Patrick57
Head Pro
I am not the most experienced or involved golf instructor/player when it comes to many of the scientific studies and developments involving equipment or the subtleties of the biological mechanics of the golf swing. I do believe that these studies are important and I should perhaps look into them more but I have tried to read the three most revered publications on this, “The Science of Golf†by Dave Williams; “The Golfing Machine†by Homer Kelley, and “Search for the Perfect Swing†by Cochran and Stobbs, from over forty years ago, and they all make very difficult and complicated reading.
So, I have a decision to make, ''What's more important for my students, my understanding of these fine details or my understanding of what they need to know?'' I found the answer to this question by directing the same question to myself. As a player and coach, I have reached a satisfying level of competence by describing and demonstrating the golf swing in a language that 99% of my students can understand. If Kelley decided that 'maintaining the line of compression' was probably the most important factor of pure ball striking then I would prefer that he found an uncomplicated way of explaining exactly what this short sentence meant.
But nothing has caught me more unprepared than the revelations of the NBFL. How could all of the greats of the last 30-40 years have been so wrong. My jaw dropped as I read the articles on this and heard comments like, ''It is now evident that what we believed from the OBFL is almost opposite of what actually happens.'' I could have accepted slightly different or even different but the use of the word opposite just riled me. I have put many hours of study into this new revelation and would like to present my findings.
There are two main points being made...
Faldo, Donald, Harmon and many more describe the old laws as...
Align the club face to the target and align the feet to where you would like the ball to start. I can understand these short descriptions but they have little to do with what has been detailed in the OBFL charts.
But nothing has confused me more than, what I consider to be, the deliberate misleading directives of the NBFL. The OBFL describes a flight path and explains the alignment of the club face to this path and explains what happens in very simple terms. E.g. ''Club face aims left of in to out path. Ball starts left and curves further left.'' Now what Faldo and co. said was different to this but definitely along similar lines.
The NBFL...
I accept that the face angle has more to do with the initial flight path than the OBFL lead us to believe but the claims of the NBFL that a ball can start wildly different to what we have until recently believed, stretches my understanding of what I am doing too far. This led me to delving a little deeper into these new laws. I decided to clarify the above diagram changing two factors. Firstly, in order to make better comparisons to the OBFL both diagrams require similar face alignments and secondly more exact and comprehensible path and face conditions should be described.
Although the OBFL assume more path dominance, the flights are very similar. I believe these parameters are standard path and club face conditions and to seek more extreme face conditions would be unrealistic. I believe these diagrams to be relatively accurate and welcome any comments on any of the nine possible outcomes.
So, I have a decision to make, ''What's more important for my students, my understanding of these fine details or my understanding of what they need to know?'' I found the answer to this question by directing the same question to myself. As a player and coach, I have reached a satisfying level of competence by describing and demonstrating the golf swing in a language that 99% of my students can understand. If Kelley decided that 'maintaining the line of compression' was probably the most important factor of pure ball striking then I would prefer that he found an uncomplicated way of explaining exactly what this short sentence meant.
But nothing has caught me more unprepared than the revelations of the NBFL. How could all of the greats of the last 30-40 years have been so wrong. My jaw dropped as I read the articles on this and heard comments like, ''It is now evident that what we believed from the OBFL is almost opposite of what actually happens.'' I could have accepted slightly different or even different but the use of the word opposite just riled me. I have put many hours of study into this new revelation and would like to present my findings.
There are two main points being made...
Faldo, Donald, Harmon and many more describe the old laws as...
Align the club face to the target and align the feet to where you would like the ball to start. I can understand these short descriptions but they have little to do with what has been detailed in the OBFL charts.
But nothing has confused me more than, what I consider to be, the deliberate misleading directives of the NBFL. The OBFL describes a flight path and explains the alignment of the club face to this path and explains what happens in very simple terms. E.g. ''Club face aims left of in to out path. Ball starts left and curves further left.'' Now what Faldo and co. said was different to this but definitely along similar lines.
The NBFL...
I accept that the face angle has more to do with the initial flight path than the OBFL lead us to believe but the claims of the NBFL that a ball can start wildly different to what we have until recently believed, stretches my understanding of what I am doing too far. This led me to delving a little deeper into these new laws. I decided to clarify the above diagram changing two factors. Firstly, in order to make better comparisons to the OBFL both diagrams require similar face alignments and secondly more exact and comprehensible path and face conditions should be described.
Although the OBFL assume more path dominance, the flights are very similar. I believe these parameters are standard path and club face conditions and to seek more extreme face conditions would be unrealistic. I believe these diagrams to be relatively accurate and welcome any comments on any of the nine possible outcomes.
