[Yoda]

Glad to see you on the scene here, Yoda.

If I may....It is a widely-accepted condition of the impact collision, scientifically, today, that the ball starts off in a direction which is, on average, in the neighborhood of 80% of the difference between the horizontal clubface alignment and the horizontal clubhead path, favoring the former. The actual number varies with friction. In fact, it is solely friction which causes the ball to leave the face at any angle other than 90*. That's true vertically as well as horizontally. But none of this is new, as it was well documented in "Search For The Perfect Swing", which came out in 1968, one year before Homer's first edition.

You know, I have such a hard time taking all these "new" ball flight laws seriously. Thanks to Homer Kelley, I've been teaching them for more than thirty years.

Regarding Search For the Perfect Swing. Yes, it came out in the year before the first edition of TGM, but it was far from 'perfect'. In fact, in our January 1982 Master Class, though Homer applauded its efforts to quantify impact -- "We need more studies like this." -- he also used it as an example of how very smart, well-intentioned individuals couldn't get it right, especially regarding the application of Principle to Procedure.

He also said that, because of the inherent conflicts evidenced between the various authors/researchers, there would never be a second edition.

He was right.