Brilliant!
© 2000-2007 iseekgolf.com. All Rights Reserved. ABN: 89 096 508 495
Ernest Jones - Swing the clubhead
Forums → Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction | 42 posts
Pages: 1 2
|
I picked up a copy of this book from a local op shop today and is wondering if anyone has heard of it? Or better still read it and can make comment. Chapter 1 basically begins with "'there is only one categorical imperative in golf, and that is to hit the ball. There are no minor absolutes.' The above quotation fro Sir Walter Simpson's remarkable book is, from cause to effect, golf. Learn it, understand it and, if you are a beginner, you are on the right road to good golfing. If you are a more expert player snared in the complexities of attempting to remember at one and the same time the stiff left arm, head down, braced leg, right arm pressed to side, etc, you are started on the road to escape from the minotaurs labyrinth of confusion. The teaching of golf has become overwhelmed in paralysis from analysis." I know I'm in the labyrinth of confusion atm. And having scanned though this forum I'm guessing I'm not alone. How can I get out? Is the answer in the following pages of the book? Thanks in advance chaps, PC
|
|
If it help you any, I don't understand most of the technical talk on here. My solution will be to get a few lessons to sort out what I am doing wrong.
|
|
I sugest you state what area you are from and ask the members here what coaches they would recommend. Then book some lessons with one. This way you have a chance to talk to someone who has solid knowledge about the game. You can clarify certain golf confusions with him and he should be able to guide you down one path... the imperatives to good golfing! You will get a lot of things done quicker this way. If you tap into a coach with a super understading of the game... even quicker.
|
|
I loved the book. Gave it to a friend and haven't seen it since.
|
|
yes I have heard of it and it gets a lot of airplay on the US based forums imperative no 1 ball here - target there - propel ball to target with: club attached to MY body Is the answer in the following pages of the book? Probably not but I have not read it it so I cannot categorically say no
|
|
Well that is a crock of shite to start with... any idiot can hit the ball. Getting it near a target is the hard part. Why do people make this game so bloody mystical ?
|
|
Why so angry, This is only golf. If we can not handle the pleasant life long study of this game let's not get married have kids who have grandchildren, two more coming this week all going well, or take on the larger responsibilities of running the world. We all need perspective, especially just after Christmas. Golf is a great way to find ourselves. Nothing succeeds like insouciance. It's worth looking up. My grandfather used to say it. It is not too hard when you are 95. No pun intended.
PH
|
|
|
|
Have you had a look at the book Virge? He asks the same question as you, why do they make the game so mystical (complicated actually).
Hi CJ, I'm guessing Jones was probably the fad coach of his day (~1920s-1950s). Any links would be appreciated.
Blade, I'm in Melbourne and the last thing I want is another coach promising the holy grail tying me in knots (and costing me money). And I'm not convinced there is actually a good one in Melbourne. Everyone knows a good coach, but look a bit more closely and you'll usually find the person making the recommendation has gone nowhere or backwards with their game. Any coach can probably cause a dramatic improvement with hackers by teaching some fundamentals, but I've got years of bad habits and I'm in that difficult zone, the mid single figures. And please pardon my cynicism.
|
|
Dear PC, I think it is very important for a golfer to understand how they start, change direction/deliver the club to the ball and finish their swing. It has been so long since I read Swing the Clubhead but I think he was primarily working with what TGM calls the 3 Basic Essentials. Steady center (head?), balance and rhythm which he felt was built into the design of the club. Not bad stuff but it is a bit incomplete. Learning the mechanics may seem cumbersome and thought provoking but I believe it is ok to think as long it is moving you toward understanding. Imo, the "mystery" of the golf swing is really in the way we grip the club and how the hands work during the swing motion. The "difficulty" of the swing is being able to understand while bending at the hips and standing paralell to the target line. Just not a stance that we use in anything else, strange back angle and strange view. Golf instruction "information" has come so far that there really is no "mystery" at all. The hard part is the "mastery" of it! I sympathize with your feelings of golf instructors because about 90% of them have not caught up with or have been exposed to "accurate" information. This takes a lot of work and like mastering anything a lot of commitment, too. There are some extremely dedicated guys on this site who have done just that. Their commitment to excellence along with your commitment to hard work may just help you breakthrough the barriers you are facing now. Wishing you the best of luck!!!
|
|
The more the complexities of the golf swing are understood, the simpler the game becomes. Mick
|
|
Spike, thanks for the thoughtful comments. After years of filling my head with junk, I'm just looking to strip it back I guess. Simplify the swing and I'll have more time to work on the short game. 3 Basic essentials probably isn't a bad place to start, especially since my rhythm is shot.
I'm imagining this in your best Master Yoda voice. Are you a golf pro?
|
|
Virge, It depends on how you define hit the ball. As making contact I agree any one can do that. Hit the ball correctly, so the maximum ball speed can be squeezed out of the minimum club head speed, this is a most rare and wondrous thing. It is not mysterious if the arm action is understood. Have a good break. PH
|
|
Hello, everyone. I'm new here. I'm also new to the game (started last May) but crazy about it. What I remember about this book is that he advocates swinging like the clubhead is a pendulum on the end of a string - none of the modern weight transfer to the left and leveraging the upper body around to gain power (I hope my words are a reasonable description). I asked my teacher about this book. He told me he was the pro at an elite club at the time of Ernest Jones's heyday, and some of the members would take lessons from Ernest when they were in New York. He said these people had very pretty swings, but not much power. Hope this little anecdote is of interest. Laney
|
|
Ok, that's your choice. He's what you need to do then. Play with players who are at the level you want to be or go watch them play. That way you can see what you need to improve and get to that level. You will be finding things out for yourself and then using your dicipline to work hard and make the skills part of your game. You want their game to rub-off on you. You cannot go wrong if you pick out the things they are doing better than you and apply them. There are so many little things you will pick up on and I can almost guarantee they will be anything but technical. Watch the way they control themselves, picture shots, get into their routine, maintain the same pace. If you have some bad technical habits that are holding you back you have to change them otherwise expect the same results.
|
|
Cynicism, in my mind, is the enemy of good golf . Approach golf with an open mind and you will be amazed where that open door can take you!!! Remember it is a game that is to be enjoyed and is a reflection on life - approach golf how you approach life!! (Deep after a few red wines I know - apologies)
|
|
It's a long one - but if anyone can answer the question at the bottom - please do. More importantly if anyone knows how to fix it and keep a student... you don't have to raise your hand to answer.
Me – Angry – Never . . . lost, confused, annoyed and then bemused. This is only golf . . . ha ! This is isn’t “only golfâ€. This IS golf. Work is what I do when I am thinking about golf, most evenings I am reading golf books, watching golf videos, reading a couple of web sites . . learning . . watching . . writing and hopefully helping every now and then. I dead set LOVE this game ! BUT . . . here is the kicker. Golf is not easy, there is no secret move, no special way to hit the ball. We ALL do it differently and the only way and there is ONLY ONE way to get better to find a coach you actually trust and then put in the hard yards. You may have some “light bulb†moments along the way, but those moments are NOT mechanical – they are you golf knowledge improving. The next hard part is finding a coach who can actually coach. Not just change you to suit his or her favourite method. Then you have to avoid the well meaning tips from people who have not a clue… and to top it all off, your swing is different to other peoples swing and the only thing you have to go on is feel. (whatever that is) Then you have the marketing machine selling you the next big thing, new balls, new clubs, even new tees. Let’s move on to the ego, oh yeah, I love the ego. Nothing destroys your golf swing more that ego. It takes your good swing out back and puts it in clothing that doesn’t fit. And there is not one golfer out there who doesn’t know what I mean. Let’s end my little soap box rant on golf publications and there wonderful phrases such as more width, more turn, more power, secret to more accuracy, sink all those 4 footers, better weight shift. 2 paragraphs of words most people don’t understand that you should take to the course on Saturday. It is like home stock market traders… you sit at home and put $5000 on a stock. It may go up or it may go down but the only way you become a better trader is to trade more often and learn by your mistakes. The people who lose money on the stock market try all different types of methodologies and systems, they jump from broker to broker and they personally never LEARN anything because they spend their time searching for a secret system and not doing what all successful traders do… and that is the hard work part. So when I hear all this BS mystical proverb rubbish or simplistic rhetoric that seems to plague every 2nd book or video on the market, I am bemused. Because golf is a bloody hard game and like anything else in the world, the only way to get better is with tuition and practice. And tuition is not just mechanics; it is mental, equipment, course management, even to the point of looking after your body. And it should not be classed as insouciance, it is venting. Much like this one. It won't change anything though... but I feel better and can sleep soundly. And here is a question… why is it that when I get someone to change their swing, the only thing they care about is how well they are going to play on Saturday ? (I think it has something to do with clothing, and also why a lot of coaches have no choice but to be utter rubbish)
|
|
Isn't that why they are coming to you, to improve what happens on Saturday? Or have I misunderstood the question, and you are asking why they expect instant results for THIS Saturday?
|
|
Work on the short game and you may just simplify the swing in the process..
down and out…did ya get that? |
|
Then my personal favourite is "But it doesn't feel powerful !"
I can't play with this on Saturday . . . My usual idea is to sit people down with video - but then I don't think I am quite good enough to change gears and talk people through what is needed both mentally and physically as opposed to my military upbringing of . . this is the problem - you need to fix this... How do you other boys sort this out ? What do you do when a 145kg old bloke turns up on the teaching tee and can't stop hitting it low right cause he cannot get his hands past his guts . . . part of me just wants him to do laps for 30 mins - it would do more for his swing...
|
|
|
|
Paul, mind explaning the arm action in your own words?
|
|
Great topic, Gentlemen
I feel the exchange exists on three levels here. My humble offering As a self-taught player - reading everything under the sun and then settling on using strictly the Golfing Machine as my handbook, I've had to personally and professionally wrestle with this issue. The first level of consideration (the Ernest Jones angle) is often embraced by talented players. The problematic concern is that there is no understanding of "why" the player either got the ball behavior that was optimum or not. An old pro once told me: "Son - only one thang worse than not knowin' why you're playin' bad - and that's not knowin' why you're playin' good." This is the built in risk of ball behavior junkies. I typically fell back on psychological components when I struggled because I had no substantive understanding of cause and effect - therefore I didn't beleive there was a linear cause and effect relationship - it was all on the etheral plane. Technique dictates ball behavior - we all know this - the club must move through space in some fashion, and there is definitely a heirarchy of how effectively this is being done. That heirarchy manifests itself in the quality of the ball behavior. That being said the next obvious question is: Is the heirarchy personal or universal. ENTER THE GOLFING MACHINE. Clearly I am biased, but my bias is based on many experiences with attemping to apply many different method-based books, and then coming upon this great book THAT I WAS ALREADY INCLUDED IN. I may be preaching to the choir, but I really want to galvanize this point. For those who aren't sure - How long are you planning to play golf? Are you planning to learn and improve continually throughout that span of time? If so, more information will be helpful - the shortcuts are more know-how (book knowledge) and/or solid translation (help from a skilled teacher). The important thing is to realize that eventually all the information boils down to simplicity in the end. Eventually a couple (and yes I mean 2 or 3) of personal "key factors" will surface that occupy the crux of your focus. This has happened for me, and is the "light at the end of the tunnel" that this thread-starter is looking for. We've all been there, my friend!
Postscript: Personally as I made his little journey, I progressed
from a couple junior all-state teams and state runner-up, to
being recruited by a major university, winning 2 state titles as
an amatuer, turning pro, winning 28 times in the last 16 years
and competing at a major championship level. For me this in the
end of the story. Without focused learning through the
infromation provided in The Golfing Machine, I cannot say what my
progression would have been.
|
|
Sure Powerdraw, Bend your right arm going back or on the way down about 90%. Point your forearm at the line you want to start the ball on for a meter before and after the ball. If it doesn't straighten out, it wasn't active. If it straighteded out before the ball it activated too soon. If the elbow is punched or swung through still moving a weighty club--- you've got it. Try it before you think about it. Then tell me if it's not clear. PH
|
|
And here is a question… why is it that when I get someone to change their swing, the only thing they care about is how well they are going to play on Saturday ? Virge, Insouciance means carelessness -they "know"it won't work on Saturday for ego reasons. It wasn't their idea. What will work is the LOOK and learn technique. Get them to look at something -wait 'till they FEEL SOMETHING GOING ON then they have learned something as opposed to being taught something. They are much more committed to stuff they learned themselves. And when they fall down, you can redirect them so they learn deeper. Most pupils need an S.R.A, Severe Reality Adjustment. You just don't start till you both have these little understandings. You have to make them write their real goals down, why and when. Then their minds are set. Without that mind set golf is hard work. Personally I found golf to be a constant source of amusement. Sleep well Virge.
PH
|
Pages: 1 2