Mike Malaska or George Gankas

[oikos1]

Perhaps you could clarify/expand on what you mean when you say "keeping the hands high at the start of the downswing".

[MK7Golf21]

This is true, see this many times with guys who fly off for lessons.

[LeftDaddy]

Starting with caveats:

Im a paid subscriber of Gankas’ new site. I’m 47 years old and not terribly loose / mobile. I’ve been an all arms, low rotation swinger for 25 years. I’ve only watched a few Malaska videos

Ok, now, on to the points.

There are a lot of misconceptions about Gankas. I used to devour his YouTube videos and basically totally misunderstood his approach. Or more specifically, only had part of it but not the whole...ie why does he recommend this drill, etc. But I’m about 40% of the way through his online program and it is GOLD. I’m hitting the ball longer and more pure than ever before. Some of his stuff seems odd, but it really isn’t. At the end of the day, he’s teaching an on plane swing with minimal face rotation and minimum compensation that uses body leverage to hit straight and powerful golf shots. Feels hard to argue with, no?

And I’ll address the “bad back” issues. I’ll admit that at first, I worried about the impact his pivot would have on my 47 year old back. And I even had a hard time with the rounded posture because of my back. But I’m now about 6 months into reconfiguring my swing to his principles, and I no longer feel the back stresses and actually feel I’m generating more power without the threat of throwing out my back. It’s almost a smooth buildup of power vs my old “violent” arm swing for power.

I watched a few Malaska videos and, at least for me, his advice was exactly what I thought I was trying to do before to keep my shaft above the plane, keep the club in front of me, etc. So in theory it should have been a good fit. But I spent years trying to make that work, and it didn’t. And then Gankas comes along and explains physiologically why those moves don’t work, and it was a lightbulb moment for me.

YMMV.

[LeftDaddy]

Gankas and the AMG guys are lobbing shots at each other lately. It’s funny to watch.

I’ll just say that I completely disagree with the AMG guys that the arms have to be elevated by arm power and dropped by arm power. They even showed Wolff, but his arms were dropping through rotation, side bend and a dig into the ground. They basically showed a hand path and said “see, you have to drop the arms and that doesn’t necessarily steepen the shaft”. Well, what about what caused the arms to drop? And what feel has your instructor provided you to make the proper move to shallow the shaft?

Im a lifetime handle puller, and I will tell you unequivocally that pulling the handle down really hard at the top of the downswing with minimal rotation is a recipe for poor ballstriking. Let’s just say that I’ve had 25 years of experience in this. It comes down to what feel are you trying to give your student to help them hit the ball more solidly. For me at least, hands up, rotate and then shallow the shaft, helps keep the club in front of me with great lag. I never got there with the Malaska / AMG approach.

[GolfGrouch]

It is better explained by Gankas in the video that was linked. This is one of his key principles to shallowing the shaft.

[ofortuna]

I must say that ater watching Malaska's and Gankas' youtube videos, I thought they were both goofballs. After subbing to Gankas' site, I am convinced he is the best I've ever seen at explaining the golf swing. it's a long story on how I got convinced to fork up the cash to join his site but it had to do with his gbox contraption and his videos explaining how to use it. Perhaps if I knew more about Malaska I would change my mind as well but I've seen a lot of instructors use metaphors like swinging a heavy object at the end of a rope and showing intricate sequencing graphs. That kind of information is interesting but almost never translates into an aha moment that translates to applicable information on how to swing the golf club more efficiently with a great impact position.

 

 

[mukster]

After a few tough seasons, I started watching Malaska and signed up. Unfortunately the whole pandemic thing messed up my early training/practice. Regardless, I am hitting my irons better than I have in years.

I am very excited about the rest of the season.

[Dumpedunder]

George’s stuff is the bee’s knees.

If you actually spend time taking video of your swing and don’t just go by feels, you’ll get at least somewhat better fairly fast.

He teaches you to self diagnose. You can see it.

Is it your setup? Are your hands not deep enough?

Even if you’re not a big time student of the swing, his faults and fixes section can help.

I’d say that if you see your swing being steep on a video, jump right into his flex and flip drill with the stick avoidance. It’s the under and over drill.

Cogorno said (and I agree) that if you’re steep at all, you should live in that station until you’re not.

 

[ironcat]

MM for me. I've always struggled to draw the ball and his tipping the shaft was a light bulb moment for me.

He has more of an emphasis on feeling things with the hands and arms too which resonates with me and is more similar to swings I like (Tiger, Rose, Els for example) who have more active hands.

I find GG far more entertaining to watch but his swing ideas are quite far away from my natural tendencies and I feel you largely need to work with what you've got to be successful.

 

 

 

[Dumpedunder]

A GBox will get your drawing the ball pretty quickly if your grip is good.

The subconscious mind is weird. Give it something to avoid, and watch yourself shallow out.

[slytown]

Like all lessons, I think it depends on what you need. There is no one way. I think Mike is good for OTT swingers. He teaches greater use of the hands and arms in the golf swing, which most amateurs need. Gankas is great for stronger players that swing under plane or EE. Gankas's emphasis on turn and squat can be troublesome for players that need more height in their shots. Yes, he gets the clubhead flush for people, but without enough speed, people are gonna see ball flights that are too low. I only see young, flexible, big guys having success with Gankas.

Edited August 8, 2023 by slytown

[teddyironboy]

Gankas is the man. You can't really miss on any of the key points though, otherwise the club isn't going to shallow correctly. But when done correctly to where timing is taken out, the ball is on target basically every time. Just have to train how the moves (which is true for any swing idea), but another bonus is you can kind of just ignore the arms. I mean the only thing you need to try to do with them is to slow them down and let the body do the work, just let them react and do their thing. I think that's what makes it so consistent - say your body was a robot and could pivot the same way each swing, I really believe the arms/wrists/hands would react nearly the same way every time. It's an unconscious reflex. Whereas other swings where you have to consciously do something, even as simple as lowering the arms, or like having any "hit" reflex at the ball, you've added one extra gigantic variable.

 

What I didn't like was the emphasis on freezers, I think it's important to start the lower body transition before the upper body finishes the backswing to create separation. I don't think he talks about that much from what I remember, although his 10-10:30 drill addresses it a little. That momentum shift really shallows out the club. I f-ing did freezers for months wondering why the club wouldn't shallow right. Another key point that I missed on is to make 100% sure to have lead side bend on the backswing. They do address this by getting your pelvis deeper, but I don't know...I must have missed exactly why this causes the club to shallow. I'm still not exactly sure why, I think it makes balance points better and gives you better leverage to rotate. All I know is I cannot shallow correctly AT ALL if I don't do it.

[aggiegolfer21]

Gankas is probably better if your goal is to hit it lower and/or have the ability to rotate well, Malaska is better if you want to hit it higher and/or don't have the ability to rotate as much.

[teddyironboy]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CvsEcBPgk-8/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDiJt9gzFUk

 

I think it's quite likely many people underestimate their ability to rotate. Comment from the instagram link - "I could barely touch my knees, a dislocated left shoulder, and my back was glass."

[harveythomas]

If AMG are having a pop at Gankas they’re probably completely right as far as I can see.  
 

My coach likes the Rory split hands drill ie moving the hands down into a delivery position by the right knee while keeping rib cage over the ball.  If your left leg posts up and behind then you hit great shots and if not you’ll probably hit it fat.  Unfortunately it’s hard to teach yourself just by watching AMG videos even though I think they’re on the right track.  
 

I watched a load of Gankas stuff when he became all the rage but it just did my head in.  Same with Malaska.  I strongly advocate a modern bio mechanical approach if you can find instructors who teach it in person and neither of these guys.  
 

If I was having in person lessons though I’d probably choose Gankas out of those two if I had too.  But in reality I’d choose neither.  

[b.mattay]

GG is the man bro! Get scoobie squamdow pyterodactyl guacamole bro! 

[Chunkitgood]

On 6/16/2020 at 12:59 AM, ironcat said:

MM for me. I've always struggled to draw the ball and his tipping the shaft was a light bulb moment for me.

He has more of an emphasis on feeling things with the hands and arms too which resonates with me and is more similar to swings I like (Tiger, Rose, Els for example) who have more active hands.

I find GG far more entertaining to watch but his swing ideas are quite far away from my natural tendencies and I feel you largely need to work with what you've got to be successful.

 

 

 

Working with what they have is certainly what most folks do…and the results speak for themselves.

 

Most people need change to such a degree it might fairly be called radical.  Whether Gankas is that change or not…I don’t know, and have no opinion.  On Malaska, I do have an opinion…he tries to work with what you’ve got, that is, his whole move as noted elsewhere seems to be a compensation.  The move is a palliative for the bad ideas many people have about the so called swing plane, which permeate their swings, and may well give them a somewhat improved swing, but it is far from optimum.  IMO of course.

[vernon]

I thought this was one of the craziest things I'd ever heard/seen but I was really struggling with my irons and this fixed the problem in one swing.  Doesn't get much simpler and I find that to be the case with most of his instruction.

 

 

[Gamble Gamble]

On 4/12/2017 at 4:28 AM, Gamble Gamble said:

Malaska was a quick fix and fell apart for me. GG is tough unless you do online lessons and join the members site. GG is the winner of the two in my opinion.

 

Funny, I now see the merit in both of them. 

 

Gankas's stuff was great at getting me to learn the pivot, but now as i am trying to get more efficient with my arms and wrists, i find myself watching MM's videos. 

 

I guess the moral of the story is to stay open minded, sometimes information you get is not useful in the moment you receive it but it could be the missing puzzle piece later.  

 

1 hour ago, vernon said:

I thought this was one of the craziest things I'd ever heard/seen but I was really struggling with my irons and this fixed the problem in one swing.  Doesn't get much simpler and I find that to be the case with most of his instruction.

 

 

great video - thank you for posting it