My Study of OBFL versus NBFL

[Patrick57]

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. [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/246528/width/640/height/355][IMG]http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/246528/width/640/height/355[/IMG][/URL] 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... [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/246529/width/640/height/474][IMG]http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/246529/width/640/height/474[/IMG][/URL] 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. [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/246530/width/640/height/287][IMG]http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/246530/width/640/height/287[/IMG][/URL] 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.

[MbolicGolf]

Um, I don't usually hop on your circus threads, but please don't post stuff like this because it will confuse new golfers both of your charts are wrong and here's why. The ball will start perpendicular to the face at the end of impact. (impact isn't instant). The two charts below make no sense. For example if you have a down the line swing path. The ball will start at the direction perpendicular to the face. If you have a closed face and an in to out swing path you are not going to start the ball to the right of the target line. You will start left and stay left. The NBFL are correct spin is determined by the magnitude of transverse force to the target line. The target line is not drawn to the target. The target line is perpendicular to the face at the end of impact. So where ever the face is pointing that's where the ball is going to go if there is a lateral force with respect to the line perpendicular to the fact you get spin. If the face is moving laterally to the right you get a ball with a left spin ball flight, if the face has lateral movement to the left you get a rightward spin on the ball.  What you have done is only to create confusion, with the purpose I surmise,  so you can rescue confused golflings and gain their adoration for a fee. Your charts violate newton's second and third law.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Patrick57

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.

"The ball starts generally where the face is pointed at impact and curves away from the clubhead path."

Those are all words 99% of my students can understand.

Originally Posted by Patrick57

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.

TGM is not a book for students, nor does KNOWING something as an instructor mean you have to SHARE IT with your students. You seem to continually make this mistake.

Originally Posted by Patrick57

Align the club face to the target and align the feet to where you would like the ball to start.

Close. They say swing the path of the club where you want the ball to start. The feet are their proxy for the baseline of their swing plane and thus the path at impact (the small effect of hitting down causing more of an outward hit notwithstanding).

Originally Posted by Patrick57

So that I am perfectly clear: this chart is wrong at worst, misleading at best.

"Push hook" is described as a clubface aiming left of the in-to-out swing path (that will make the ball hook), but the images of the clubfaces indicate that they're also pointing left of the target line.

There's a big difference between a swing path of +6° with a clubface of +3° or -3° (0° is target line, + is to the right, - is to the left). The chart seems to depict +6/-3 but could be seen as accurate (though wildly misleading) if it's trying to say +6/+3.

Originally Posted by Patrick57

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.

It's very simple for you.

If you had a tree between you and the flag and you want to slice the ball around the tree, here's how you'd do it in the ball flight laws. Let's assume the ball needs to fly initially 5° (negative in this case) left in order to miss the tree.

OBFL

Do: point your clubface at the target, swing 5° left.

Myth: ball starts left on path of club, curves to where face is pointing.

Reality: Your ball smacks into the tree because the ball only starts about a degree.

NBFL

Do: point your clubface 5° left of the target, swing 10° left of the target (5° left of your clubface)

Reality: Your ball starts off about 6° left, misses the tree, and curves back to the right, finishing near the target.

That's it.

Furthermore, if someone's hitting a ball that pushes to the right but then overdraws, some idiot using the OBFL would say "swing farther to the right" because they believe that controls the ball's starting direction, when in reality that will make the ball hook EVEN MORE.

You were asked not to start more bullcrap threads on the BFL. You are, once again, serving time.