I have talked about how rotation is the enemy of gravity, and for some this may seem strange, as the popular opinion is that one must rotate in the golf swing.
That opinion is wrong, mechanically-speaking, and I’ll show you an example in the extreme to illustrate the difference between a proper rotation around the supporting leg over rotating in place during a swing.
Here we have below Kyle Berkshire, reigning long drive champion, who rotates in place during his swing:
You can ignore the circle and arrow graphic as they were part of the broadcast and have nothing to do with me – but notice that while Kyle does shift into his supporting leg on the back pivot, he doesn’t transfer back into his leading foot, rather rotating in place on the down swing.
Rather inefficient and, judging from the usual 1 or 2 per 6 balls in the grid in a “good” round, not very consistent.
What you would prefer is to have a dual weight shift, first into the trailing leg on the back pivot, then back to the leading foot on the down swing, which will eliminate this rotation with the trailing foot anchored while the leading foot flies around untethered.
Below is a swing of mine with the Momentus Heavy Driver, which shows the dual weight transfer to the trailing foot on the back pivot and then back into the leading foot on the down swing:
This is how one naturally leverages a golf club, and the shifting or transferring of the weight from foot to foot is what produces that natural leverage.
The key is to build the setup that allows you to do so without laterally shifting during the swing itself.
I would love to see a Flying Foot swinger try to swing a heavy driver the same way they swing a regular or long driver (if they did, make sure to have medical response on standby), but as you can see, I didn’t change my swing with the Heavy Driver – looking below, it’s virtually the same swing as I would have made with my TaylorMade RBZ:
In the same way you would swing a Kettle Bell from a golf stance, you would have the same weight transfer to trailing foot then back into the leading foot, and this is the most natural way to swing, anyone could do it:
Now, I would challenge anyone to assert that they would swing a Kettle Bell the same way the Flying Foot swingers would swing rather than the move above.
Take a javelin thrower:
… and tell me he’d throw that javelin any differently if it were a little lighter or heavier than the one he’d use on a given day.
The mass or weight of the golf club shouldn’t matter, so if you’d swing a Heavy Driver differently from how you’d swing a regular club as hard as you can, then you know something is off.
If you wouldn’t even dare trying to swing a Heavy Driver as hard as you can in the same way you swing a regular club for fear of injuring yourself, then you know something is definitely off!
WAX Golf 