I just got finished reading Scott Gummer's "Homer Kelley's Golfing Machine."
I give it a solid "B," but really, I like to give it an A /over/ a C-.
The A- is for the part of the story up to Homer's passing in 1983, and the (generous) C-, for the part from then, up to the 2007 Kraft Nabisco Championship. If I would have been the publisher, I'd have ended the book when Homer passed away at the seminar for the PGA in Macon, Georgia, and included a short epilogue.
The years from 1983 to present, in "Golfing Machine-land" is a hell of a story, and one that hopefully, will be told with some degree of accuracy one day. Gummer's attempt really seemed force-fit, and trust me, as a very interested and active party in The Golfing Machine since 1987, woefully incomplete.
Be that as it may, Gummer's biography of Mr. Kelley is first rate, and worth the read for anyone lover of golf or people.
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In an earlier thread about this book, before anyone posting on the thread had even read it, the thread had disintegrated into a debate about the merits of The Golfing Machine.
Here is my official stance on The Golfing Machine as of May 18th 2009:
The Golfing Machine in 2009
by Brian Manzella
In the early 1940's, Homer Kelley was an engineering aide for Boeing who got pretty good at golf rather quickly after taking some beginner indoor lessons from a local pro.
(Much later on Kelley realized it was the instructor's tip of "semi-locking" the left wrist that helped him the most.)
Kelley looked for answers to his success from other local pros, got none, and spent the next 14 years "incubating" solutions.
He then proceeded to work on his book "The Golfing Machine" for the next 14 years—the last nine full-time—with some help from his brother on the science-heavy second chapter.
In 1969, in Seattle, Washington, Homer walked into the office of fellow Christian Scientist Ben Doyle, a local club pro with a good teaching and playing reputation, to show him the book and interest him in teaching from it.
Ben liked the information very much, and saw how it could be used in his everyday lessons. The information was basically a classification system for all the different things that the golfer could do differently, and the very important things that Kelley thought they must do the same—like have flat left wrist at and through impact.
Ben then organized a group of local pros for a few sessions with Homer to gauge interest in the book. One of the group was noted player and teacher Paul Runyan. The pros were impressed with Homer's work, but were unhappy that Kelley had not recommended "one swing," but literally, trillions.
Only then did Kelley begin to develop the concept of "recommended" stroke patterns, which by the 3rd edition of the book, included a few, but later was whittled to just one for what he called "Pushing" (or Hitting) and one for "Pulling" (swinging), two of the three ways he felt you could "load" the club on the downswing.
Kelley was influenced by several pros between that 1969 meeting with Ben Doyle, and his untimely passing at a PGA Georgia Section seminar in 1983. Besides Ben in the early years, he was influenced by Tommy Tomesello, who became a teaching pro later in life and who did not see eye to eye with the good player/long-time pro Doyle. Ben had left Seattle for Northern California to teach in early seventies, after falling in love with the area during a trip to play in the PGA Tour event known then as the "Crosby."
The differences that had arisen between the soft-spoken Doyle's interpretation of the "practical application" of The Golfing Machine that he had applied to his years on the lesson tee, and that of the ever gregarious salesman Tomesello and his followers, would, along with problems with other factions and Homer himself, come to a head soon after Mr. Kelley passed away.
Sally Kelley, Homer's devoted wife, took control of the small company that had blossomed from selling Homer's book, and collecting the yearly Authorized Instructors' fees from the pros that had passed the test that Homer devised to make a teacher read the book very thoroughly.
National prominence had come to Kelley, Doyle and the book during the rapid rise to stardom of Doyle pupil Bobby Clampett, who's seamless, powerful golf swing had intrigued all who saw and heard it up close.
Golf Magazine and Golf Digest both did stories on the book and Ben Doyle during that time, and the although the Golf Magazine version was first penned by Doyle, when Doyle balked at the editor's revisions, Homer Kelley provided his own analysis of Clampett's swing, which was edited itself, prior to publication. It was Kelley's last work.
After Clampett started to struggle on tour, and left Ben for "name" teachers like Jimmy Ballard, and Hank Haney, the book was blamed for Clampett's decline. A charge that Clampett has often completely disagreed with, and continues to, to this day.
Many "Authorized Instructors" became famous teachers, and won all sorts of awards, including PGA National Teacher of the Year. This continues to this day with Authorized Instructor Martin Hall the latest to win PGA National Teacher of the Year.
A list of recent and current famous golfers and teachers influenced by the concepts introduced in The Golfing Machine, by Golfing Machine Authorized Instructor's, or by Golfing Machine information, would be nearly as long as those who haven't been.
Among those golfers and teachers was Mac O'Grady, a student of the book, who took lessons from Ben Doyle, and later got help directly from Homer. He broke off from the Authorized Instructor network and devised his own classification system he called MORAD. He never hesitated to praise Homer, but said the book was tragically flawed. This flaw was never mentioned in print, but was later revealed as Homer giving geometry precedence over physics.
Homer was neither a mathematician, nor a physicist. He did his best to use science to support his ideas, and tested them the best he could without the use of high-speed video, 3D machines, TRACKMAN, or any of the measurement devices swing theorists of today take for granted.
Before Sally Kelley passed away, she wanted the business of The Golfing Machine to wind up in good hands. Long Island New York Authorized Instructor Michael Jacobs went to Seattle with his lawyer and a checkbook, but the price was deemed to high for the amount of money the business was generating. Later a group that had included Danny Elkins and Joe Daniels, among others, eventually was slimmed to Daniels and Elkins. After their purchase and some other management team shakeups over several months, Daniels emerged as the sole owner.
Daniels has operated the company out of his home state of Oregon for several years, and holds a very well received Authorized Instructor Teaching Summit each year in Florida. He continues to hold Authorized Instructor classes, and "Authorize" new instructors, many outside the US. Daniels also published a 7th edition of the book, using notes Homer had penned while working on that project.
After the transition from Sally to Joe, a couple of Authorized Instructor's who longed for more of a role in the company, left the fold of Authorized Instructors. The ones who "stayed on" include Ben Doyle, who continues to teach in Carmel, California, and nearly every other Authorized Instructor from before the sale.
The current factions are basically spilt up into five groups: The Doyle disciples who have not varied much from Ben's application, Tomasello disciples who have done the same with Tom's ideas, the so-called "Book Literalists," who feel that Homer's word was basically infallible and teach it as such, the new Authorized Instructor's still finding their own road, and the second generation pros like myself that learned from the book, Ben, and the rest of the instructor network, but have gone on to develop their own systems, taking what was good from the book and adding that to years on the tee and modern research.
This modern research includes the D-Plane, which proves that the "Plane Line" does not provide for direct correlation to ball flight; findings by Jorgensen, Nesbit and Zick that show that to get beyond an 85% mathematical limit in power generation, the golfer must apply pulling and pushing during the same stroke different times; "hinge action" during impact will not change ball-flight perceptibly; the mathematical reality that proves that you cannot resist deceleration through impact, no matter how long a flat left wrist is held, and despite any impact body positioning; and the bio-mechanical reality that shows the practical implausibility of the two recommended patterns in the 6th and 7th editions.
It should be noted that Daniels has Dr. Aaron Zick appear at all the "Summits" and plans to keep the book's science "up-to-date."
None of this should detract one bit from the fact that the "The Golfing Machine" is a book with more useful information than all but a handful of the thousands of books on the subject, and that a typical Authorized Instructor is much more technically educated in the workings of the golf swing that the average teacher who has not studied Mr. Kelley's work.
Here is my take:
The simple fact of real-world golf instruction remains—there is "A" swing that will work best for a student. One method will never "fix" or maximize the potential of any sizable group of golfers.
The teacher's job should be to repair what can be fixed, with an eye toward this ideal pattern for each golfer.
So, stay away from method teachers, unless you want to learn that method—or all of them. Don't expect custom furniture at IKEA.
Some "Golfing Machine" instructors ARE "method" teachers, some are not.
Some are true to the book, some say they are, some have gone beyond the book.
The same things can be said for "non-Golfing Machine" teachers.
At the end of the day, The Golfing Machine Authorized Instructor program is continuing education for those who teach golf. The PGA of America recognizes this program, along with other continuing education programs offered by other organizations and companies.
Some of the best businessman in the world never got a Harvard degree. Mark McCormick wrote a book about what he learned in the real-world after Harvard. I could write one as well about "real-world" golf teaching after my formal golf education, and I will one day.
But I still went to golf instruction's current "Harvard."
If you are looking for an instructor—do your homework, and choose a teacher for their ability to TEACH.
