One of my major inspirations when starting with golf was Seve Ballesteros, who passed away 2011. A true legend that was very exciting to watch playing tournaments. I can can still remember the tv commentary about his iron shot during the last round to the 13th hole at Augusta the last round; ”I though his brother said fantastica, and fantastica it was”. See a tribute video of him at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT7vmBWYEuc.

The next issue of Annual Review of Golf Coaching is soon released. You can read a commentary article by me about the accreditation process to become PGA Master in the UK.

The new TrackMan III is released! It weighs just 7 pounds (3.2 kg) and stands only 11.8” x 11.8 x 2“”. With its built in high-speed camera, carry bag and long lasting battery, TrackMan III gives you more power and freedom to improve your teaching, your practice and your game.

Integrated hi-speed camera
Built-in 5-hour rechargeable battery
Weighs 7 pounds (3.2 kg)
Measures 11.8 x 11.8 x 2” (30 x 30 x 5 cm)
Session stats auto-stored on mytrackman.com and in ready-to-share reports
Measures ball flight down to 2 meters

Yesterday TrackMan announced that I have become the first ”TrackMan Certified Master”. I was asked to do the tests in order to evaluate them, when attending the TrackMan conference in Madrid earlier this year. I accepted as I both like to test myself and to give feedback related to technique and ball flight in order to improve golf teaching in general.

I have been teaching the D-plane for about 10 years, based upon common physics and Jorgensens book ”The physics of golf”, in several countries. I later wrote a chapter about the D-plane in the Swedish Golf Federation educational literature ”Toward lower Scores” 2006, and published a scientific article containing research about the ball flight and impact and more (Competitive Elite Golf: A Review of the Relationships between Playing Results, Technique and Physique, 2009).

This knowledge has taken far too long time to be accepted in the golf community. I believe TrackMan has helped the coaches and players greatly by measuring impact and ball flight and educating in this, for golfers, important topic. When I gave feedback on their tests, the TrackMan staff suggested that I should also send in a paper for their blog.

I then thought I should write about the next step after measuring and analyzing the ball flight and club delivery data - how to link clubhead to possible swing actions. I therefore wrote the paper B-plane and the three axis of rotation which shows the link between the clubface and the butt end of the club. When coaches fully understand where the butt should move in order to control the clubface, we can also give more objective feedback to the players.

We have had a really exciting week in Orlando, Florida. Top professionals and college players participated in different test and training stations. The discussions between experts and coaches were really interesting. We are now summarizing the final points and preparing the communication and follow up. Read more about what happened at the SwGT blog.