I’ve been a fan of Bruce Lieztke for years now. When I first heard he didn’t like to practice, and even play much for that matter, but was still an awesome player I liked him instantly. When I watched him play it was even more impressive. Despite having an unconventional swing, he hits the ball as well as almost any golfer alive.
Even today, when I’m out on the course struggling (which happens more often then you’d think) I revert to my “Lieztke” game plan. This involves me aiming to the right and playing with a leftie slice/fade. It’s a little ugly but the ball usually finds the fairway and I’m back in the game.
The following video is from Jim McLean. While I don’t agree with everything he says, there’s some great stuff in here on an awesome golfer. Watch the video below. (sorry about the short ad before the video plays – I have nothing to do with the advertised product)
Sidenote: I don’t know if this is true but I heard a story where Lieztke’s caddy placed a banana peel inside his wood cover after the year’s last event. The joke backfired when the caddy removed the cover on the first hole of the next year’s first event. The persimmon wood was completely rotted and destroyed. Good ole’ Bruce hadn’t touched his clubs during his end of year break. I can’t imagine any of today’s players having the same mindset.
Lieztke is certainly a seriously good golfer who simply plays the game and I wish more players would adopt the same approach. The most profound thing in the video are the parting words by McLean,
“for gosh sakes we hope that a teacher in modern day wouldn’t take a young Bruce Lieztke and ruin that golf swing”
Something for all teachers, mentors and coaches to think about.
8 Comments
Lukey
April 1, 2012Very interesting to watch because I know one particular teacher told me that I had a similar swing and then set about changing everything and then you end up not knowing what the hell is going on.So the lesson I take from this is it doesn’t matter what your swing looks like if it ends up getting you in play and you swsing it the same all the time results will come your way.
Cheers Lukey
Cameron
April 3, 2012Yep – if you can hit the ball in play why would you want to mess with it? Changing things for the sake of it probably destroys more golfers then anything else.
Scott Barrow
April 5, 2012Hi Cam,
Great post again. The game is not the swing. The game is hitting the ball to a target, finding it, then repeating. And when the we don’t hit the target? The game then becomes about responding to the challenge and playing the best shot we can.
Its funny, that guy doesn’t seem to know his own lesson. Huge analysis of the swing that apparently didn’t need changing but looks like he’s made a career based on swing mechanics. I wonder how many non-critical interventions he’s made with his swing expertise?
Cameron
April 7, 2012Scott: The dude is a very famous instructor and very much based on swing technique from what I can see. That’s also why I said I didn’t agree with everything he said – coaches always tend to add something to do with technique, they can’t leave well enough alone.
I’m also certain that Lieztke learnt to play the game exactly as you describe. He wasn’t thinking at all about his swing, but it developed as he hit the shots he needed to hit and what felt good to him. I think it’s fantastic that a guy with an “ugly” swing was one of the best but it’s sad this mindset is still a distant second to all the other methods out there.
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