screen, first to a code-lettered box then to Nicklaus' right knee joint, which the dot pushed backward. That done, the dot skirted back to the codelettered box then to the joint of Nicklaus' left knee, shoving it forward. With both knees bowed, Jack Nicklaus looked like an old cowhand.

The dot disappeared. Ariel reset the knees to conventional address position, and the stick figure was again put through a full golf swing. At impact this time, the knees flared in and out in the manner of a dancer doing the Charleston.

It was a funny sight. Even Nicklaus would have laughed. But Gideon Ariel was not passing the time playing a video game. You won't find his equipment in any local arcade. It is a highly sophisticated and expensive combination of units; a Super Sports Analyzer Projector that projects slow - motion film of golfers. javelin throwers. sprinters. baseball pitchers. etc., in action onto a large screen, a GrafPen Digitizer that traces those movements, a Data General Nova 3/D computer that banks the information gathered on those movements and plays it out instantly on demand. And a smaller screen on which this orchestration is given a new life.

Aricl uses his equipment to obtain and measure data on each both movement-velocity. rate of acceleration and deceleration, location of center of gravity, joint forces and moments of force. He then can interpret the significance, or contribution, of each body segment to the entire motion.

He also can formulate theoretical xxiy movements to see whether any of them might he more effective than the real thing. If there were a universal, a perfect golf swing. Ariel could create it on his equipment. But, says Ariel. no such thing exists because everyone is built differently. Which takes care of golfs Holy Grail. Ariel concedes, however, that the individual can make his own perfect swing. Which gets us hack to the quest.

Jack Nicklaus doing the Charleston at impact won't produce a better golf shot. The example is an exaggeration to show Ariel's equipment capability. But he has created less bizarre simulations that have brought actual changes in athletic techniques, and consequently improved performance. Using simulation and/or analysis of "straight" material. Ariel helped U.S. Olympic shot-putter Terry Albritton set a new world record.

So Gideo n Anel is not fooling around. He is deeply and professionally involved in the hiomechanical

analysis of adtktic movement, an area of study within the general field of sports medicine that is begionin; to have significant impact on athletics. From this field are coming new, improved and sometimes safer techniques and equipment. For example, Ariel has a patent pending on an inflatable athletic shoe designed to improve the foundation from which almost all athletics build. Air is injected through the heel to form the innersole precisely to the shape of the individual foot. One does indeed walk o n air, packaged air.

A number of other persons are currently working in the field of biomechanics in sport, but Gideon Ariel, a 39-year-old Israeli. who has been living in the United States for the past 14 years. isperhaps the best known. This may be due in part to Ariel's enthusiasm. which in turn may be a personal compensation. A poor athlete as a youth who wanted to excel in sports, at 17 Anel was drawn to the discus throw, labored at it with exceeding

fervor and became good enough to make the 1960 and 1964 Israeli Olympic teams. His best Olympic toss was 171 feet. far back in the pack ("I was too nervous," he says now, "and I must say that science cannot do anything about that-yet").

After earning his masters' degree from the School of Exercise Science at the University of Massachusetts. he took courses in computer programming, eventually going into the motion business full-time and on his own by forming Computerized Biomechanical Analysis, Inc. in Amherst.

Despite his science/math background Ariel has a gift for metaphor,

for Phrases that simplify his acientiic findings and convey them colorfully. His English recalls Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in serious moments, a Jewish-dialect comedian in lighter ones. In Ariel-ese, feet are "fit," cats, air "kets" and, "De formation of de fiends, de gulf grip, is importan. But not so much as pipple rink. If you hev a perfect grip and de ahdder parts are not right, it's like heving a diamond studded ignition key for a rotten 1945 car."

If the old Scottish pros could get through with their brogue, why not an Israeli scientist''

As head of the U.S. Olympic Committee's biomechanical and computer science division, Ariel has been helping athletes prepare for the 1980 Moscow Games. He has shown that a smaller hockey player can hit a slap shot faster than a bigger man can with a sweep shot, because the small man hits down on the ice behind the puck and bends the stick so it becomes loaded with energy. A woman basket

ball player now jumps two inches higher because Ariel convinced her not to bend her knees so deeply before leaving the ground.

Anel has done some consulting in golf, mostly on the construction of golf shoes, but he had never put a golf swing into analysis until GOLF MAGAZINE approached him. We gave Ariel photographs of Jack Nicklaus hitting a driver, and for a comparative look at an "average golfer," film footage of President Gerald Ford hitting the same club.

Our aim was to find how golfers can increase their distance off the tee, and to get some insights on the golf

GOLF October 1978