Several of my fav's have already been mentioned, but who can forget Five Lessons and the arms banded together with the elbow pockets up? Ugh. It gives me the "creeps" to even look at it!
Compare the illustrations below to clearly differentiate what he said to do with what he actually did.
You can also consult my avatar (personal identifier on this post) for the correct configuration.
I wish I had had as clear a picture as Yoda's avatar to guide me. That image alone could have saved me God knows how many strokes over the years and made my ball striking what I have always believed it could be...and what it is on its way to becoming with all the help on here!
I regret mentioning Jimmy Ballard's name , that isnt right. I dont know the guy , he may have some fine insights on golf, what do I know anyways.......but the maintain the triangle theory on the backswing killed me, for years.
No bending right elbow, no right forearm magic. Jimmy Ballard, Jimmy Ballard......I feel very small right now. Ballard , Jimmy.
Great sales pitch though. Great. But a death elixir. Hogan did not do that.
I regret mentioning Jimmy Ballard's name , that isnt right. I dont know the guy , he may have some fine insights on golf, what do I know anyways.......but the maintain the triangle theory on the backswing killed me, for years.
No bending right elbow, no right forearm magic. Jimmy Ballard, Jimmy Ballard......I feel very small right now. Ballard , Jimmy.
Great sales pitch though. Great. But a death elixir. Hogan did not do that.
I worked with Jimmy back in the day. Never once did I hear no bending of the elbow or was I told to sway. If anything he was the first teacher that told me how to use my right side and "trace" the outside rail (the plane line). Spring the shaft was what I heard. Still good today.
Jimmy could also fix somebody faster than just about anyone. I think he got a bad reputation because his followers bastardized his message just as many did to Homer's work.
I worked with Jimmy back in the day. Never once did I hear no bending of the elbow or was I told to sway. If anything he was the first teacher that told me how to use my right side and "trace" the outside rail (the plane line). Spring the shaft was what I heard. Still good today.
I don't remember the book advising a sway necessarily. I may have just picked that up watching his star pupil, Curtis Strange (I am recalling that right I think).
The now so called "old" ball flight laws. Heck, I was just drawing these on a white board at work like a year ago. (I've been away from the game for like ten years...)
How long have we misdiagnosed swing problems based on those!
I worked with Jimmy back in the day. Never once did I hear no bending of the elbow or was I told to sway. If anything he was the first teacher that told me how to use my right side and "trace" the outside rail (the plane line). Spring the shaft was what I heard. Still good today.
Jimmy could also fix somebody faster than just about anyone. I think he got a bad reputation because his followers bastardized his message just as many did to Homer's work.
Hey Jeff
Nice to hear from you. I do admit that its been a long while since I read his book ...... maybe I got that maintain the intact triangle on the backswing thing from somewhere else then? If so then I regret attributing that horrible methodology to Mr Ballard and stand corrected.
So he traced the target line with his right side and folded his right elbow? Man, why didnt I get that message back in the day?
I worked with Jimmy back in the day. Never once did I hear no bending of the elbow or was I told to sway. If anything he was the first teacher that told me how to use my right side and "trace" the outside rail (the plane line). Spring the shaft was what I heard. Still good today.
Jimmy could also fix somebody faster than just about anyone. I think he got a bad reputation because his followers bastardized his message just as many did to Homer's work.
Glad to hear that, Jeff, but . . .
At least in the mid-'70s -- you were less than ten years old at the time -- Jimmy Ballard taught a sway.
Big time.
(If you want to see it done in person, look at Air's Post #14 above at 1:36-1:40.)
How do I know?
Because, for one full day, that's what he and one of his assistants taught me -- indeed, insisted that I do -- at his teaching range in Pell City, Alabama. I was not a "reverse-pivot-er" and have tons of pre-Jimmy photos to prove it.
The mantra: Move the weight and head to the right, then "fire" the right arm. "Nobody keeps their head still", right? The swing has "two pivot points", right? Move to the right and turn on the right leg. Then, move to the left and turn on the left leg. Let the head go with the motion.
All s-o-o-o logical and all so wrong. And all filtered down from three-time 1930s PGA Tour Money Winner Bill Mehlhorn to baseball great Sam Byrd and, finally, through Jimmy's own prism.
"Many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip."
I never heard a word about "tracing an outside rail" or "springing" the clubshaft. Of course, the Left Side Chorus of the 1970s Golf Digest Schools left the door wide open for Jimmy's liberating message to "fire the right side". Mac McLendon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_McLendon and Jim Colberthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Colbert performed on Tour and the world came calling.
I was there.
At Jimmy's and his assistant's direction, I swayed my head off the ball and my weight laterally "into [my] right hip" on the backswing, and then I "fired" my right side, by the hour for six hours. I did all I could do to do exactly what they were asking me to do. I have never felt more out of control swinging a golf club.
At the lunch break, they took me into a little motel room at the complex. Over a sandwich and chips, they flashed some Hogan 1948 Power Golf slides on the wall. They all showed the "head back" and big back lean away from the target. (Thirty-five years later, I was to learn about parallax and how it can affect photographs).
"See?" said they.
"Yes." said I.
Then back into Hell's Kitchen.
I had arrived a halfway decent, low-handicap ball striker and had paid my $100+ bucks in 1970s-type money (regular gas was at 40 cents a gallon; do the math). I had no game: Club championship stuff (but in a top-flight club!) and a former USAF Tactical Air Command Championship team player. Still . . .
I left -- seven hours later -- shanking every shot. Unbeknownst to me, I had been transformed from a Centered Swinger to a Swaying Hitter (with none of the latter alignments supplied).
At day's end, I asked Jimmy simply, "Why am I shanking everything? And, why should I move to the right like this?'
To which he replied, in words indelibly imprinted on my memory:
"Don't pick it apart, son."
I had come to him, a now renowned "expert", and paid a lot of money (at least for a young insurance agent with a non-working wife and three kids) to "pick it apart".
But he couldn't do it. At least not to my satisfaction. Not then. Not now.
I'm okay with not being able to do some athletic something. (That said, I'm reasonably coordinated: I made straight A's in six quarters of Physical Education at Georgia Tech).
I'm not okay with not knowing what it is I can't do.
Insult to Injury Category:
Jimmy pointed to newly-minted LPGA Tour player Joan Joyce 'swaying and firing' beside us. Impressive! Joan Joyce, former softball fast-pitch champion, the fastest in the world. A magnificent, gifted athlete. She pitched 150 no-hit, no-run games and 50 perfect games.Further, her career batting average is .324. Somewhere along the way, she was inducted into the Connecticut's Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.
She never made it in pro golf.
But later, Hal Sutton and Curtis Strange did.
Fortunately, my continued journey led me to Homer Kelley.
At least in the mid-'70s -- you were less than ten years old at the time -- Jimmy Ballard taught a sway.
Big time.
(If you want to see it done in person, look at Air's Post #14 above at 1:36-1:40.)
How do I know?
Because, for one full day, that's what he and one of his assistants taught me -- indeed, insisted that I do -- at his teaching range in Pell City, Alabama. I was not a "reverse-pivot-er" and have tons of pre-Jimmy photos to prove it.
The mantra: Move the weight and head to the right, then "fire" the right arm. "Nobody keeps their head still", right? The swing has "two pivot points", right? Move to the right and turn on the right leg. Then, move to the left and turn on the left leg. Let the head go with the motion.
All s-o-o-o logical and all so wrong. And all filtered down from three-time 1930s PGA Tour Money Winner Bill Mehlhorn to baseball great Sam Byrd and, finally, through Jimmy's own prism.
"Many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip."
I never heard a word about "tracing an outside rail" or "springing" the clubshaft. Of course, the Left Side Chorus of the 1970s Golf Digest Schools left the door wide open for Jimmy's liberating message to "fire the right side". Mac McLendon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_McLendon and Jim Colberthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Colbert performed on Tour and the world came calling.
I was there.
At Jimmy's and his assistant's direction, I swayed my head off the ball and my weight laterally "into [my] right hip" on the backswing, and then I "fired" my right side, by the hour for six hours. I did all I could do to do exactly what they were asking me to do. I have never felt more out of control swinging a golf club.
At the lunch break, they took me into a little motel room at the complex. Over a sandwich and chips, they flashed some Hogan 1948 Power Golf slides on the wall. They all showed the "head back" and big back lean away from the target. (Thirty-five years later, I was to learn about parallax and how it can affect photographs).
"See?" said they.
"Yes." said I.
Then back into Hell's Kitchen.
I had arrived a halfway decent, low-handicap ball striker and had paid my $100+ bucks in 1970s-type money (regular gas was at 40 cents a gallon; do the math). I had no game: Club championship stuff (but in a top-flight club!) and a former USAF Tactical Air Command Championship team player. Still . . .
I left -- seven hours later -- shanking every shot. Unbeknownst to me, I had been transformed from a Centered Swinger to a Swaying Hitter (with none of the latter alignments supplied).
At day's end, I asked Jimmy simply, "Why am I shanking everything? And, why should I move to the right like this?'
To which he replied, in words indelibly imprinted on my memory:
"Don't pick it apart, son."
I had come to him, a now renowned "expert", and paid a lot of money (at least for a young insurance agent with a non-working wife and three kids) to "pick it apart".
But he couldn't do it. At least not to my satisfaction. Not then. Not now.
I'm okay with not being able to do some athletic something. (That said, I'm reasonably coordinated: I made straight A's in six quarters of Physical Education at Georgia Tech).
I'm not okay with not knowing what it is I can't do.
Insult to Injury Category:
Jimmy pointed to newly-minted LPGA Tour player Joan Joyce 'swaying and firing' beside us. Impressive! Joan Joyce, former softball fast-pitch champion, the fastest in the world. A magnificent, gifted athlete. She pitched 150 no-hit, no-run games and 50 perfect games.Further, her career batting average is .324. Somewhere along the way, she was inducted into the Connecticut's Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.
She never made it in pro golf.
But later, Hal Sutton and Curtis Strange did.
Fortunately, my continued journey led me to Homer Kelley.
In the article on Joan Joyce there is mention of Cecilie Lundgreen - whom I personally know, as we both belong to the same local golf club where I live here in Norway.
-- Jimmy Ballard taught a sway. 
Hybrid Mode
