Here's what our customers are saying: I took up golf at the age of 23 and I'm now 54.  My first golf video was from Jimmy Ballard and it took me from my first handicap of 14 to 2.  Being older I don't have let's say, the same stuff as the young guys but when I'm struggling a visit to a Ballard website or two helps me out.  The clip on elbow down has made a big difference lately and the young guys aren't too happy about it.  Thanks Jimmy for making it where I can understand what you mean. Mike R, Kentucky DVD arrived today, have just watched it.  I can only describe this DVD as the golf Bible.  What clarity and sheer common sense.  Please pass on my comments to Jimmy. Elizabeth M, Ireland 30 years ago, I picked up your book and began to learn how to really swing the golf club.  Now at 60, I still hit the ball 280 to 300, at the amazement of my golfing buddies.  I just want to tell you - thank you - for what you have given the golf world as your philosophy still endures amid all the gurus out there today!  Golf is just not fun if you cannot hit the ball with authority and accuracy.  Thanks for a lifetime of great  golf and long drive/tournament trophies I have in my office. Bob R, Florida ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Shot 79 today from the back tees (7100yds), despite four 3 putts!  I hit 11 greens.  I've been hitting the ball in ways I never have before.  It feels really good.  Whats also interesting is that my pitching and chipping have improved about 500%. Norm D, Texas ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This is why I will teach as long as I can: My story: Please pass on to Jimmy: I began golf at age 15. I became obsessed. I practiced every day, often for hours; I just wanted to be good. I had many lessons from different professionals and I read every book I could find. Nothing felt right; nothing made sense. Everything I was told to do felt wrong and awkward. Through sheer determination and hours of daily practice I learnt to hit the ball. I eventually managed to get to an 11 handicap. I could not get any lower. If I did not hit balls EVERY day, I lost any ability I had and could not hit the ball again for days. At my club people used to comment on my tense, stiff, ugly swing. I was the most unnatural, ungifted golfer in the world. When I was 18 I went to Medical School at the University (in Leeds, England). The university had a golf team of six, the six best golfers at the whole University. In my first week I went to find out how to get onto the golf team. They laughed at my 11 handicap. Come back when you are 5 or less they said and well have a look at you. I went away depressed and demoralised, feeling worthless. I did not play any other sports. I had no natural ball skills or gift for anything sporting. Nevertheless I continued my solitary and obsessional; daily practice. I did not improve. My handicap stayed at 11. The next year one day I was in the local golf store looking at some new clubs. The year was 1987. I walked past the book shelf and spotted a video I had never seen before. It had a strange name, The Jimmy Ballard Golf Connection. It jumped out at me because I had bought just about every other book and video I could find but I had never seen this before so I bought it. I took it home and put it straight on the TV. After 10 minutes I was transfixed. Here was a man telling me the exact opposite of everything I had been taught and learnt. Telling me that everything I had been trying to do since I had started golf was wrong. I couldnt turn it off and watched the whole thing straight through. Then I watched it all again straight away. I could not wait to get to the practice ground the next day. Now to cut a long story short, my golf suddenly began to improve incredibly fast. Everything that had felt so difficult, awkward and wrong started to feel so natural and so right. My swing began to feel like the most natural, easy and effortless thing in the world. As if I had been born with it; as if it was something that I could never forget how to do. My handicap began to plummet. Within 1 year it had crashed from 11 to 2. My friends at my golf club could not believe what they were seeing; they could not believe the transformation in my golf swing. They began to say how beautiful and graceful it looked. Without any prompting from me they began to nickname me Curtis because they said it had an uncanny similarity to the swing of Curtis Strange who was at his height at the time. People that didnt know me from before thought that I was just lucky to have been born with such a swing. Others that could remember knew differently. Members at my club began to ask me for lessons and I began freely giving them. Many members handicaps began to plummet. The club professional became very threatened and very hostile towards me for doing this. Everything he had been teaching the members for years I was now telling them was wrong. Rather than trying to educate himself, all he did was badmouth and ridicule me. But he could not ridicule my scores when I began turning in 72 after 72. I became known as the most consistent golfer in the golf club. In my penultimate year at the University, 1989, I returned to the University Team. I said will you take a look at me now, I have a 1 handicap. Straight away they put me in the team. In my final two years I played in every match and hardly ever lost. In my final year I was selected for the English universities team. Half way though one match, an opponent who I had never met before suddenly said: has anyone ever told you that you look just like Curtis Strange? I feel like Im playing him! I just smiled and chuckled to myself. When I graduated in Medicine my career had to come first. Life as a junior doctor then was not easy and I was often working up to 120 hours per week. There was little if any time for golf, other things in my life took over and I just drifted out of it. My handicap drifted up to 5 and there it stayed but became inactive as I was not playing at all. Year after year I paid my club membership fees but did not play. Then yesterday (now aged 42) I suddenly got to urge to play a few holes. I got out my golf clubs and went to the club. Members I knew there that I had not seen for at least 10 years could not believe I was there. I played 9 holes with 2 of them. When did you last hit a ball, one of them said before we teed off. Must be at least 5 years ago I replied. They were expecting to see me unable to play, but after a few stretches and practice swings my swing felt as natural, easy and repetitive as the day I last played. My head was full of nothing except where I wanted the ball to go. My first drive was sweet, straight down the middle and felt effortless. Shot after shot felt the same. My scores were good and I even had a birdie. My playing partners were amazed that I could not play for 5 years and come out and hit the ball so easily and effortlessly. They all commented on how graceful my swing looked. When we got in the clubhouse they could not stop talking about it. They all have to play almost every day or they lose the skill they have. I had just proved the opposite and they were quite amazed. In the car home, I smiled to myself and remembered Jimmy Ballard and silently thanked him for everything I know about golf. When I got home I got out his video again and his book, How to Perfect Your Golf Swing, brushed the dust off them and patted them fondly. I had treasured them and kept them safe. Today, through the wonder of the internet, I am delighted to have found his website. Please pass on my story to him and my heartfelt gratitude and thanks for completely transforming my golfing life when I was young and for giving me a natural and beautiful feeling golf swing that I can repeat effortlessly even after years of not playing. He truly is the BEST golf instructor in the world and he always will be. I hope one day to have the privilege to meet him. My best regards. Mark. If I may, I would like to tell you a little post-script to my story.... When I went to medical school I had to study human anatomy in great detail and pass a degree in it. It was during this study that I realised exactly why you are so right with your teaching of 'connection' and all other golf teaching is so wrong. As we are all human, we all have the same skeletal, joint and muscle structure and so for a human being there is actually only one way to swing a golf club; your way. Any other way fails to respect and conform to the way our bodies are built and cannot be natural, repetitive, consistent nor accurate. When I was young and before I became educated through your teaching, I read a book (one of many as I bought them all) called The Golfing Machine. I think it was written by a man called Homer Kelly. I seem to remember he was a mechanical engineer and clearly understood nothing of the anatomy of the human body as the book clearly demonstrated. His idea was that the human body could be made to behave like a machine and his book was written as if he was trying to build one step by step. Well, I daresay he could have built a decent mechanical machine to hit a golf ball but unfortunately the book was nonsense as he had no knowledge and understanding of the structure of the human body that we all have to work with when we want to create repetitive movement with which to hit a golf ball. With respect to golf, The human body can only be made to work like a machine in one way and that is your way. This is a matter of anatomical fact. A skeleton is completely unstable. Try and stand one up and it will fall down. It will collapse into a pile of bones. Joints are only stabilised by the contraction of muscles spanning across the joints. This gives them strength, stability and allows us to stand and to move in coordination. This is why 'connection' is the only way that the body can move in unison when playing golf. The joints have to be stabilised by some active muscular tension (the 'getting ready to catch a heavy object feeling') so that active movement in one part of the body (the 'centre' or upper torso) is transferred across the joints to all other body areas. Now, this may sound a bit macabre, and I apologise if it does, but the penny really dropped for me in anatomy class when we had to study anatomy through dissection (of a deceased cadaver). We were told we had to remove the upper limb from the body and I and all my classmates had a terrible vision that we would have to do this with a saw. In fact, the upper limb can be easily removed from the body with JUST a small scalpel blade. Why? Because it is not attached to anything except to muscles! The arm is attached to the shoulder blade (scapula) by a shallow joint in the shoulder blade but the shoulder blade (and arm) is attached to nothing in the back except muscles! All we had to do is cut through these muscles and the arm (with its shoulder blade) became completely detached. The shoulder blade is NOT attached to the spine or the back of the chest (i.e. the ribs). It just 'floats' in the back attached only to muscles. These muscles must therefore be contracted slightly (the catching a heavy object feeling again) to stabilise or fix the position of the shoulder blade in the back, to connect it to the spine and the underlying ribs, to remove any 'slack' from the system and to allow to arms and torso to make a repetitive and unified connected movement. I am sorry if I have bored you with this detail but I find it fascinating how you are so right in your teaching as in terms of human anatomy this is the only way in which a human being can make a natural and repetitive 'machine like' movement to hit a golf ball. There IS a golfing machine but it is not Homer Kelly's abstract, engineered version of one. It is a HUMAN golfing machine for a HUMAN being with HUMAN anatomy and THAT is a truly, perfectly connected, natural golf swing which you have been teaching for so many years, often in the face of ignorant criticism from those who have no proper knowledge of human anatomy and of the movements that the human body must make to create repetitive, mechanical, natural movement. Yes, mechanics IS natural, perfectly and beautifully natural, and a perfectly connected golf swing is mechanical, but only if those mechanics respect and conform to the anatomy that we are all born with and all therefore have to work with. This is what you, and only you teach!!] I really do hope to have the honour to meet you one day. With my kindest and most grateful regards, Yours, Mark.