I said a couple of years ago that I would tone down my aggressive rhetoric when discussing the Modern Golf Swing and all of its madness.

I am only human however and sometimes I just can’t sugarcoat my despair about how I regularly trip over incredible golf videos and articles, and by incredible I mean, I can’t believe what I’m watching and reading.

These are two stills from a video I’ve just shot from my home office window of a crow eating a slice of pizza in a tree outside:

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… and that’s still not the craziest thing I’ve seen today!

I’m just trying to surf the ‘net, y’all – but I guess it was inevitable that the two pro golfers best known for thinking they’re the smartest person in any room they occupy would come to a meeting of the minds.

Said meeting, I can only describe as a head-on collision of train engines, because Phil has now seen the light as shone by the Mad Scientist – that the Flying Foot Syndrome is the way to save your leading knee from twisting stress.

I kid you not.

Edit: Golf.com has deleted the article in question! I had said:

“Here is the link to the Golf.com article where Phil describes how Bryson DeChambeau, the world-famous kinesiologist who actually broke a bone in his hand hitting little white balls off of tees, showed him the way…”

It’s also in the YouTube video below:

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An excerpt from the article:

Phil Mickelson might be of Champions Tour age, but that doesn’t mean he’s short off the tee. Far from it, in fact. In recent years, Lefty has maintained and even gained some yards with the driver. And it all starts with being efficient in his move with the driver.

“If you watch the guys who are long drivers like Bryson [DeChambeau], Bubba [Watson], who hit it really hard — all the long drive guys — your knee is meant to bend,” Mickelson says. “There’s minimal rotation, but not a lot. It is not meant to support a lot of violent rotation.”

To take a little stress off his lead knee, and to maximize efficiency, Mickelson allows his lead knee to flex forward, and lets his lead foot flare out toward the target.

“So as we push, you actually want your foot to come off the ground,” he says. “It relieves the pressure and lets your toe open up.”

Don’t be afraid to let your lead foot come off the ground and move a little bit as you make your move through the ball. As Mickelson demonstrates, it not only takes some stress off your lead knee, but also adds some yards to your drives.

Really good stuff there (if you detect sarcasm, well done), but here’s a problem – you’re not supposed to be rotating violently during a proper and mechanically-correct golf swing. 

I’ve even written that rotation is the enemy of gravity in the golf swing, haven’t I?

Here is the very simple and basic premise of a proper golf swing – the body rotates around the turning of the hips in the pivot and down swing, and if you have your full weight shifting to the leading foot and leg around which you rotate in the down swing, there won’t be any twisting stress on the knee.

Proof?

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Here’s Mike Dunaway, who could drive balls over 350 yards with a persimmon driver and who was Callaway Golf’s club tester for the first Big Bertha driver showing how one rotates on his leading leg and foot post-impact, rather than twisting himself like a corkscrew into the ground.

Yes, the same Mike Dunaway whom Greg Norman himself called the longest hitting human on the planet and also one of two people who John Daly said could drive it longer than he could.

Also the same Mike Dunaway who started the “Club 350” movement that inspired Art Sellinger, founder of the Long Drivers of America back in the 90s.

Is that enough proof?

OK, I can hear someone in my mind saying, “Stories about Mike Dunaway aren’t proof of how far he could drive a ball…”

Alright then…

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That above screenshot was taken from the 1997 Remax World Long Drive Finals clip on Youtube, and it shows that Mike Dunaway had a longest drive of 386 yards and a 6 for 6 round averaging 375 yards, while not making the Finals.

He was 42 years old at the time. And he hit the grid on all six drives.  When’s the last time you saw a long driver get even 2 or 3 balls in the grid in 6?  Think about that.

Notice who came in 27th… Art Sellinger, 2-Time World Long Drive Champion himself, who would have been 31 or 32 at the time.

I told you all that I made a huge breakthrough in my swing modeling when I took a deeper look at the footwork in the swing this winter, and Dunaway is my proof of what I’m talking about until I can shoot some new video demonstrating myself how proper address, pivoting and footwork take out any twisting forces in the down swing.

If you’re going to anchor your trailing foot while taking huge swings at the ball, then you aren’t addressing the ball with the correct weighting and you will have to rotate violently in place, which will make you have to save your leading leg with all of this twisting/jumping rubbish.

And it is rubbish.

Because power production in the golf swing is about leverage using the hips and legs, and not about jumping, twisting or throwing one’s body around to drag the club through.

That’s… just not the proper way to swing a club.

I swear, golf is the only sport in the world where even the best players at it are hopelessly clueless about sound mechanics.

And that makes me less than polite about it at times.

More to come.