The difference in speed and power production when you properly use leverage and gravity versus when you don’t, is massive.

The entire point of building an optimal setup from the ground up is to maximize the benefits of leverage and gravity, and that includes the grip, of course.

Just as having the ball in an un-optimal position on the ground or tee in front of you, or having an less-than ideal posture over the ball etc., an less than ideal grip on the club will hamper the down swing in the same manner.

The closer I’ve come to optimizing my swing action in recent weeks, the more I can “feel” what this gentleman was doing with his grip when I look at his pre-swing setup:

Now, switch that setup to the one I roughly photo-shopped a couple of summers back and I really do feel what he would have been doing swinging with this narrower stance:

Back to the leverage and gravity – when I don’t swing for a day or more and get back to things, I am shocked by the difference in swing speed if I’ve strayed slightly away from what I was doing previously.

If I’m not completely in that optimal setup, I’ve got my swing aid set to such a difficulty that I can’t make it snap no matter how hard I swing.

But when I get back to the basics, “Come on, fix that weight distribution and that head position,” the ease with which I can snap that swing aid is ridiculous.

It all comes down to eliminating every single thing in the setup that will hamper the leverage or use of gravity.

What’s more – the way this swing model works, I have eliminated (in theory) any form of lateral motion in the swing until post-impact and the step-around finish.

I should be able to prove once and for all that no matter how hard one is swinging, one does not have to hop-skip-and-jump the leading foot all over the place to avoid twisting strain on the knee.

The only way you’re putting twisting strain on the leading knee is if you’re turning your body on the down swing to try to generate more speed and/or failing to release the trailing foot to account for the hip turn to the finish.

I don’t know what proof would suffice to convince the die-hard Flying Footers, but I’d say that if I could generate 180 mph ball speed or more at my age (now 54 years young) and without any hint of a twisting of the leading foot through impact to the finish, it pretty much proves my assertion.

The work is approaching take-it-outdoors time but I will likely still be taking advantage of the Trackman in my local Tracer Golf indoor simulator, so there will be weekly updates on numbers as I round into swing shape in the next few weeks.

It shouldn’t be much longer before I can begin to update the swing clips on this site.

More to come!