Daryl - thanks for the props. Much appreciated. But to answer your question more concretely - I really don’t care what TGM’rs think about my method of teaching and as someone trained in Logic and Philosophy, I care not a whit what TGM claims to believe. I care whether or not it is true - or demonstrably false. And the claim that TGM describes and embraces ALL methods of understanding the golf swing is complete bullshit. I understand why HK wanted to believe that he was writing a book that would indeed explain ALL possible ways. I just flat out don’t believe he did that. As I have been attempting to point out, perhaps not bluntly enough, HK was a Fundamentalist. Someday I believe the Psychiatric profession will include in their Diagnostic Manual a description for a Personalilty Disorder called “Fundamendalist Personality Disorder”. It is widespread in human kind. It is responsbile for a lot of conflict in our little corner of the galaxy. People with that particular disorder have a very strong emotional and mental impulse to always be on the Right Side. They tend to view things in extremes of Black and White. The more intellectually inclined, like HK, tend to make a lot of long lists describing every little detail of whatever subject they are especially obsessed with. This is the Asbergers I was referring to. To put it another way, for those of you who frequent a lot of the golf swing forums, HK was the Jeff Mann of his day. He got lucky on his second round of golf, after six months of practice, and shot a 77. He then got really obsessed about that round since after that day he never scored even closed to that well. That drove a lot of his research. I meet these kinds of golfers at least a few times every year. They are obsessed and searching for the
So was HK a genius? Yes - no doubt he was. Did he describe a lot of very true facts about effective ways to hit a golf ball. Undoubtedly. Did he also miss a lot of important aspects of the effective golf swing. Absolutely. Is there ANY TGM fanatic out there on the Web who will acknowledge this simple fact? I have yet to run across one, but we can only hope. HK was a human being - he was far from perfect and he got a lot wrong in his book. So did everyone else who has written a golf book. Me included. You don’t know what you don’t know. All we can do as human beings is to try and stay humble, admit that we could be dead wrong - even about our most cherished beliefs - and be open to new ideas.
I know of a few… I’m sure there are more. I have no reason to believe that TGM is a complete work. I can in no way see the offering of a proper stroke pattern that would describe Ben Hogan’s golf swing. That in itself is consistent with “Omissions may occur in some categories.”
My own swing was apparently the subject of debate on LBG. I flushed it that day, 16 greens, every fairway, stuffed the ball inside 15 feet 13 times even with long irons, and I was torn apart like tissue in a hurricane over there.
not angry… no… didn’t follow it… but someone sent me a link to some silly things that were said … I mean I don’t need to argue in my own defense as a player… I’ll play anyone…
How exactly does the right forearm “thrust”. Its an absurd concept. This is like saying “the dog’s tail is wagging itself”. The right forearm - and the left forearm, both wrists, both hands, both upper upper arms and the entire golf club- as a Unit - are being moved by the Pivot, most directly and concretely the Shoulder Girdle as it makes it’s three-dimensional spiral sweep from the Top to the Finish. The ball just gets in the way. When you read any one posting about “doing” anything directly with those body parts I mentioned in my third sentence - the Red Warning Light should start flashing in your mind - Beware!
This arms and wrist stuff is why people still can’t play a lick after 500 years. HK got this one wrong big time. You COULD thrust the right arm angle away by a sudden contraction of your right tricep, but almost all of that thrust or power is going in the down and out dimensions, NOT the target or horizontal dimension, which is what must occur for proper application of power. So that is at best a secondary source of power as Lee Trevino explained to me personally in a conversation we had about the golf swing about a decade ago.
This is classic TGM teaching. It is an arm-biased teaching method. Neither arm “swings” independently nor does the right arm “drive” independently in any good ballstriker I have ever seen. The basic premise is one which HK accepted unquestioningly and it is a deeply flawed one.
Basically, what I teach is pressures… how to create them… and transfer them around within the body, using the ground as a fulcrum point,
and offering various levers to create force within the body.
I can’t recommend TGM until I fully understand why Homer would open his STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES with such an unsupportable first essential.
My basic philosophy is that I will not deny the action of any great ball striker. I don’t teach principles that I can’t perform and execute with a very high level of competence, and what I teach must be consistent to the best of my direct and personal knowledge with those high ideals.
It the stationary head issue is not what Homer meant then he should have stated it more clearly. I cannot trust the interpretations of what other think he said. He is not here to defend himself, only his words remain in writing. I like a lot of what he said, I strongly disagree with many things… both from an intellectual level, and also as a high end practitioner of his methodology.
I would like to get clarity on this head issue, but if we can’t then we will simply go around and around on every one of these issues… such as FLW, Swinging vs Hitting, failure to address tangential acceleration and it’s protocol in the golf swing, swing plane issues, Lever assemblies and so forth.
I’ve got more than a Christmas list of issues to offer up…
As long as the pivot center stays the same the head can move, it can go anywhere.
Daryl gives some glossary definition from a later version of TGM that I don’t have that suggests the head can move like a figure skater spinning around
Ok, so stationary from a birdseye view? would that be ok? so the skater can move up and down… like on a pole? but would appear to be stationary from an birdseye view?
Daryl is shocked, then insults me for not having the latest version of the book claiming I’m unprofessional or something to that extent. Clearly upset, he then proceeds to delete all his postings here. I have only subbed in the basic idea he was putting forth to make this somewhat of a readable thread… he is more than welcome to come back here and post and debate TGM. He left some insightful stuff, but seemed to continually want to avoid the topic on hand… so when you delete all your posts here this is what happens
