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Frank Thomas
Frank is considered the leading expert in golf equipment. He invented the graphite shaft for golf clubs while working as chief design engineer for Shakespeare Sporting Goods in 1969. He then spent much of his life as one of the guardians of the game of golf as Technical Director of the United States Golf Association for 26 years, he was responsible for testing and ruling on the acceptability of every new club and ball. He also directed the development of today's Golf Handicap and Information Network (GHIN), and introduced the Stimpmeter to quantify the speed of the greens. During his years with the USGA, he developed the extensive testing procedures that measure and govern equipment today.
He is co-founder of Frankly Golf and Frankly Academies and has been involved in putting research for the last 10 years.
Valerie Melvin
Valerie is the co-founder and Managing Director of Frankly Golf and Frankly Academies. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology from the University of Stirling and a Master's in Medical Science from the University of Glasgow. A former editor of Golf Science International (a publication of the World Scientific Congress of Golf), she has represented her native Scotland in international golf matches and continues to compete in top level amateur events.
Advisors
Eric Alpenfels
Eric is a Class A PGA of America member and currently serves as the Director of Golf Instruction at Pinehurst NC. He runs The Pinehurst Golf Academy. He has been a part of the Pinehurst family since 1985.
William Caler
William Caler has more than 35 years of public accounting experience and has been with the Caler, Donter and Levine (CDL) since 1989. He specializes in the areas of fiduciary, estate and individual taxation and also has experience in the complex area of expatriate/foreign taxation. Prior to joining CDL, Bill was associated with Ernst & Whinney for over ten years and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Bob Christina, Ph.D.
Dr. Bob Christina, dean emeritus of the School of Health and Human Performance at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, is a nationally recognized expert in exercise and sport science. He has authored and co-authored more than 100 scientific and professional publications and three books. He has given 174 scholarly presentations in the United States and abroad, and he has served on the National Research Council Committee of the National Academy of Sciences
Debbie J. Crews, Ph.D.
Dr. Debbie Crews is an Assistant Research Professor, Exercise Science & Physical Education Arizona State University, and is widely considered to be the expert on the relationship between the brain and the golfer. Her 25+ years of research has led to many distinctions.
Michael Hurdzan, Ph.D.
Dr. Michael Hurdzan, is a golf course architect. He has been an international keynote speaker on golf and the environment. He has written a textbook on golf course design, which has also been translated into German and Korean. Additionally, Mike is a retired Green Beret Colonel.
Jeff Hymes
Jeff began his golf production career at NBC Sports back in the mid-1980's and worked his way up to co-producer by 1990. In 1994, he helped launch the Golf Channel and became its VP of Production, while managing its news shows, its remote coverage from the Majors and all its talk shows. He has over 25 years of television production experience and has been awarded 2 National EMMY Awards and a 1997 CableACE Award for Outstanding Sports News Series (Golf Central) during that time.
Philip E. Martin, Ph.D.
Dr. Phil Martin is Professor and Chair of the Department of Kinesiology at Iowa State University and a specialist in exercise and sport biomechanics. He has authored more than 80 research articles and book chapters and has presented more than 140 research presentations at national and international meetings, including research on coordination of segmental rotations and swing mechanics variability in the golf swing.
M.G. Orender
M.G. is a past president of The PGA of America. He has a passion for promoting golf to tomorrow’s players, an attribute that is reflected through his years of service to the game and The PGA. A PGA of America member since February 1981.
Dr. Lucius J. Riccio
Has studied golf related issues using his statistical and analytical skills learned while earning an engineering Ph.D. from Lehigh University. His early work included two research proposals and data analysis projects which in part lead to the development of the USGA Slope System. As an original member of the USGA’s Handicap Research Team and as a member of its Handicap Procedure Committee, he has served that organization for over 25 years and is the recipient of the USGA’s prestigious Isaac Grainger Award. He was the first to develop and market personal computer based software (the Golf Analyzer) to analyze an individual golfer’s game and has used it to study the play of hundreds of golfers including major championship winners Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Sherri Steinhauer as well as amateurs of all levels of play. He has had many articles published in Golf Magazine, Golf Digest, Senior Golfer and Metropolitan Golfer magazines. He also has written chapters in golf books, most notably a chapter in Johnny Miller’s bookBreaking 90.
Nick Price
PGA Tour player with 18 PGA Tour and 3 Champions Tour victories including The (British) Open and PGA Championship in 1994. Currently on the Champions tour.
Paul Schempp, Ph.D.
President of Performance Matters, Inc., a firm specializing in developing expert performance. Dr. Schempp is also Professor of Kinesiology & Director of the Sport Instruction Research Laboratory at the University of Georgia.
Richard C Stroud, Ph.D
PhD, Stanford University, Aeronautics and Astronautics; MS, University of Utah, Mechanical Engineering; BS University of Kansas, Civil Engineering Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; Fellow of the Institute of Environmental Sciences; Vice President of Handicap Services for EZLinks Golf Inc; Research Specialist and Supervisor of Experimental Technology, Lockheed Space Systems Division; Cofounder and President of Synergistic Technology Incorporated, Pioneered many-channel data acquisition and multi-exciter vibration control. Involved with the USGA for many years: proposed the Slope System in 1978 and co-developed it; proposed a national handicapping service to Frank Thomas in 1979 then co-developed GHIN, Charter Member and current Chairman of the USGA Handicap Research Team, Chaired USGA Handicap Procedure Committee 1981 thru 1992, Director of the Northern California Golf Association 1986 thru 1993, Member USGA Executive Committee 1994 thru 1997; Assisted Frank Thomas in revising the Rules of Golf as they pertain to the Club and the Ball in 1983, Assisted William Williams in forming a common “Decisions on the Rules of Golf” using advanced word-processing techniques to merge and renumber R&A and USGA Decisions.
Dr. Joan N. Vickers
A Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She received her doctorate from the University of British Columbia in the area of cognition, eye movements and motor behaviour. She is the Director of the Neuro-Motor Psychology Laboratory, where she maintains a research program in gaze control, visual attention and motor behaviour. She has many refereed publications as well as books, book chapters and other publications in the areas of vision, cognition, motor learning and control. Her main discovery is the “quiet eye” which is a characteristic of elite performers in golf and many other motor skills. The “quiet eye” has been featured in Golf Digest, the International Journal of Golf Science, on Scientific American Frontiers with Allan Alda, and has also been featured on CNN, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Discovery Channel and many other media outlets.
Frank D. Werner, Ph.D.
Frank received his B.S. degree in physics at Kansas State University and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in aerospace engineering at the University of Minnesota. He was founder of Rosemount Engineering Company. This company developed and manufactured precision instrumentation widely used in the aerospace industry and in America’s space program. He later founded Origin Inc, a small R&D firm. At Origin, he and Richard C. (Dick) Greig conducted fundamental research on golf for over 20 years.
Frank Werner and Richard Grieg are authors of “Better Golf from New Research”; “How Golf Clubs Really Work and How to Optimize their Design” in which he covers many aspects of putting and putter design, and his own book “Understand Your Driver.” He has over 80 patents. Frank lives in Teton Village, Wyoming.
