Homer Kelley's Golfing Machine
The Curious Quest That Solved Golf
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The remarkable true story of a lone genius whose quest to unlock the science behind the perfect swing changed golf forever
In 1939, Homer Kelley played golf for the first time and scored 116. Frustrated, he did not play again for six months; when he did he carded a 77. Determined to understand why he was able to shave nearly 40 strokes off his score, Kelley spent three decades of trial and error to unlock the answer and to recapture that one wonderful day when golf was easy and enjoyable. In 1969, Kelley self- published his findings in The Golfing Machine: The Computer Age Approach to Golfing Perfection.
The bestselling instruction books of the day required golfers to conform their swings to the author's ideals, but Homer Kelley configured swings to fit every golfer. He found an enthusiastic disciple in a Seattle teaching pro named Ben Doyle, who in turn found an eager student in 13-year-old prodigy Bobby Clampett. Clampett's initial success in amateur golf shined a bright spotlight on Homer Kelley and The Golfing Machine, but when the young star suffered a painfully public collapse and faltered as a pro, critics were quick to blast Kelley and his complex and controversial ideas. With exclusive access to Homer Kelley's archives, author Scott Gummer paints a fascinating picture of the man behind the machine, the ultimate outsider who changed the game once and for all of us.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Few golf fans know the name Homer Kelley, writes Gummer, an acclaimed golf writer himself who admits even he didn't know Kelley's story until relatively recently. But Gummer aims to bring awareness to a man and the book he wrote that revolutionized the game of golf. Never a golfer himself, Kelley devoted his life to finding what made the perfect golf swing. Spending 30 years of his life in writing The Golfing Machine, Kelley analyzed the different components to a swing via geometry and physics, and insisted that there was no perfect solution "it was a system, not a method," and it was up to the golfer to find the proper components geared toward his own game. Even after his first book was finally published in 1969, Kelley continued to fine-tune his work, publishing several updated editions. And perhaps fittingly, he died while giving a seminar on the book. Alas, The Golfing Machine itself might have appealed to only the most physics-minded players: as one critic of Kelley's lamented, it all seems "convoluted." Yet when one reads over the laundry list of professional golfers who benefited from Kelley's ideas, one wonders why Kelley's legacy lived in anonymity for so long. Gummer takes complicated ideas from Kelley's book and makes them easy to follow, and while the subject matter isn't universally fascinating, golf fans will find it to be a quick, enjoyable read.
