Top Ten Gurus
 

In this weeks Sports Illustrated, the Top 10 "Gurus" are listed as determined by a poll of Golf Magazine's Top 100 Teachers.

1. Percy Boomer
2. Ben Hogan
3. John Jacobs
4. Bob Toski
5. Ernest Jones
6. Homer Kelley
7. Alex Morrison
8. Paul Runyan
9. Henry Cotton
10. David Leadbetter

Re: Top Ten Gurus
 

Nice to see Mr. Kelley on the list! His influence must be out there all over the place to make this list.

Ya man that's awesome really...to be in a big magazine like SI.

When I started reading this I was thinking it would be the ol' "Lead, Harmon, Haney, etc. etc." All the household names.

Ya that's pretty cool...we all know he's #1 tho eh... 8)

6. Homer Kelley

Mantra: Let mechanics produce and feel reproduce

"He applied the principles of physics to golf and opened everyone's
eyes to the seemingly infinite ways to swing the club." -- Suttie

"Some feel The Golfing Machine is the most important golf book
ever written, while others believe it's the most complicated." -- Hebron

Don't have the issue, what was the criteria? Did SI provide a list and then you chose one or rank the top 3?

Where would a nonconformist like Ernest Jones rank among the alltime great instructors? To find out, we asked a cross section of Golf Magazine's Top 100 Teachers to vote on the most influential swing coaches ever and came up with a consensus top 10. We then had a special three-man panel rank the finalists from 1 to 10. After the rankings were added up, the teacher with the lowest point total emerged as our No. 1.

Special panel: John Elliott, Golden Ocala (Fla.) Golf & Equestrian Club; Mike Hebron, Smithtown (N.Y.) Landing Golf Club; Jim Suttie, Cog Hill Golf & Country Club, Lemont, Ill.

well the special panel adds some insight to the rankings.

I wasn't aware the Homer Kelley was a swing coach or golf instructor per-se.

Yes he wrote The Book, yes he taught Instructors, but did he really have a business as a golf instructor?

Not that it probably matters, nice to see that Homer is given credit for influencing golf....

Teaching is teaching
 

I would ask the question this way - how many of the Top 10 actually taught instructors? I'd say that makes you especially influential.

That is a pretty solid list IMO..... but Leadbetter? Not in the same category in terms of breakthrough teaching IMO. I'd put Knudson on that list before Leadbetter......

I saw a 'swing setter' in action at the range today (LPGA) - no names, but lets just say she was really looking frustrated and swinging poorly. She picked it up and tried it several times, but with not so positive results.

Re: Teaching is teaching
 

All of them did, either when they were instructors or as they developed into instructors. Take Leadbetter, Toski, Jacobs and Hogan, they taught a significant number of instructors, the number of instructors who list those names as references is rather high which surprised me.