Why Understanding the Ball Flight Laws is Important

[The_Pharaoh]

Originally Posted by JetFan1983

So far, we've only heard the correct ball flight laws once on the golf channel I think: Breed a couple years ago on the Golf Fix. But then didn't Breed give the wrong ball flight laws like a year later on that show?

When asked directly he got them right, but continues to teach using the wrong ball flight laws.

I think we now know why Brandel is no longer on tour and when he was it was as if he wasn't.

[Harmonious]

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh

I think we now know why Brandel is no longer on tour and when he was it was as if he wasn't.

Over $4 million in career earnings, even without knowing physics.

[mvmac]

Originally Posted by JetFan1983

So far, we've only heard the correct ball flight laws once on the golf channel I think: Breed a couple years ago on the Golf Fix. But then didn't Breed give the wrong ball flight laws like a year later on that show?

Yeah it was weird, he had it right in theory but got it wrong when implementing it

[MarioBevilacqua]

I'm thinking of a word..... what was it...........oh yea, ego.

[The_Pharaoh]

Originally Posted by Harmonious

Over $4 million in career earnings, even without knowing physics.

Imagine what he could have won knowing what he was doing.

[Harmonious]

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh

Imagine what he could have won knowing what he was doing.

He basically retired from the tour in 2001.  Trackman info and high-speed video, which confirmed with certainty the ball flight laws, didn't come into play until 2003 or so.

So I imagine Chamblee would have won about $4 million.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Harmonious

He basically retired from the tour in 2001.  Trackman info and high-speed video, which confirmed with certainty the ball flight laws, didn't come into play until 2003 or so.

Some people knew the correct ball flight laws long before 2001. Homer Kelley had it awfully close to correct (he implied it was 100% face for starting direction) before Brandel began playing golf. And The Physics of Golf, which laid out the D-Plane concept, was published in the 90s.

Heck, I'd be tempted to wager that Hogan and Nelson would have given the right answer.

[The_Pharaoh]

Originally Posted by iacas

Some people knew the correct ball flight laws long before 2001. Homer Kelley had it awfully close to correct (he implied it was 100% face for starting direction) before Brandel began playing golf. And The Physics of Golf, which laid out the D-Plane concept, was published in the 90s.

Heck, I'd be tempted to wager that Hogan and Nelson would have given the right answer.

You beat me to it. It's funny how all the top instructors that have been teaching for 30+ years, and claiming to have known them all the time, didn't share them with him. "Hey Brandel, the reason your ball is starting left is because your face is pointing there at impact", would have come in handy.

Who was Brandel's instructor while on tour?

[Harmonious]

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh

You beat me to it. It's funny how all the top instructors that have been teaching for 30+ years, and claiming to have known them all the time, didn't share them with him. "Hey Brandel, the reason your ball is starting left is because your face is pointing there at impact", would have come in handy.

Who was Brandel's instructor while on tour?

Okay, you say all those top instructors knew them, so who were all the tour players in the 1990's that knew them, and used them?  Did Harvey Penick tell the ball flights laws to Kite and Crenshaw? Did David Leadbetter tell them to Faldo? Did Jack Grout tell them to Nicklaus?  You already know the answer.

Since the age of the swing guru didn't come about until quite recently, I would postulate that tour players were too busy trying to make a living on tour to devote much time to do research and to scientifically analyze their game, much less seek input from someone who couldn't play it at their level.  For the same reason that Dave Pelz had a hard time convincing players that the short game was so important.

That's a good question to put to tour players pre-Trackman. What did you know about the ball flight laws, and when did you know it?

[The_Pharaoh]

Originally Posted by Harmonious

Okay, you say all those top instructors knew them, so who were all the tour players in the 1990's that knew them, and used them?

Who used them? Every single player. Every time you hit a ball and watch it fly, you use the ball flight laws. Are you claiming pros just hit ball after ball without thinking about cause and effect? Every change they made to their swings would have been due to how the ball was flying. The large majority would have figured them out on their own or with the help of their coach. TrackMan may not have existed, but cameras did and players would have been able to see quite easily whether they were swinging in-to-out or out-to-in.

Anyway, we have gone off topic. All I want to make clear is that I think Brandel would have been a much better player, won more money and more than one tour event, had he known the correct ball flight laws. You say no, fine.

[mvmac]

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh

All I want to make clear is that I think Brandel would have been a much better player, won more money and more than one tour event, had he known the correct ball flight laws.

I think that's a fair point

[uttexas]

Since the age of the swing guru didn't come about until quite recently, I would postulate that tour players were too busy trying to make a living on tour to devote much time to do research and to scientifically analyze their game, much less seek input from someone who couldn't play it at their level.  For the same reason that Dave Pelz had a hard time convincing players that the short game was so important. That's a good question to put to tour players pre-Trackman. What did you know about the ball flight laws, and when did you know it?

Very good points. One of the popular top instructor accredited with "pioneering the old ball flight laws and basic geometry" would be John Jacobs. I have his Practical Golf book which is regularly in the GD and Golf Digest's top five instruction book lists. The first couple of chapters in Practical Golf covers his ball flight laws. In the Introduction, 6th paragraph, he writes "Most of what you read about curing slicing tells you to do things like "slide the hips as the first movement in the downswing", "stay inside", "tuck the right elbow in". He then goes on to say the basic fault is open clubface at impact. Today, we have highspeed cameras that show most slicers have a square or slightly closed face at impact. He basically gets it backwards. Practical Golf-by John Jacobs pg 13 "...unless you cure the basic fault---your open clubface at impact---you'll never (fix a slice)" pg 16 " Slice--Ball starts left of your target, then bends to the right. face is open--facing right of your swing line. This creates a clockwise side spin that bends the ball to the right...." These "old" flight laws creeped into the the PGA teaching manual and have stayed there. One of the reasons the old laws had longevity----the old laws seem to explain straight shots, straight pushes, straight pulls, pull hooks, and push slices

[The_Pharaoh]

Originally Posted by uttexas

pg 16 " Slice--Ball starts left of your target, then bends to the right. face is open--facing right of your swing line.

So he got it right, then? Facing right of the swing line is how a slice occurs.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by uttexas

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harmonious

Since the age of the swing guru didn't come about until quite recently, I would postulate that tour players were too busy trying to make a living on tour to devote much time to do research and to scientifically analyze their game, much less seek input from someone who couldn't play it at their level.  For the same reason that Dave Pelz had a hard time convincing players that the short game was so important.

That's a good question to put to tour players pre-Trackman. What did you know about the ball flight laws, and when did you know it?

Very good points. One of the popular top instructor accredited with "pioneering the old ball flight laws and basic geometry" would be John Jacobs. I have his Practical Golf book which is regularly in the GD and Golf Digest's top five instruction book lists. The first couple of chapters in Practical Golf covers his ball flight laws. In the Introduction, 6th paragraph, he writes "Most of what you read about curing slicing tells you to do things like "slide the hips as the first movement in the downswing", "stay inside", "tuck the right elbow in". He then goes on to say the basic fault is open clubface at impact. Today, we have highspeed cameras that show most slicers have a square or slightly closed face at impact. He basically gets it backwards.

Practical Golf-by John Jacobs

pg 13 "...unless you cure the basic fault---your open clubface at impact---you'll never (fix a slice)"

pg 16 " Slice--Ball starts left of your target, then bends to the right. face is open--facing right of your swing line. This creates a clockwise side spin that bends the ball to the right...."

These "old" flight laws creeped into the the PGA teaching manual and have stayed there.

One of the reasons the old laws had longevity----the old laws seem to explain straight shots, straight pushes, straight pulls, pull hooks, and push slices

If you'd read the book without your Stack and Tilt coloured glasses on, which is how I read it 20 (or so) years ago, then you wouldn't have had a problem with his termilogy.

Pretty much everyone at the time referred to a clubface being open or closed RELATIVE TO THE SWING PATH. What he wrote is correct when not taken completely out of context, which S&T; followers tend to do.

His comments on video were extremely relevant as they pointed to the rise of players wanting to "delay the hit" in an effort to create lag. He described how to swing properly, thus creating lag. Any attempt to delay the hit results in, to use a modern phrase, weaksauce.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by sean_miller

Pretty much everyone at the time referred to a clubface being open or closed RELATIVE TO THE SWING PATH. What he wrote is correct when not taken completely out of context, which S&T; followers tend to do.

While that's true, the problem with describing the clubface as "open" (it is to the path, yes, for EVERY slice ever hit) is that you'll then try to fix the swing by fixing the face, when really it's the path that needs adjusted.

Fixing a slice by getting people to hit low pulls isn't really much of a fix. So I don't like to bag on Jacobs, but I've talked with a lot of people, and they almost always teach in the "path = start line" manner. They  go about fixing a pull-slicer by:

a) getting him to square the face, i.e. hitting really low balls that are pulled a lot

b) now that their ball flight is straight, they try to work the player back to hitting the ball out to the right (i.e. straight)

You can still get "better" that way, but why bother with two steps when one works:

a) get the path more to the right and less out to in.

Jacobs had a lot of success because he didn't care a ton about the swing esthetics. He cared about the ball flight, and that's great. But he still had the flight laws wrong (not what causes spin - both "camps" agree to that), and it resulted in wasted time "fixing the face" when the path was the problem.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by iacas

While that's true, the problem with describing the clubface as "open" (it is to the path, yes, for EVERY slice ever hit) is that you'll then try to fix the swing by fixing the face, when really it's the path that needs adjusted.

Fixing a slice by getting people to hit low pulls isn't really much of a fix. So I don't like to bag on Jacobs, but I've talked with a lot of people, and they almost always teach in the "path = start line" manner. They  go about fixing a pull-slicer by:

a) getting him to square the face, i.e. hitting really low balls that are pulled a lot

b) now that their ball flight is straight, they try to work the player back to hitting the ball out to the right (i.e. straight)

You can still get "better" that way, but why bother with two steps when one works:

a) get the path more to the right and less out to in.

Jacobs had a lot of success because he didn't care a ton about the swing esthetics. He cared about the ball flight, and that's great. But he still had the flight laws wrong (not what causes spin - both "camps" agree to that), and it resulted in wasted time "fixing the face" when the path was the problem.

We could take a lot of things he said out of context and make it look backwarda and extraneous (compared to S&T;) but the crux of his book wasn't to fix as slice but how to hit the ball relatively straight (with power). Since I wasn't struggling with a slice when I first read the book, I noticed he discussed what causes a slice in order to illustrate how people trying to self-medicate ended up slicing even worse. I assumed that his book, like Nicklaus' Full Swing (ca. 1980) were written in such a way that a sound golf swing would result from following their method. They weren't book of tips and/or quick fixes. Taking small snippets of them out of context does them a disservice and serves to twist the authors' intentions.

[uttexas]

Nicklaus' and Jacobs' books both discuss the importance of ball flight. The Jacobs and Nicklaus books contain valuable, useful information. Using principles from these books, one can certainly learn fundamentals of a sound golf swing. Jacobs was ahead of his time analyzing ball flight and was highly influential on future generations of instructors.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by sean_miller

We could take a lot of things he said out of context and make it look backwarda and extraneous (compared to S&T;) but the crux of his book wasn't to fix as slice but how to hit the ball relatively straight (with power). Since I wasn't struggling with a slice when I first read the book, I noticed he discussed what causes a slice in order to illustrate how people trying to self-medicate ended up slicing even worse. I assumed that his book, like Nicklaus' Full Swing (ca. 1980) were written in such a way that a sound golf swing would result from following their method. They weren't book of tips and/or quick fixes. Taking small snippets of them out of context does them a disservice and serves to twist the authors' intentions.

I don't think anybody's saying anything differently than that.