If any of you guys caught the American Century Championship on TV this weekend, you might have noticed something absolutely amazing… Charles Barkley making a full swing, right handed, without a hitch.

It was a far cry from what we saw at the Regents Tradition earlier this year.

Hank (who you could see walking with Barkley on TV) seemed on Twitter:

Charles Barkley had a better tournament this yr in Tahoe at the American Century Classic, at least he made some pars and didn’t finish DFL

That’s right.  It’s all about expectations.  Set them as low as possible and then not finishing DFL seems pretty darn good.  You can see Sir Charles’s 325-yard hitch free drive on #8 after the break:

[Image Flickr/simplistic.designs]

Over the last few days, Hank Haney has singlehandedly created a new internet golfing meme:  5 handicap… quit my job… will golf for food.

This all came about when Haney was tweeted by a 24 year old 5-handicap player asking if Hank thought he had any chance of making it as a professional golfer.  In his bluntly honest style, .

A backlash ensued from people claiming that Haney was crushing dreams and that with enough hard work anything is possible.  An exasperated Haney finally responded:

An enterprising twitterer then sent Hank the following photo and a new internet golfing meme was born:

The response on Twitter was immediate and people from all over the world began sending in their own takes on this picture.  It got to the point that Hank offered an autographed copy of his book, “Hank Haney’s Essentials of the Swing” to whoever posted the best picture.  There were so many great responses that he ended up selecting multiple winners.

You can check out all of the responses on .  Here are some of my favorites:

As I mentioned yesterday, I was able to spend part of this past weekend at Hank Haney’s “Teaching the Teacher” conference.  Instructors from literally all over the world were in attendance sharpening their teaching skills and learning about new teaching technologies.

I was invited to stop in by the great guys over at MACHINE Putters (thanks Dave!).  Dave introduced me to Hank, who very graciously spent quite a long time hanging out discussing all sorts of interesting stuff.  No, I’m not going to repeat any of it here at Hank’s request, but I can say that it was a very interesting conversation.  Hank also gave me a , which was much appreciated.

In case you’re not following him already, check out on Twitter.  He might be the most interesting golf personality on Twitter these days (that’s saying a lot).  He’s been tweeting non-stop (he actually hit his daily tweet limit over the weekend and was temporarily offline) answering all sorts of questions with a refreshing honesty that you don’t often come across from somebody in his position.

But back to the conference…  I’ve already provided an overview of what OnlineSkillsCoach.com was showing at the conference and I have an upcoming post highlighting some of the latest and greatest products from EyeLine Golf (Update: Here).

Attendees split their time between the classroom, driving range, and putting green.  It was particularly interesting to watch the instructors on the range working on their teaching skills using each other as students.  A number of instructors also took the time to check out their putting stroke on MACHINE’s SAM Puttlab.  If you ever get a chance to be fitted on one, I highly recommend it.

Honestly, not being a teaching professional myself, a lot of the material was over my head, but it was really great to be able to see golf pro’s from around the world exchanging ideas and working together to improve their teaching abilities.  Getting a bunch of enthusiastic instructors together for a weekend provides for a lot of learning opportunities and skill improvements.  And anything that improves the level of instruction is ultimately good for the game of golf.

You may recognize Suckki Jang from "The Haney Project"

I’m sure there’s plenty that I forgot or left out, so if any of the attendees have anything they want me to add, just send me a note and I’ll post an update.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qsVLky3vcc

I had the great opportunity to spend some time at Hank Haney’s “Teaching the Teacher” conference this past weekend (more on that later).  At the conference I caught up with Jordan Lewites from OnlineSkillsCoach.com.  Jordan was taking attendees through the OnlineSkillsCoach.com offering, which basically enables instructors to provide online lessons to pupils around the world.

Show up at the first tee of your golf pilgrimage to St. Andrew’s with a case of the shanks?  Just log into the website, upload a video from your smartphone or camera, and get customized instruction from your pro, thousands of miles away.  It’s a pretty cool idea.

The system has been used by at least one top-ranked PGA Tour pro recently to work on a swing issue while he was at the British Open and his coach was still in the US.  I don’t think it’s going to replace in-person lessons, but it’s a great supplemental tool for teaching pros to have in their arsenal.

And notice that their name is OnlineSkillsCoach.com, not OnlineGolfCoach.com  This platform can be used for any number of different athletic pursuits.  An Olympic weightlifter could upload video of his latest lifts to his coach to be critiqued.  A tennis player could have his pro diagnose problems with his serve.  A sprinter could upload video of his start from the blocks, etc.  The possibilities go on and on.

OnlineSkillsCoach.com is a new company and if the reaction from conference attendees is any indication, I think we’ll start to see lots of PGA pros offering this service in the near future.

SI’s Gary Van Sickle caught up with Hank Haney on Monday to ask him about last night’s season finale of The Haney Project.  Of course they talked about Rush and the significant improvements he’s made over the course of this season, but the great quote from Hank came when he was asked about Charles Barkley’s swing:

He is physically able to, he isn’t mentally able to. It’s bizarre when somebody shoots less than 50 percent from the foul line, it’s bizarre when Chuck Knobloch can’t throw it to first base, it’s bizarre when Rick Ankiel throws 18 pitches in a row to the backstop. But it happens.

So Barkley is in that club?
Yeah.

Ankiel?  Knobloch?  Ouch.  Pretty accurate though… especially when you consider that Barkley used to be a single digit handicap.  You’ve got to love Hank Haney’s honesty.  He definitely speaks his mind.

Sir Charles wasn’t the only target of Haney’s bluntly honest assessments recently.  Johnny Miller, who has also ruffled some feathers in his day, was the subject of commentary by Haney this weekend via Twitter:

If you’re so inclined, head over to Hank Haney’s Twitter feed,.  He doesn’t pull any punches which means you’re always sure to find an interesting opinion or two (including a few on Tiger).