The video from Golf Digest is called The Science Behind Gordon Sargent’s Insane Swing Speed, but I’ll just call it what it is – A Recipe For Disaster.
I’ve already (long ago) pointed out that any real science that looks at the X Factor notion of Jim McLean infamy concludes that it is physically unsound and puts golfers at a higher risk of back injury, but why quibble?
We all know that Gary Player was a great golfer – he won 9 majors and was the first international golfer who jetted all around the world to play in tournaments back in the day.
His talent however didn’t translate to an ability to talk about the golf swing with any coherence, because the YouTube short I came across today was a study in “how can you swing so well and get it so wrong?”
As with so many great swingers, you’re better off watching them do it over listening to them talk about the swing, because even the greats like Player can be absolutely clueless about what they did in their swings.
It may just be a natural progression or evolution of concepts, but I’ve spent a great deal of time over the years talking about the setup with the “Leaning A” stance and the proper ball position.
I have even said that the setup is most of the golf swing – get that right and you’re 90% of the way there, correct?
It’s not a major one, but I can’t ignore that my foot setup has changed from the one I had when I developed the MCS Classic Golf Swing model.
It isn’t one that would be a make-or-break situation in the model, but it is one that I feel makes the model optimal as opposed to very close to it.
As I’m going over the tutorial for performing the now-standard pivot action for the MCS Golf Swing (Classic or Late Hogan, they’re the same from slightly different setups), I can’t help remarking upon how the model will change peoples’ view of the golf swing.
When I say that there is a so-much-simpler way to perform a pivot with complete lateral stability and effortless leverage, I am deadly serious, WAX Nation.
Another one of these, “when you know, you know” situations I was blogging about last week, when I determined that the three pivots I’ve talked about are essentially the same action but from different setups.
I woke up this morning having done some great work with the progressive pivot exercises to teach the pivot, and I realized that I had come to the end of the road with my golf swing research.
It’s a common occurrence with my scoliosis, so I wasn’t surprised when I once again hurt my back yesterday morning.
I had stood up and turned only slightly to my right, to put the TV remote down behind me, and felt a familiar tweak in my left sacroiliac joint muscles, followed by the eye-watering pain that accompanies this.
What I gleaned from having my kids try the Classic Golf Swing pivot is that there is too much motion when people try to pivot.
Whether it’s lateral motion of the head, upper torso or the hips, it’s too much motion, because a mechanically-correct pivot action using the hips and legs should be quiet.
Alright, WAX Nation – I’ve been thinking about the pivot exercise for a couple of days, because I made a rather bold statement that if one can’t learn a proper pivot from this exercise, perhaps golf wasn’t for one.
I immediately came up hard against that claim when I took my college aged kids and tried to prove that assertion with them – they literally brain-glitched when trying to follow along with me.
I am waiting to see if I have recovered enough from my Frozen Shoulder to shoot new video to include in my June video project, but the good news is that I really don’t have to.
I have swings in my archive where I performed the pivot action exactly the way I would today, with the exception that I was swinging left-dominant at the time (which I alone can probably spot apart from a neutral swing action since it’s my own swing action), and I had a stronger grip than I would use today, but the pivot is the pivot.
I don’t know quite how to say this, WAX Nation, so I’ll just get on with it.
While I’m still in the model stage and waiting to be be swing-fit for the proof, but it’s kind of that situation, “when you know, you know.”
On how I know, in a bit.
First…
WAX Golf 