If you didn’t have The Golf Channel in the 90’s through the 00’s, you really have missed out.

I remember getting it on my cable package in ’97 and dropping it in 2016 when we cut the cord because it no longer offered value of any amount for me, but the first ten years I watched it, there was gold in them thar hills.

If you think about how the internet was still pretty new in the late 90’s and that Youtube wasn’t around until 2005 (and nearly devoid of golf swing material for the first couple of years), you can see how valuable it was for me between 2005-07 – in the first couple of years of my swing research, I had magazines and video I recorded from TGC as my only material – and the magazines didn’t offer much either.

During that time, there was a vast treasure trove of Classic Golf Swing material on offer from TGC – from replaying of Shell Golf episodes, instructional shows (who can forget Peter Kessler’s shows?) and especially good were the old Bobby Jones instructional shows.

I probably still have an entire VHS cassette of Bobby Jones shows alone stored somewhere that I watched intently back in ’05-’07, and here we’re talking about the first really famous and great golfer to ever discuss swing mechanics on tape – and TGC had it all.

Here is a gif. below with credit to this Twitter/X post from a gentleman who posts so much Classic Golf Swing gold on his account, thanks to peterallenby, longtime WAX Nation resident, for the tip!

Bobby Jones’ Footwork Close Up

Here, you can clearly see the proper footwork of a very early but very effective Classic Golf Swing, where at the top of the back pivot, the body’s weight is supported by the trailing foot and the toes of the heel-lifted leading foot.

From there, the leading foot drops and the body’s weight is transferred to it as the trailing foot separates from the ground in the action I would call the “stepping into it” move.

You’ll notice that at no time does the weight ever shift from the leading foot once it plants, so you will see no form of Flying Foot Syndrome here, just a very slight twisting into the finish due to Jones anchoring the trailing foot in place with the toes.

This is really basic stuff that in a different world I’d be almost embarrassed to be discussing so many years into my golf swing research journey, yet here we are – if you watch any golf tour event today or long drive, you will see a complete violation of this simple mechanical process of stepping into the down swing, and this violation being praised and encouraged.

Now, do we discuss how all of that old Classic Golf Swing material disappeared from The Golf Channel after the 00’s, never to be seen again?

Here, we arrive at my conspiracy theory – I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist but of this, I can find only two possible explanations.

“Now, Why Did This Happen?”

The first would be that it was too expensive for TGC to continue to pay for the broadcast rights to much of the old material – but that doesn’t explain how all of its own original and wholly-owned material has disappeared as well.

The second possible explanation for the disappearance of all of this material from sight would be that it’s inconvenient, if not awkward and downright condemning of modern golf instruction and swinging that all of this material showcases, demonstrates and teaches mechanically-correct golf swinging and how to perform it.

To me, that’s the most logical and lamentable reason.