Ernest Jones (golfer)

Ernest Jones (October 25, 1887– July 1965) was an English professional

Other notable instructors of the era would not have half that number of lessons and would charge many times that amount. Jones found that he could achieve better success with his students indoors because they would not be distracted by ball flight and instead focused on performing the swing correctly by focusing on swinging the club with the intention of creating centrifugal force in the club that could in turn propel the ball. Perhaps his favorite training aid and that for which he became known was a swinging a penknife suspended from two handkerchiefs knotted end to end.

Instructional development

Jones began to ask himself how it could be that he could yet score so effectively, with such a radical change needing to be made to how his body swung the club having only one leg. Jones himself as well as countless others proved to be able to play well with missing body parts or body parts that were limited in their function. Despite the prevalence of golf instruction that described these missing or malfunctioning parts as being essential, Jones and others demonstrated that a golfer's brain would devise compensating strategies to yet produce fine golf shots. This success, in conjunction with his reading of Sir Walter Simpson's book, "The Art of Golf", brought him to the fundamental fact that the key to a successful golf shot was not the correct movement of certain body parts, but the correct movement of the club. Instead of the movement of body parts, the real key was the successful movement of the golf club. Jones had happened upon the then-little-understood fact that the human brain need only experience a person's desire to perform a task. On its own the brain devises a means to create the muscular action to achieve the task. The individual is only aware of "what" they want to do. The brain's action in deciding "how" it will accomplish the task is completely unconscious. This explains how very proficient golfers often report that they have little understanding of "how" they swing and only understand that they can do so when they choose.

Thus it was the case that Jones began his now-famous quest to discover, document, and disseminate a description of "how" the club swung and how to most easily teach the club's movements to others. The result was the writing of many articles on this subject and the publishing of two books. Further, Jones took every opportunity to share his insights with fellow professionals. Jones' simple concept is summarized in the classic "Swing The Clubhead" instruction.

The drastic simplicity of his approach to golf instruction met with rancor and objection when he was invited by the PGA (

Jones died in 1965. His career included playing competitively on the European tour, winning a number of tournaments, head golf professional at several of America's most esteemed golf clubs, and a career of teaching both tour professional and amateur golfers. In 1965 he was the recipient of the Ben Hogan award. Along with Harvey Penick, Tommy Armour, and Percy Boomer, he was inducted into the World Golf Teachers Hall of Fame in 1977 [1].

Famous Jones-isms

"The trouble with the teaching of golf is that one is taught what a Swing produces, instead of how to produce a Swing."
“Suppose you draw a circle freehand. You actually make but a single line that forms the circumference. You might cut that circle in two, ten or a hundred parts, but you would hardly think of drawing a circle by first drawing a number of arcs and then piecing them together.”
"Just because golf is elusive is no reason to complicate it.”
"A swinging action is the only reliable and dependable source of control in a golf stroke.”
"You may vary the Swing length, but you may not vary from the Swinging motion."
"There is no such thing as a position of Swing.”
"Swing the clubhead with your hands and allow your shoulders to look on impassively. Let your body be a follower, not a leader."
"Only when we insist on considering that balance comes about by a transfer of weight, by a conscious effort—or worse yet, series of efforts—does it become a perplexing and annoying problem.”
"Don't be afraid of over-swinging; there is no such thing as over-swinging."
"I think it was Napoleon who said, ’Look after the principle and the detail will take care of itself.’"
^[4]

Books

• Jones, Ernest (September 2003). Swing the Clubhead. [Skylane Publishing.
  ISBN 0-9760174-0-7
  . originally published as Swinging into Golf 1937
• Hammond, Daryn (September 1920). The Golf Swing, The Ernest Jones Method. Chatto & Windus.
• Jones, Ernest (1952). Swing the Clubhead.
  Dodd, Mead
  .

References