Dr. Steven Nesbit and Michael Jacobs
How it Began
Over the past 34 years, Lafayette College Mechanical Engineering Professor Emeritus Dr. Steven Nesbit has conducted the most influential research in the history of our sport. As a researcher for the USGA, he conducted research on equipment, the actions that the golfer applies to the club during a swing and a full biomechanics study on the human body. His research has shaped the rules of the game and the understanding of how the golfer moves the club and body in a swing. After his work with the USGA, he went on to study other sports like baseball and tennis.
Other than a few “student interest” research papers, his work was dormant beyond published papers and unpublished studies. In 2010, Michael Jacobs met Dr. Nesbit and they discussed and studied his prior research and he was very intrigued to see a dedicated golf pro applying his research papers. Steve’s interest in golf was reinvigorated in 2014 and they decided to launch a new layer of research together with the commission of the Jacobs 3D golf swing analysis system. Click play on the video below “How the Research Began” to watch the 10 minute discussion.
Jacobs 3D Designed
Traditional 3D systems are good at measuring kinematics (movement), but they don’t show the kinetics, or forces at play. For example, we could already see kinematically the motion of the club twisting on the downswing as the player squared the face. We could see that it twisted, and how fast it was twisting, but we wanted to know how much force/torque it took the player to twist it, and when in the swing that twisting effort started to happen. The ability to do that wasn’t out there, so they decided to solve that problem.
The Foundation
The kinetics category had never been attempted before by a golf teacher. As a matter of fact, other than Dr. Nesbit no other PHD has been able to fully conquer the 3 dimensionality of the swing. In short, kinematics describe movement while kinetics create the movement and Jacobs 3D is designed to report both. When it comes to the research methods for golf, they are fully explainable by Newton’s 2nd Law of motion. In the short video “Foundation of the Research Methods” Dr. Nesbit describes how he used the laws of motion to create the golf analysis program. Click play on the video to watch the three minute discussion.
Force, Torque, Hub Path, Resistance
With over 34 years of compiling golf research by Dr. Nesbit and over 24 years of teaching golf and studying kinematics and kinetics by Michael Jacobs, they have found some very specific conclusions on what is happening in the golf swing. In the one hour video “Discussing the Science of the Swing” Nesbit and Jacobs describe the principle behind these elements of the golf swing. Click play on the video to watch the one hour presentation.
The Full Body Analysis
In 2017, Nesbit and Jacobs decided to expand their research to the entire body. Dr. Nesbit had begun this research project years ago but only went as far as publishing the Work and Power paper. For the past 5 years, Nesbit and Jacobs have been building a historic analysis that will forever change the way we look at a golf swing and the study of human motion. Starting in 2020, they began to release the full body research. The project has been nicknamed “Alpha Man” and has already helped many players who work with Michael Jacobs.
