No More Lies

Sam is out, so the Good Misses guys sit in. Brian Manzella, Golf Digest's #14-ranked teacher in America, asks Kieran Harris and JT Perrine where the lean-left, ball-back chip shot came from, and neither of them saw it taught 13 years ago. Brian makes the case that it's a fad: Ben Doyle never needed it, there's no mechanical requirement to be in front of the ball except your hands, and regular golfers are never going to hit the tour version anyway. Plus the 100-golfer pitching contest, the flick drill, why handle dragging is the root of most pitching yips, the right-knee rule that shamed a generation, and why nothing out there is the solution to the pitching yip epidemic.

Chapters 0:00 Cold open 0:45 No More Lies 1:09 Sam is out. Meet Kieran Harris and JT Perrine 3:05 The Big Lie: where did the lean-left chip come from? 4:59 Brian's short game growing up: chipping on total crap 7:16 Left-leaning spines with the ball back. Why is it a thing now? 9:37 JT: chin over the belt buckle, ball first contact 10:13 Arc depth vs. low point, defined on Trackman 13:38 Nobody taught it 13 years ago 15:04 Kieran: more weight left, never spine tilt left 17:07 Kieran's full-blown chipping yips 19:30 Ben Doyle: the tee drill and the three wood pitch 22:09 No mechanical requirement to be in front of the ball 22:53 The Nunez Tour will never hit the tour pitch shot 25:46 How much angle of attack? JT says 3 to 4 down 26:41 The 10-handicapper lesson test 28:28 Kevin from the Nunez Tour goes to Toronto for a pitching lesson 31:35 The "I'm not getting under it" crowd 34:31 Through the ball: toss it or keep it up the left arm? 35:23 The 100-golfer pitching contest: wrist only vs. no wrist 39:08 Same contest, everybody has the yips 41:13 The flick drill: hands don't move 42:40 Handle dragging is the root of most pitching yips 44:41 Kieran's de-junk drill: trigger finger on the steel 46:26 JT is going to try the flick 47:07 Where's your data? Ridiculous Trials 48:40 Three forces and three torques: the rope 50:14 Why the bunker shot is easy and the 15-yard pitch isn't 52:58 The right knee: shamed from 1960 to the early 80s 54:36 The lean-left chip is a fad 55:37 None of these are the solution to the pitching yip epidemic 56:35 Paul Runyan and the restricted grip 57:28 Seve's trail shoulder and Dan Grieve's 3 Releases 59:19 What is Good Misses? 60:50 We're golf geeks. Not better, more like you

Kieran Harris runs Feel Good Golf Academy in Toronto. JT Perrine is part owner of Fairhope Golf Works in Fairhope, Alabama. Together they host Good Misses, part of the Funnel Golf slate.

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Sam is in England, so JT Perrine of Fairhope Golf Works joins Brian Manzella, Golf Digest's #14-ranked teacher in America. They do the math on 50,000 golf teachers and land on a number that will annoy a lot of people. Also: the three tests of a great teacher, Ballard and O'Grady into the Hall of Fame by executive order, the end of the PGA Teaching Summit, teacher vs. coach, and why going from an 8 to a +2 means breaking things.

Chapters 0:00 Cold open 0:44 Sam is in England. Meet JT Perrine 1:43 Funnel Golf now has a third show: Good Misses 3:15 What your detractors say about you 6:24 Inside JT's studio: Trackman, Gears, force plates 8:28 Should a teacher still be able to play? 10:49 Talking too much in a lesson 12:33 Every teacher's biggest weakness 14:37 50,000 teachers. How many are good? 17:50 Reading 600 resumes for the Golf Magazine Top 100 22:16 The three tests of a great teacher 26:54 Ballard and O'Grady: Hall of Fame by executive order 27:53 The JT plan and a playing ability test 30:22 The PGA killed the Teaching Summit 38:30 Why they call us coaches now 41:31 What every new student is actually looking for 44:06 You will not practice your way from 8 to +2 47:44 The best feeling in teaching 49:15 Why put the Gears suit on? 51:32 Not enough factual information 55:31 What Good Misses is about 57:20 Brian's talent scout call

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Nobody gets good at golf alone. Brian Manzella (Golf Digest's #14-ranked teacher in America) and Sam Osborne (former touring pro) name the people who got them here: the books, the better players who never gave them a tip, the stranger on a putting green, the former prizefighter who tended the pin on Brian's first 79, and the famous names who put in a word.

Stories include Simon Griffiths at Wentworth, Joe Cook and Johnny Scurich at City Park, Ernie Makepeace, Walter Pryor, Carl Poche and Paul Azinger's college team, the Sea Island playoff, Monty, Bill Strausbaugh and Paul Marchand at the 1992 Teaching Summit, and Peter Fowler telling a kid to quit school. The takeaway: you don't improve in a straight line, you need people, and being nice is not that hard.

Watch the video version on YouTube at @funnelgolfx. Be your own coach.

Chapters

0:00 Cold open

0:42 Who got us here

1:31 Sam's first golf books: Leadbetter and Henry Cotton

7:21 Simon Griffiths: the best lesson was never a lesson

10:42 Brian's cousin, Don Horn and Street & Smith's

15:20 Reading Golf Digest cover to cover

18:09 City Park, Gary Schultz and Al Juhl

20:20 Joe Cook, Johnny Scurich and the first 79

30:52 Golf is hard: you need things to happen

32:19 Sam at 17: the Mail on Sunday and the Sea Island playoff

37:14 Brian at 15: shooting 67 and looking for a game

39:52 Ernie Makepeace and the putting green invite

42:42 Walter Pryor, Jimmy Cole and the money games

43:14 Carl Poche and Paul Azinger's college team

47:54 Walter Pryor's Tommy Moore advice

49:45 Famous people who helped: Monty

52:51 The Teaching Summit: Bill Strausbaugh and Paul Marchand

56:57 Being nice is not that hard

57:54 Peter Fowler and the closer

This week's big lie: the pursuit of compression is great for your golf game. Brian Manzella, Golf Digest's #14-ranked teacher in America, and Sam Osborne, former touring pro, both chased it, both got worse, and both came back. They cover what compression actually is (a delivery number, not a hand position), what Tiger meant about divots, the Foley years, why Hogan and Nicklaus got better with less forward lean, the selective picture posters, and what The Golfing Machine really says about the flat left wrist. Plus the horror stories: the pitching yips, 14 degrees down, and Brian's decade of going backwards.

0:00 No More Lies Ep. 15: Compression 1:46 This week's big lie: chasing compression helps your game 2:42 Ben Doyle, shiny divots, and the Manzella Forum days 3:47 The first time we heard the word compression 8:53 Homer Kelly, The Golfing Machine, and smash factor 11:51 Ben Doyle rebuilds Brian's swing 14:49 What compression actually is: dynamic loft minus angle of attack 16:10 Sam's friends who chased it and did not get better 18:01 Force across the shaft and tour quality impact 19:57 McIlroy vs the 3 wood: the ball does not know where your hands are 22:40 How little forward lean club champions really have 25:01 Faldo, Leadbetter, and Greg Norman's no-divot week 26:52 What Tiger meant when he told Scheffler he does not take divots 28:34 Confessions of a Former Flipper 31:37 Hogan and Nicklaus got better with less forward lean 32:21 How the compression craze started 33:25 The camera in your pocket epidemic 34:53 Selective picture posters, named 37:02 What The Golfing Machine says about the line of compression 39:22 Flat left wrist, not arched 41:35 Get on Trackman: you need more loft than you think 43:05 The low shot lie: David Toms finished with his hands over his head 44:57 Force across the shaft on Tour: Masters 1975 vs 2026 47:10 Are today's players better ball strikers? 49:27 Should regular golfers lean the shaft? 51:38 Who actually needs more forward lean and how to learn it 52:23 Horror stories: Tiger, Foley, and the pitching yips 53:25 Michael Jacobs hits 14 degrees down 55:00 Brian got worse every year until he stopped compressing 57:57 Sam copies Greg Norman's finish and the game gets easy 59:14 Steve Elkington on Trackman 62:00 The moral: compression is a club delivery specification 64:14 The flattest left wrist in golf

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Be your own coach.

There is no test, no license, and no minimum standard to call yourself a golf teacher. This week Brian Manzella (Golf Digest's #14-ranked teacher in America) and former touring pro Sam Osborne dig into the most unregulated profession in sports: why some of the world's most famous instructors were never in the PGA of America, how club pros really earned a living 50 years ago, what an actual teaching certification could look like, and why the average teacher stays under-informed in an era when a bot can answer any question. Also on the tee: the "you're toast" backswing myth, Bobby Jones vs. Scottie Scheffler, the Ishkabibble swing, and the George Gankas Golf Channel story.

Chapters 0:00 Intro: Golf Teachers Are Gonna Hate This One 2:19 Why Golf Instructors Disagree So Much 5:01 Bobby Jones vs Scottie Scheffler: The Backswing Test 6:19 No License Required: How Anyone Can Teach Golf 10:12 The You're Toast Backswing Myth 14:38 Why the Average Golf Teacher Is Under-Informed 16:35 What Butch Harmon Gets Right 19:09 Sam and Brian on Playing for a Living 25:17 How Golf Pros Made Money 50 Years Ago 32:01 A Working-Class Dad and a Golf Teaching Career 36:49 The PGA of America and Golf Instruction 42:39 Brian's Pilot Program: Certify the Teachers 46:24 Butch Harmon, Joe Mayo, Chris Como: Not in the PGA 52:57 The Ishkabibble Swing 54:58 The George Gankas Golf Channel Story 58:56 Golf Improvement Is Like Weight Loss

New episodes every Monday. Golf without the spin. Be your own coach.

Brian Manzella, Golf Digest's #14-ranked teacher in America, and former touring pro Sam Osborne take apart the most persistent swing trend of the last decade: laying the club down. Where it hatched, who it might actually help, why the physics behind it doesn't hold up, and Brian's flat answer to whether anyone should try to shallow the shaft on the downswing.

Along the way: Hogan's real secret, the Ben Doyle flat left wrist confession, arch wrists jumping from 10% of golfers to 50%, and the 2D camera illusion that fools almost everyone.

Watch the full video episode on YouTube: @funnelgolfx

Chapters
0:00 Cold open
1:36 Today's topic: misguided swing ideas
3:34 The Leadbetter and Faldo shallowing era
7:48 Three categories: shallowing, laying down, laid off
14:00 Ben Hogan's real secret
16:23 How fixing slicers created laid-off swings
25:52 The laydown pattern, step by step
38:05 Confessions of a Former Flipper
42:00 Arch wrists: 10% then, 50% now
51:33 You cannot backward waggle IN a downswing
58:33 The motorboat analogy, debunked
68:08 The verdict: never TRY TO shallow the shaft

Brian and Sam continue the top 100 golf swings of all time, covering Annika Sorenstam, Calvin Peete, Tom Watson, Louis Oosthuizen, Greg Norman's 1986 swing, Gene Littler, Davis Love III, and Ernie Els. Brian makes the case that Oosthuizen, not Hogan, is the swing most golfers should copy, tells the story of quietly helping Robert Rock in 2019, and Sam remembers his Team Faldo days with a 13-year-old Rory McIlroy. The episode closes with a tease: the player at #30 hurt his hip in 1964, never swung the same way again, and may have the best hip action ever recorded. He gets the full treatment next week.

0:00 Intro
1:17 The Top 100 Swings List Strikes a Nerve
2:23 The Orange County National Wrist Experiment
5:55 Why Brian's List Changes: Bobby Jones and Fred Couples
7:41 Helping Robert Rock and the Players Brian Never Named
12:28 Calvin Peete: The Best Ball Striker Nobody Copies
16:04 What Makes a Swing Great: Your Best Shot vs. Your Worst
18:21 Calvin Peete's 1,500 Balls a Day
23:05 Annika Sorenstam at #22
26:02 Kevin Shields, Lindsay Newman, and the Mike Hebron Lesson
28:43 Nick Faldo 1989 and Sam's Team Faldo Years
38:53 Tom Watson, "The Secret," and the Remade Swing
44:12 Louis Oosthuizen at #25: The Swing Most Golfers Should Copy
48:57 Greg Norman 1986
53:10 Gene Littler 1959
54:12 Davis Love III 1992
56:47 Ernie Els 2004
59:41 The Mystery Swing at #30

Brian Manzella and Sam Osborne continue the book series by comparing Claude's top 50 most influential golf instruction books against Grok's top 20, focusing on the titles the two lists disagree on. Along the way: Tommy Armour's hands-first gospel, Bobby Jones as a writer, Harry Vardon, Seymour Dunn's geometry, the flip-book that taught Ben Doyle, Alex Morrison's footwork revolution and the banked right heel in early Hogan and Snead film, the pre-accident Hogan sequences in Power Golf, and the swing science shelf from David Williams to Mark Broadie's Every Shot Counts.

The strongest take of the episode: John Jacobs' Practical Golf belongs in any legitimate top 10, and Sam has the Zane Scotland story to prove it. Two tweaks from Jacobs turned a struggling Challenge Tour player into a European Tour card holder in a matter of weeks.

Coming soon: the remaining 25 books, 80 more swings from the greatest swings list, and the Brian Manzella Teacher Hall of Fame episode before Christmas.

Be your own coach.

The greatest golf swings of all time, positions 11 through 20. Bobby Jones, Harry Vardon, Steve Elkington, David Toms, Peter Thomson, Tom Weiskopf, Ian Woosnam, Nick Price, Sergio Garcia, and Scottie Scheffler.

Tiger Woods called one of these players the best ball-striker he ever saw. Brian worked with another one during the 2012 FedEx Cup and watched him hit it perfect for weeks at a time. And a witness once saw Harry Vardon hit drivers at a tarp for an hour without missing the center.

Brian Manzella, Golf Digest's #14-ranked teacher in America, and former touring pro Sam Osborne break down what made each swing great, which rankings will draw pushback, and why Sergio Garcia is the unintentional model for Brian's entire teaching philosophy.

Calvin Peete fans: he's on the next list episode.

New episodes every Monday. Ep. 10.

Be your own coach.

Brian Manzella and Sam Osborne break down everything that happened at The Open Championship, and everything golf media won't say about it.

Ryan Fox came from outside the top 50 in the world to beat Sam Burns down the stretch, taking two brutal breaks on 15 and 17 without so much as a raised eyebrow. TV gave Fox credit for staying cool. What nobody mentioned is that Sam Burns has now missed the putts that mattered the last couple of times he had a chance to win a major. That's the story the broadcast skipped.

Then the big one: Bryson DeChambeau's two-stroke penalty for improving his lie in the second round. Brian and Sam agree the ruling was correct. They also agree it's a double standard, because this happens on tour constantly and only gets called when the cameras and the crowds are on you. From Dustin Johnson in 2019 at Royal Portrush and this year with Wyndham Clark at Shinnecock to the questions around Tiger, the history here is longer than the broadcast wants to admit.

Plus: Rory McIlroy says he doesn't care about his legacy, and neither host is buying it. Why Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns seem allergic to stardom. How $100 million in the bank changed player motivation compared to the Nicklaus and Watson era. And a full teardown of NBC and Peacock's Open coverage: Adam Scott and Russell Henley finished ninth and barely got a single shot on air, Kevin Kisner has been neutered by producers, and Johnny Miller remains the gold standard nobody will let anyone copy.

Sam also owns up to his own tournament meltdown, including back-to-back double and triple bogey, and teases the side saddle putting conversation coming in a future episode.

Next up on No More Lies: the second ten of the most influential golf books of all time, and the next installment of the top 100 golf swings.

No More Lies is golf without the spin. Two veterans saying what golf media won't. Be your own coach.