Ernest Jones

[6bmike]

I have always wondered why so many of the Ernest Jones people feel that TGM and Homer Kelley are the anti-Jones, the opposite of what they perceive the clubhead swing is all about. Here are so excerpts from a Ernest Jones web site that has a few essays of his from teaching seminars throughout his life. The man knew the importance of the HANDS. The Jones clubhead swingers never want to hear this or see that Homer and TGM are very compatible with 'ol "Mr. Pen knife" in many respects- not in every one by a lot.

Maybe you will find some of this interesting.



How I Teach Golf
By Ernest Jones
(P.G.A. Annual Meeting - December 6, 1955)

Practice until you acquire, through a sense of feel, the sensation of having control of the motion of the clubhead.

You can only have control of any tool or instrument through what comes in direct contact with it. So, seeing that your hands and fingers take hold of the club, they must be the medium through which your power is transmitted to the clubhead.

I have a card that I give to my pupils which says:
"Swing the Clubhead with the hands. Make it swing, do not allow anything to overpower the swinging motion." If it is a swing, it demands freedom. To acquire greater distance, increase the arc of the swing, but never swing the clubhead back beyond a point where hand control is lost. Swing the clubhead with both hands. Swing it with live hands.

Balance in itself is not an action. It is either a position, or a state or condition.

It is the swinging of the clubhead that is now responsible for maintaining you in a state of balance, dynamic balance. It is the kind of force that maintains a spinning top in balance - "Centrifugal Force."

The use of you hands and fingers are the medium through which you feel or sense what you are doing with the clubhead.


The Joy of Swinging
By Ernest Jones

There are many ways to move the clubhead without using centrifugal force. You can push, pull, lift, drag, jerk, snap or many other ways, but there is only one movement that can produce centrifugal force, and that is a swinging motion. It is remarkable that the word "swing" is used so badly that nearly all golfers ask, "What is wrong with my swing?" The normal reply is a polite, "Nothing. You do not have a swing."

The greatest force you can create in the clubhead is centrifugal force - which means receding from a center, to the outside.

Your hands are the medium that transmit power to the clubhead. All other parts of the body have power, but the hands have control all the time.

Without perfect control in your hands, nothing could be done properly. All other motions are admirable as followers, but disastrous as leaders.


What I Teach
By Ernest Jones
(USGA Journal - Spring 1949)

In 1917 I collaborated with Daryn Hammond in a series of articles entitled “The Essence of the Matter”, which became the basis of the book, “The Golf Swing--“The Ernest Jones Method”. In that, it was pointed out that I was convinced that the golf swing could be readily taught and consistently performed only if it were conceived as one movement, under one control - the hands.

Further, that various members of the body (including the shoulders) were normally anxious to get busy too strenuously and too soon, and that the only way of insuring their working in due coordination with the other members of the body, notably the hands and fingers, was to treat them as disastrous leaders, but as wholly admirable followers.
The basis of the swing was the proper action of the hands and fingers. Now, after thirty years of teaching, it has become an axiom that the only way to have control of the motion of the clubhead is through the medium of the hands and fingers.


Emphasizing the Positive
By Ernest Jones

You are going to use your powers to generate as much force as possible into the head of the club.

Force is speed times weight. The club has the weight, but you have to create the speed.

The greatest force you can create is centrifugal.

So many golfers are always suffering in trying to find out how to hit harder, instead of knowing how to develop speed in the clubhead.

I am so sorry to have to say to many who come to me, “You must have worked very hard to get as bad as this, when the right way can be so enjoyable if you will only have the courage and trust in what is right.”

Some cool stuff. Sustain the Lag and monitor the hands.

[EdZ]

Awesome. Thank you Mike.

Mr. "swinging force" - Ernest Jones

One thing I have noticed is that many top instructors over the ages have all agreed that a feel for the clubhead is critical. The best among them also understood the importance of the hands!

Ernest Jones is one of the all time best.

Thanks again for this post. Wonderful stuff. - EdZ

[Yoda]

Ernest Jones was a great Golf Instructor. No question.

And his idea to "Swing the Clubhead" and let Centrifugal Force do all the work is simple and intuitively appealing. Under the watchful eye of a competent Instructor, that approach can yield spectacular results. In fact, Homer Kelley himself embraced the correct application of the concept in Chapter Five with his admonition to "Swing the Hands."

Unfortunately, Swinging the Clubhead from the Wrists is far different than Swinging the entire Golf Club with the Hands, and the average Golfer does not make the distinction. As a result, instead of the fine Golf Swings Mr. Jones envisioned, we continue to see the same Clubhead Swinging Wrist Bending that has plagued virtually all Golfers for centuries.

[6bmike]

Homer did take it to the next Level. He took the 'seems as ifs' out of the body and showed that the body pivot is the "great corridor" of the golf stroke.

Find that MacDonald book, Lynn?

[bts]

..........................................

Emphasizing the Positive
By Ernest Jones

You are going to use your powers to generate as much force as possible into the head of the club.

and the "shaft" ("lag loading"), too, I believe.

Force is speed times weight. The club has the weight, but you have to create the speed.

And the "effective mass" (the amount of shaft flex), too.

The greatest force you can create is centrifugal.

or inertia, and the potential force stored in the shaft?

So many golfers are always suffering in trying to find out how to hit harder, instead of knowing how to develop speed in the clubhead.

at the right moment, as well.

[EdZ]

The benefit of learning to 'swing the clubhead' as Ernest Jones described is, I would agree, not clubHEAD control ironically.

It is the Rhythm of the swinging force.

The element of time that is critical to efficient motion.

This is an important difference.

If you can obtain the tempo of the 'swinging force' and add the understanding that you want to drive the force downplane, to a spot in front of the ball - low point is under the ground ahead of the ball - then the full appreciation for 'swinging the clubhead' can be realized and the beauty of 'swinging the hands' can be understood.

Feel the pressure points in the hands.

"swing" the pressure points in the hands.

[6bmike]

Mulling over Lynn’s comment about hands vs wrists- we swing our flying wedges, others swing uneducated flappers they call hands. BIG difference.

[ChangeMySwing]

"have always wondered why so many of the Ernest Jones people feel that TGM and Homer Kelley are the anti-Jones, the opposite of what they perceive the clubhead swing is all about."

Because most ppl's introduction to TGM is through some rant in an internet forum with some guy using a lot of jargon that no one w/out the book understands. Most talk about TGM appears to be very technical and overbearing. I've actually seen ppl cut n paste posts from tgm'ers to mock and to use as proof why TGM is over complicated. Maybe TGM needs a makeover a lil PR and positive press. I think evershed does a great job teaching tgm priciples-w/out teaching tgm