Monday, March 9, 2009

So, You Want to Learn The Golfing Machine

About 12 years ago I was working with a GSED Authorized Instructor of The Golfing Machine. Eventually I tried to learn the book on my own and understood roughly about 4 pages of the book that's about 250 pages long.

I wasn't the only one.

Essentially The Golfing Machine is extremely difficult to learn because not only do you need to have a pretty good understanding of Geometry and Physics (and there are physicists who say that Homer Kelley got the physics part wrong), but you have to understand Mr. Kelley's jargon with the book which makes it extremely difficult.

Unfortunately, the difficulty associated with understanding the book has turned off many golfers from working with Authorized Instructors in my experience. They get intimidated by trying to read the book themselves or hearing the stories of people who couldn't understand the book and they think that an AI is just some teacher who uses all this technical mumbo jumbo that they wouldn't understand. Furthermore, the common fallacy is that The Golfing Machine teaches one type of swing, which is utterly false.

In fact, that is the brilliance behind the book. It basically goes through every type of way a person can effectively hit a golf ball. Furthermore, Mr. Kelley states in the book that a teacher shouldn't strive to change a golfer's swing, but merely attack the problems the golfer is having and more or less 'tweak' the golfer's swing. In other words, The Golfing Machine can explain why Ray Floyd's swing is just as 'correct' as Ben Hogan's swing.



In my 'comeback' I decided to find out some more about The Golfing Machine and books like Bobby Clampett's 'Impact Zone' and Jeff Mann's Web site http://perfectgolfswingreview.net/ really helped me. Eventually I started to read Brian Manzella's, David Orr's and Lynn Blake's Web sites and they helped continue my knowledge. Recently I purchased 'The Golf Machine' and now armed with this knowledge I started to understand much more of what I was reading. The problem was that now I was only grasping about 50% of what I've read. That's until I purchased Peter Croker's 'TGM Downloads' which can be found at http://www.crokergolf.com/TGM_Downloads.htm

Essentially Croker (GSEM) and Paul Hart (GSED) go over all of the main stuff in each chapter in a very easy manner to learn. What's really great about these videos is that he provides a link for each subject (so you don't have to scan thru to find the subject you're looking for) and they pretty much answer most of the questions that I start to formulate as they give their instruction.

After awhile I started to debate in my head as to whether or not this would be a good video series for beginners, but I decided probably not because most beginners couldn't give a damn about things like extensor action and flying wedges and rightfully so. But for the 15 handicap who wants to really learn the swing and improve, I think this is a darn good video series. And for the under 5 handicap it's a great video series to have. And if you're a prospective golf instructor, I think this is a must to learn because even if you don't like TGM style of instruction, I think it's smart to get well versed in all forms of swing philosophies. But, I also think it's smart to become an AI even if you don't care for The Golfing Machine because it's a great way to make contacts and establish yourself.

Hart and Croker make TGM incredibly easy to understand, you just need some brief basics on TGM which can be found at 'The Impact Zone' book or at http://perfectgolfswingreview.net/. And yes, I do think understanding TGM can really help improve your game. Just clearing up the fog alone will at least save the golfer some frustration and confusion.

If you just want to understand a section of TGM, you can download the video of that section for $3. For all of the TGM downloads, it's only $25. Great, great value.

Kudos to Croker and Hart for not only creating something that should've been done long ago, but making it so simple to understand.





3JACK

1 comment:

Nils Thorell said...

The reason The Glofing Machine is hard to understand is because the author doesn't seem to understand physics. He is just throwing in scientific words in the wrong context. A person, who really understands a topic well, should be able to explain it in a simple way. But, for some reason, the author is trying to make the topic harder than it really is. Probably because he doesn't understand the topic himself.