compete with the kid that lets them do it. Because hitting a golf ball is so difficult for anybody, and and you know, it's so easy to get discouraged by hitting a golf ball. But if putting, if you can fall in love with putting as a little kid and it just becomes a second nature to you, then everything else opens up for you.

26:29 That's right. And then when you search for an instruct instructor, find someone that really really enjoys teaching young people that that's that they have a passion for it, because they'll be patient and they won't overload them, and they won't it won't be don't do that and don't do this, It'll be it'll be taught positively. Most PGA professionals have some idea about this, but there's a lot of people that are not PGA professionals that are wonderful teachers. You've got to be real careful with that first one. And the reason I say this with June, her parents came to me and said, will you teach her daughter? And by the way, she hates golf. And I said, why doesn't she hate golf? Well, she had a lesson and she just couldn't do it. She couldn't hold the club, she just couldn't do it. So I sat her down and I said, I understand you really don't like golf.

27:21 She says, no, it's too hard. I said, well, how about if I give you a lesson and then you make a determination if you want to continue, and she said okay, and we hit it off. And I knew what to do with her because I've done this enough to know what to do. And now if you ask her the question, what do you think about golf, she says, I love golf. And so it's, you know, it's that initial moment when someone is helping them that they understand that this is such a great game and you can really do this, and you have to instill those feelings. And it can't be penal, especially in the SOTY. I should never be penal number one. But you just can't.

28:08 You can't make them worry about performance. Initially, it's like a dance. I'm teaching you a dance, and we all look a little funnier, and we dance, and I always do a little dance and they laugh and and we break the eye sole. I really caution people this. First of all, this is one of the greatest games a young person could learn. For business, for pleasure, for a social you meet quality people. So get your kids on the golf course, get them playing this great game. But make sure that, like going to a doctor, pickoff someone that that that knows what they're doing. Don't be looking for a bargain basement deal. If you're if you're in palm desert, and the deal's real good because it doesn't cost you anything.

28:51 Go to donuts. You know a thousand kids are going. But no, I you know, I have a rule. I always have had that rule. I won't charge up until about six ten years old, and really sixteen, I can't. I just can't do it. I mean, I, well, it's very generous with you. Well, you know that's it's my time. I can do what I want with it. Really, that's how I feel about it. And I promise you I get as much out of as they do. You know. You know, as I tell my students, when you're generous, you get a lot more than the person you're giving to. And that's what I can tell you. That should be written in stone. And I really believe that. And when I even comes as shows Up or June or whoever I'm teaching, and I can't wait, I'm chomping at the bit. And that's how you should be. I'm not special. That's the way you're supposed to be.

29:44 Well, if anybody ever is considering taking a lesson from Tony or wanted to take him up on this offer about you're under sixteen years old, do me the favor. If you're going to book time for your child with book an hour for yourself too. I mean, give the guy something, throw a bone. You can both go out and get a lesson. He's not going to charge you for your kid, but let him. You know. Anyway that you should know is that Tony has a book and an accompanying DVD that the only place you can find these are on Tony's website and at golfsmarter dot com. It really is? Is that still true?

30:25 Yes? Okay? So the book is called The Loss Fundamental One Simple Move Better Golf Forever. And then there's a complimentary DVD called The Lost Fundamental. You can buy as a combo or you can buy individually whatever you'd like, but please go to golf Smarter dot com or go to the golf Smarter app. You can purchase it right off of the app, the free app that we now have for both Apple and Android, and you can buy it from there and Tony will send it to you directly. Order comes to me, but I send it to Tony and he sends it out. I don't fulfill it, but you should really consider it's not a thick book. It's an effective book and it's same with the DVD and check out on our When you're in the app, go into videos and find Ben Hogan's Secret Revealed to find the video that Tony and I did together. Tony, I have based on the things that we've already discussed. I had so many more questions that I want to get into details on swing mechanics, which I don't do a lot, but I trust you there's some questions that I have and some things that you said, you know, like when you talked about when you were under pressure you hooked the ball that to me is absolutely fascinating. So can we spend some more time doing a member's only episode?

31:39 Absolutely awesome. All right, Tony, we're going to do this again for at least another thirty minutes, starting in just a moment. All right, thank you very much. I really I really enjoy talking to you, and I'm so glad you're back on the show.