25
Oct '11
Five Questions: Get to know Raegan Earney
By Swingpal.com staff
Raegan Earney has compiled a long and successful career teaching the game of golf to players of all ability levels, and there’s nothing he enjoys more.
Earney teaches at the Waldorf Astoria Golf Club in Orlando, Fla., where where he instructs alongside Brian Mogg, a Top 100 Golf Magazine Instructor and Top 50 Golf Digest Instructor.He also spent 10 years instructing under David Leadbetter at Lake Nona and then ChampionsGate until joining Brian Mogg in 2006, that following a career playing professional golf.
All of those experiences have proven to shape Earney into an elite teacher, and while his name is just now making the rounds on a national level, he has been working with PGA, LPGA and Nationwide tour pros, as well as college all-Americans and nationally ranked juniors, for the last several years.
We caught up with Earney this week to find out more about his teaching philosophy and thoughts on the golf swing for this edition of Five Questions:
SWINGPAL: How would you describe your teaching philosophy to a potential student?
EARNEY: I make sure students know exactly what they need to do in the short term in order to hit their long-term goals. Together we create a Master plan for their golf swing and overall game that we both know inside and out. There are never any "smoke and mirrors" concepts that they don't understand. Everything we do is concrete and follows a logical path that makes sense to the student. I use high-speed video analysis comparisons extensively with students so they see what they actually did compared to what they thought they did. This concrete feedback loop is vital for the student to tweak their feels in the right direction.
SWINGPAL: What would you consider to be some popular myths about golf instruction, meaning things that most average players believe are true but actually are not?
EARNEY: Most golfers think they understand how the golf club hits the ball and causes a certain ball flight (pull slice, pull hook, straight slice, etc.). It has been my experience that most don't understand ball-flight laws at all and how those laws relate to them. This lack of knowledge makes the game very frustrating to learn and enjoy. If the average golfer truly understood ball-flight laws and how to apply those laws to their golf swings you would likely see average handicaps drop by five strokes or more.
SWINGPAL: What aspects of the golf swing do you think most of the higher handicapper players you teach have trouble understanding?
EARNEY: Again, most high handicapper's lack the knowledge of ball-flight laws. Hence, they have trouble understanding that in order to fully correct their over-the-top move for example, they have to not only correct the path into the ball to be more inside out, but their clubface has to be square to slightly shut on the new, correct plane/path. Most swing corrections in golf are actually two moves/corrections, not one.
SWINGPAL: For someone who is completely dedicated to playing golf at a high level, what are the best things they can do to accelerate the improvement process?
EARNEY: For the good players trying to break into professional golf I find that quite a few still rely too much on hand-eye coordination and are a little over confident that their swings will hold up under pressure. Even though there are some unconventional looking swings on tour, most PGA Tour pros have great fundamentals from a little above the belt line coming down to a little above the belt line going through to the finish. Aspiring pros should do their homework and find a good instructor they connect with and trust to guide them into professional level fundamentals.
SWINGPAL: What advice would you give a golfer who is going to seek out professional instruction for the first time?
EARNEY: Just as the hard-core golfer needs to do homework on instructors, so does the average golfer. The 90-100 shooter does not have to do quite as much homework as the 80 shooter and the 70 shooter needs to do more than the 80 shooter. Ask the instructor for some references/players he/she works with and seek those students out for a five-minute talk, as well as ask other golfers what they have heard. Above all, the instructor should be able to convey with absolute clarity what the student needs to work on, why, and what the fix is. It is the instructor's job and priority to make it all make sense, period. If you hear anything along the lines of "Do it because I said so" without your clear understanding, it's time to do more homework.