Before getting into the nuts and bolts of the book I'm going to provide a little background information on Jimmy Ballard to whet the appetite

Jimmy Ballard began his trade learning under Sam Byrd. Same Byrd was an ex baseball professional and after retiring from the game competed successfully on the PGA tour. Not many have made this transistion successfully. Sam Byrd extolled the virtues of connection in the golf swing. The legendary story goes that he learned of this from Babe Ruth, who showed him how he practised connection by sticking a handkerchief under his left arm pit so that the lead arm would stay connected to the chest. Ben Hogan extolled the virtues of this also, and is said to have correseponded with Byrd over the course of his career, picking Byrd's brains about his insights into the swing.

Naturally connection  forms a central tenet in Ballard's appraoch, which we will analyse in future posts. Ballard also grounds a lot of his ideas in Hogan's theories, and from this perspective it is interesting to pick out linking themes that can give one a pciture of what the core moves are in a successful golf swing.

After training with Byrd, Ballard became a successful teacher in his own right. He perhaps has not attained the notierty his contributions to the game deserves, mainly due to the fact that he is not afraid to challenge exisitng authorities in the game when they conflict with his own theories. He has for a long time not been a member of the PGA, and expressed no interest in attempting to rejoin when it was made known that he would be accepted again.

But this is all to his credit, and as we will see in coming posts he has every right to stick to his guns. His theories are clear, and can be found in the greatest ball strikers in the game. Hopefully we will come to appreciate these views in coming posts, and that ultimately, especially if you haven't come across them before, will benefit your own golf game!

t-g-e