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In 1969 an engineer by the name of
Homer Kelley produced his first draft of a
book entitled
"The Golfing Machine"
(often referred to as "TGM" for short). It has had several revisions since that date, and I am of
the belief that the owners of the copyright are working on more revisions even
now.
The book is a catalogue of what are probably an infinite
number of possible things you can do when you swing a golf club: the author
describes just about every possibility of how various parts of the body can
move, and then he draws conclusions about
which ones work together, what combinations don't work, how the
club gets moved, what happens to the ball in various scenarios of impact, and so
on. He referred to "stroke patterns," "laws," "components," "and "power
packages" while developing a whole new vocabulary in an effort to be extremely
precise and punctilious in language that could be understood correctly by anyone
else reading the same material. His work can be compared to a medical encyclopedia in which not
only are all the known body parts listed, but their relationships to each other
are chronicled as well. Kelley's book likewise includes relationships
between the various elements, components, and parts of the swing in an endeavor to give
golfers some light about the physical, geometric, and anatomical realities that
might be considered by someone interested in understanding the swing on a much
deeper level than is necessary to know by most people. It also addresses what can
he called "ball flight laws," and while many people swear by Kelley's ingenuity,
many of the points he makes and conclusions he draws are in dispute, especially
in his explanation about that part of it, and his conclusions
are not a bit as "certain" to everyone as some of its adherents seem to
believe.
From my point of view as one who is trying to teach others how to
play golf (as opposed to teaching engineers and kinesiologists about arcane
theories pertaining to mechanics and body functions), referring my pupils to The
Golfing Machine might just be the worst thing I could do. The following
comments will make my point:
1) One story told of Sam Snead is that when he was about to
play a match, he would ask his competitor on the first tee when they were
warming up, "Mike, what's that funny little loop at the top of your backswing?"
Of course there wasn't any loop at all: but the possibility that there just
might be something "wrong" was so unnerving to Mike that his golf game for
that day got destroyed by his worry. So Sam would walk off with "all the
chips" on the table for that day's match.
2) A very famous cartoonist by the name of Rube Goldberg who
lived a century ago (he wrote for several newspapers) was
unique in his ability to draw plans for mechanical devices that did simple
things by incredibly complex and round-about means. The easiest way I can
describe what he did with his drawings is to give an example of something
similar: say that "I want to fly from Dallas to Boston."
The simple thing would be to take a plane from DFW to Logan International. But
Rube's way of doing it would be to take a taxi from DFW to Austin, fly by
commuter plane to Houston, take another flight to Chicago, change planes for a
flight to Hong Kong, and from there take a short hop over to Paris.
Finally get on the SST to Dulles (outside Washington, D.C.) and from there take
the Metro to downtown DC and get on the Amtrak to New York, where you can take a
couple more commuter planes to get to Boston. I copy from the Wikipedia
notes about him: "He is best known for his series
of popular cartoons depicting
Rube Goldberg machines, complex devices that perform simple tasks in
indirect, convoluted ways. The
Reuben Award of the
National Cartoonists Society is named in his honor. In addition, there are
several contests around the world known as Rube Goldberg contests which
challenge high school students to make a complex machine to perform a simple
task." The way I see it, his contribution to our culture was
much greater than the amusement provided by his cartoons: the underlying thrust or tone
of the man's work was a philosophical one, in that we humans certainly have a
knack for making simple things hard! I am of that opinion too, and I feel
he hit a very vital nerve as concerns as well what I do for a living -
i.e., for teaching golf!
I am not nearly as imaginative as Rube Goldberg, but I mention
him
only to make a point: when I read The Golfing Machine 30 years ago, and when I
read it now, I am put off beyond words in my difficulty in following Kelley's
cross-references, in relating to the fussy and I think relatively useless
descriptions of the many possible movements of the joints of the body, and by my differences
with him as regards how people move and think for swinging a stupid golf club.
We simply do not need to know all of the possibilities of physical motion to learn to
swing a golf club! When left to allow our brains to do what they are
programmed to do much more ingeniously than we could possibly imagine, they do
just fine, thank you. It isn't micro-managing motions themselves that
enables us to function for 80 or 90 years in this world: it is the object or
purpose of our intentions that itself calls forth from the computers in our
neuro-muscular system the actions that accomplish our daily tasks. Any
attention given to the MOTION OR POSITION OR OTHER EFFECT [all
static positions achieved during a swing and motions actually made ARE "effects"
of intentions in the golfer's mind in fulfillment of the object of hitting the
golf ball with the golf club] is STOLEN from our capacity for learning! My
issue with using TGM is that it substitutes effect (the motion you want to make)
from cause (your picture of hitting a ball with the end of the stick you hold),
and that kind of approach PARALYZES AND PREVENTS the very thing you pretend to
be "teaching."
I am not representative of all golf teachers, by any means: I am simply of an
entirely different bias or prejudice about how people learn, and how to teach.
I do know that a kid eight months old doesn't need an engineer to teach him to
walk, and that a kid eight years old doesn't need a physicist to teach him
how to swing a golf club, nor to
know a single technical word or have a course in anatomy or neuro-muscular
science to develop a perfect swing.
Walking is more complex than swinging a club. THE
ENGINEER DOES WELL TO STUDY THE CHILD WALKING--TO LEARN FROM THE CHILD; THE
CHILD DOES NOT LEARN WALKING FROM THE ENGINEER!
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