The Physics of Golf

This book can certainly make you a better golfer. It also explains what gives a golf swing its power and consistency.

We are lucky in America to have such a person working for us as a physicist, educator, and now as an author.

He book is easy to read if you want information. A little more difficult if you want proof...but he has it in depth.

Where do you find enough muscle in the human body to create two horsepower in less than a second. The answer is there and if you can execute what he tells you, you too, can shoot par after a little work.

The book is a steel at $30.00; but is even better if you buy it from Amazon. The going price used shows that the book gives advise to the harried golfer which results in some incredible stores of good golf.

Thank you Ted for your work and thank you Amazon for letting me give praise to my new Ghuru.

Dan Burke


There's women and there's golf, and the rest is foolishness   June 17, 2004
 5 out of 7 found this review helpful

I am now 65. I received the "Physics of Golf" five years ago. I was so taken aback, I put it down for three years. Then I read it one page at a time, experimented with each paragraph, and have improved steadily ever since. Once, in my coordinated youth, I played to an eight. Then in my middle fifties I could not break one hundred if I counted all my shots and penalties. Golf became expensive...and I didn't even show up at the club...

Now after two years with Theodore P Jorgensen my game again is fun. I have shot a 37 for nine holes on a tought golf course from the tiger tees and yesterday parred nine holes in a row.

I have met "Doctor J" and if you do, as he suggests, each experiment and try each part of all the things covered, you will find yourself in golf heaven. It's like playing a "Country and Western" song backwayds and getting all you have lost back...but in addition you will understand why you lost it and how you can, now improve even more. As I grew older, the things I knew about golf that just are NOT true ended up distroying my weekends. Now, I play less, score better, (without even warming up), and go home with a positive attitude. That's a good day.

The Physics of Golf is one of the best books on sports ever written and Ted Jorgensen is Nebraska's best kept secret. Imagine reading a book on your favorite hobby and improving your skills. If you can read, you, too, will find you can hit the ball as well as Anika and certainly better than Tiger when he doesn't finish first...but you have to buy and read the book stopping to experiement often as you cover each fact. DON'T JUST READ IT. You will almost certainly fail...but you will understand physics and it's disciplines better; thus all won't be lost. This exact science "GOLF" needs such attention.

Give this book to the youth of your family, boys and girls alike, and watch them appreciate THE WORLD OF PHYSICS which explains so much about what we see, hear, experience and do. There is no better way to learn golf fundamentals than at the kitchen table...before you practice.

All the best to the wonderful customers, employees, and owners of Amazon who made this purchase possible. With the money I'm making on the golf cours I can now afford to support Amazon even even more. Dan Burke who was 18 and is now headed for single digits and is 65 years old going on 66. If you are in Cleveland, we may meet; and on the links, you may let me back up what I say.


Another great exemple of how scientist fools people.   July 27, 2002
 8 out of 32 found this review helpful

I actually intended to rate this book a minus 5. What a sloppy work!!!

The book was motivated by the author's intention to improve his golf game (imagine how bad he could be to have such strong motivation), although he didn't mention the outcome (sounds like it worked at least on two folks). Why? I can assure you that it doesn't work and he is still searching for the answers, just like all those reviewers and the majority of the readers are.

I'm just wondering how much time the author really spent on swinging the club (probably not much) or watching others (maybe some, but whom?) do? If not, how did he come up with the idea of what the golf swing is and even study it? I know, from reading a lot of literatures just like every scientist does. Then a model he believed the closest to the real swing was proposed, so that a lot of equations and computer works can be done to support the ideas (from reading the literatures) he believed, although not all of them were explained, which are either current unknown or more work needs to be done in the future. A typical example of how science is being conducted? Will the resultant information help? God knows! My question is, if the initial ideas (from others) are unquestionable, then why studied them again? What's the hypothesis? I mention these because I am a scientist and know the tricks, too. Scientists are humans just like everybody. Don't believe whatever they say (at least not until they become single-digit handicaps)!

The book is merely another version of the existing ideas about golf swing decorated with some terms in physics, mathematical equations and computer generated data, using selected opinions to support selected results and conclusions. Sorry, good try!

Golf swing becomes such a difficult stuff simply because nearly all of the concepts we are getting are far from the reality. People who master it can maybe describe it or the feel about it but hardly explain it. "Why bother? I can do it well?" Others see what's going on here and there but has no idea how they happen? Most of the time, we only see the results but not the causes, and work so hard to make the results happed.

Instructions on golf swing have existed ever since the game was invented. If they work (does not have to be all of them), why people still have trouble getting it? Most of the teaching pros should have been out of jobs. But people are still reading the same stories over and over again and keep struggling. The real experts (with some talents) gain their swings, most of the time (or with a bit help from other experts), by trial-and-error and experimenting through various methods and hard practice. Until the real principle being revealed, these are still the best ways to build a golf swing. This is also how I figure out my way, which is totally different from what the "mainstream" says, to swing the club. Being 5'6" and weight 110 lb., I hit my driver consistently dead straight for ~240 yards.

Will you buy the book? It's totally up to you!! At least it will make you think harder. I would rather spend my effort on the driving range to experiment it more.


Golf at it's best   August 17, 2001
 3 out of 8 found this review helpful

Although probably not intended to be an instruction book,this book is the best, bar none, explaination of the golf swing and how to apply it that has ever been written.


The key to golf   October 23, 2000
 4 out of 7 found this review helpful

Golf instruction is full of misinformation. Dr. Jorgenson's book cuts through the golf nonesense to identify the force that drives the swing. This book boils down the swing to the essential movement that makes a golf ball go. I would throw away all other golf books and keep this one.