John Jacobs, Tom Watson and a Clubface Pull

[Jim Kobylinski]

quote:Originally posted by ian d m

The customers/public aren't stupid. Although it seems cruel, they vote with their feet. They don't expect to learn golf in 5 minutes; but they don't want a religious experience that takes them on a journey of experimentation either. They just want to pay some money and get a little better each time. If you can fix the ball flight and the swing at the same time you are in business. They will come back or send their friends.

I think you might find the reason they don't come back to the Golf Machine guys is they came with a slice and they go away with a lower longer slice. And the deep divots don't get cured either.

Peter Croker (few remember he was one of the first golf machinists union in Australia) realised it and went 180* in the other direction and now tells everyone to throw it early.

Which is just as illogical as telling everyone to "delay it, store it". People have different mistakes; you can't tell them all the same thing.

Here's a question: if a golfer is swinging down steeply he may well have trained himself (sub-consciously) to throw it early in order to compensate and shallow his approach. So, he's corrected one mistake with another. So, some very well meaning golf machinists union member armed with his yellow book and all the quotes from whomever tells the student to delay his release "like Hogan and component nr. 5/m-3c" or whatever.

Result ? Not pretty now you have steepened and delayed a slicer. Will this person be pleased ? I think not. But that's ok you can come home and complain on a web-site about your student's lack of commitment when he doesn't come back.

lol...what are you talking about?!

I love how you lump together all the "machine guys."

Have you ever had instruction from a good AI? I think not.

 

[ian d m]

quote:It sounds to me that you have the common misconception that golfing machine teachers teach A SWING. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Are you sure ? It seems much of the discussion here concerns the evils of throwing it away and what charlatans the people are who don't fix it first. Now I'm not saying that you should throw it away but have you ever thought: that 90% of all golfers slice and the other 10% who can hook it, probably, hit it too low at times. So, is throwing it away really the worst mistake these golfers have ? (It is in reality probably a sub-conscious reaction to another worse mistake). And this is an area that the golf machine is quite deficient in: the reactions and mistakes people make during their swing to counter other problems. I don't believe it is ever mentioned and certainly not here in any discussion I have read. Yet it is crucial to being able to unravel the myriad mistakes people have piled up in their games and help them promptly.

Also, have you noticed the club manufacturers during the past 10-12 years make more clubs with the aim of more draw and more height. Really smart people like Bob Bush and others (and yes with plenty of physics and aerodynamics, too) have identified that excess spin rates and steep angles of attack are related.

And there have been some spectacular failures: Bob Tway, Scott Verplank, Ian Baker-Finch, Bobby Clampett all lost their games and couldn't get fixed. The problems were similar: high righters and low pull hooks with the driver. Sounds like the mistake of someone with a combination of a steep arm swing and right wrist bent too far back (which hoods and shuts the face). I personally remember standing at the Byron Nelson Classic practice tee and being showered in divots and shocked at the sound of Verplank's leading edge digging troughs in Texas. I kept wondering: could he please hit with just a little of the bounce on his irons ? As it was really windy and we went home with sod all over us.

quote:mcfas45
Ian,
Sounds a little like contempt prior to investigation. I well remember JJs, " You can't release the club early enough and I am glad Jack agrees with me ", chant of the early seventies.

I think he actually said as long as you co-ordinate it with the lower body unwinding. But I saw him delay several student's releases. But only if they needed it. It was not an end in itself.

quote:Like it or not TGM is at the very least the basis of everything good in modern golf instruction, though many would have you believe otherwise.

This is plainly incorrect. See above.

quote:So on a scale of good, better and best JJ is good. Sorry couldn't resist. Remember, when the main competition was square to square JJ did not really have to do much special to be number one.

I'm not here to promote John Jacobs; he has quite enough money. And there were many times when I raised my eye-brows at some of his short term corrections; and he knew his limits here too. But I do feel though that some balance needs to be presented. For instance, there are some very arrogant claims to make the complex simple yet when you hear their explanations of shanks, a relatively simple issue becomes a total foggy confusion.

quote:Have you ever had instruction from a good AI? I think not.

I actually attended a school in the early nineties. The people were nice, well regarded in your community and well intentioned but I didn't see any great improvements or great teaching. I won't make any further criticism of the people than that as they did try hard and were interested.

 

[billmckinneygolf]

Hmm, as far as I know, Gregg McHatton, Bobby Schaeffer and I were the only ones doing any Golfing Machine Schools back then. I don't remember you, Ian. Thanks for not giving my name away if we really weren't great. That's British class.
BUT, you are mistaken about AIs all teaching alike...lag, etc. The better ones among us teach people to play golf. I talk a lot about trajectories.
And by the way, Tway and Verplank made very nice comebacks with the help of some TGM coaching.