As Seen on TV: Chamblee is Dead Wrong Again

I keep wondering where Brandel Chamblee gets his information. Does he come up with stupid statements like “Jack Nicklaus picked the ball, Phil Mickelson picked the ball, Tom Watson picked the ball” in his dreams or does he watch their swings and simply misinterpret what he sees? After watching this video can anyone truthfully say that Chamblee knows what he is talking about when it comes to the golf swing? How about saying that players with “down-set” (apparently his name for adding angle between the wrists and the shaft in transition) forward lean the club too much and thus can’t consistently apply the “right amount of loft” at impact with short irons? Anybody who knows anything about golf, the swing, the history of the great players and the techniques they employed, knows that most of the great wedge players hit down on the ball with forward lean to lower the ball flight and control spin (just watch Lee Trevino). They also know that most poor players don’t forward lean the shaft at all because of clubhead throwaway, and almost all are trying to figure out just how to “down-set” the club more, not less.
 
Even if you didn’t know that the best players hit down on the ball, the videos I present here of Nicklaus, Watson and Mickelson should be enough to convince you that Chamblee is sadly lacking when it comes to knowing his subject matter. In the one swing of Chamblee’s I was able to find to analyze it is obvious that he employed a weak approach to impact, so it is entirely possible that he didn’t take much of a divot when he was playing the Tour. But the fact is that the best ball strikers (you can reference the impact shot of John Senden I used in the recent swing analysis) forward lean the shaft and take sizable divots. I spend most of my time on the teaching tee trying to get people to hit a solid iron shot. Chamblee wants them all to release the club immediately from the top of the swing. With that teaching philosophy I would have been out of a job ages ago. Of course, Chamblee has never been a teacher, which is painfully obvious from his commentary. Most people who don’t know what they are talking about don’t talk much: Chamblee doubles down and never stops. You might say that he gets paid for precisely that, but doesn’t the content of what he is saying matter? Give Frank Nobilo credit for stepping in and attempting to derail Chamblees’ idiocy, but it is to no avail. Brandel talks, but never listens.
 

Join the forum discussion on this post