Golf legend, Ben Doyle, passed away in December at the age of 82. Doyle was best known for teaching the lessons of golf from Homer Kelley's famous golf instruction book, "The Golfing Machine." In the incredible detailed book written in 1969, Kelley breaks down the golf swing with geometry and the laws physics. Doyle is famous for having a golf cart full of common household items such as brooms and mops that he used to teach the correct golf swing. Doyle challenged many of the traditional theories and instructions of golf and became a very controversial and polarizing figure in the world in the sport.
Doyle taught the lessons learned in Kelley's book to golf pro's such as Mac O'Grady, Bobby Clampett, Steve Elkington and longtime Bltyheville golf instructor, C.W. Cummings. Cummings connection with Doyle started with a chance meeting at the British Open in 1982.
"In my lifetime, I have been very fortunate to have a lot of coincidences that set things in motion," said Cummings. "How I got introduced to Ben Doyle was really a strange way."
Cummings was watching a young Bobby Clampett, who at the time was a junior at Bringham Young University and just qualified for the PGA tour, wowed the crowd with a remarkable golf swing. Cummings began talking to a local golf pro who told him how Clampett had begun working with Doyle in Carmel, Calif. He told him that Doyle taught "The Golfing Machine" system.
"I said, 'Pardon me, I don't know what that is.'" said Cummings. "I said, 'Is it a machine?" He said no it's a book written by an engineer named Homer Kelley. I asked him what's so important about the book and he said that it's the truth about the golf swing. It's not anybody's theory. It's all based on facts. It's not based on feel."
Cummings tried buying the book while he was in London at the famous department store, Harrods, but was told he would have to be put on a waiting list because of the book's popularity. So, when he returned home to Blytheville, he tried again.
"I went into 'That Bookstore in Blytheville' and it took Mary Gay (Shipley) six months to find it."
Cummings finally received the book and began reading it and knew very quickly it was unlike any golf instruction he'd ever received.
"When I got it, I couldn't read it," he said. "It was so complicated. It was really something else. I would wind up reading one page 15 times.
He kept the book and loaned it to Marilyn Hazel. Hazel was a student of Cummings at Mississippi County Community College. Hazel came back in a few weeks and asked Cummings about the man who wrote the forward of the book, Ben Doyle. Hazel eventually took a trip to Carmel, Calif. to learn from Doyle himself. When she returned, Cummings what remarkable progress she had made and knew he had to learn this system from Doyle himself.
"I looked at her and she wasn't the same person," he said. "I asked her how she made this much progress in such a short time and she said she just followed his instructions. She said he kept telling her that it was all based on geometry and physics."
In 1987, Cummings, finally made the trip to Carmel to learn from Doyle who taught Cummings how to teach the system.
"In one afternoon, he had washed everything that I had known about golf out and I knew that I had not been teaching the truth. He changed everything I had known about the golf swing. Especially the right club for the right shot. He told me in my very first lesson, you have to play by the law or you play against the law. The law is always in effect. You can't break physical or geometric law."
Cummings kept in touch with Doyle through the years and in 1988, Doyle came to Blytheville to teach his system through workshops and private lessons at MCCC. He still teaches the Golf Machine system today and said that anyone at any age and any level can learn golf through the Golf Machine system taught by Doyle that's based on Kelley's legendary book.
"He taught that golf had to be based on something other than feel. The instruction has to be based on facts. Since Ben Doyle is a part of history, I think as the years go on, people are going to realize that what Doyle was saying was correct. Why it was correct is because it was based on truth. He believed that anyone could learn to be a championship golfer. All they had to do was follow the directions."
afitzpatrick@blythevillecourier.com