One Picture Reveals The Fraud Of “Vertical Lift”

Originally posted August 10th, 2024

You will hear mention on television and probably in YouTube videos, as well as reading online about it, this absolutely fraudulent claim about how golfers create “vertical lift” by jumping into the air with or snapping their leading leg and foot through impact.

It is and has always been a fraud upon the unsuspecting golfer, because the real reasons golfers are jumping off of and snatching their leading leg away through impact are either to prevent injury from the twisting force or because they are anchoring their trailing foot (which can contribute to the twisting force) and something has to give with the turning of the hips.

You see it here with Kyle Berkshire, World Long Drive Champion:

Now, tell me what would happen to Kyle’s body, especially his leading leg and lower back, if he kept that trailing foot nailed to the ground and didn’t snap his leading leg and foot back around?

He’d snap in half, is what would happen.  He’s actually doing the opposite of proper mechanics, where the body’s weight should be firmly planted into the leading leg and foot on the down swing and the trailing foot releases:

Mike Dunaway

“Well, what did Mike Dunaway know?” one might ask, and that would only be because the person asking doesn’t know that Dunaway was the father of modern long drive, established a group called the “350 Club” in the eighties (you had to be able to drive it 350 yards with a balata ball and persimmon club, think about that), was the longest driver John Daly had ever seen and was the club tester for Callaway Golf when they were developing the Big Bertha driver.

Now, let me show you the picture that shows you “vertical lift” is a fraud:

Here are a picture of my address before I begin my pivot, along with a combined picture of two separate pics (right at impact and just after), where the light glinting off the driver head creates a curved line in motion through impact.

You can also see a curved line halfway up the shaft as the light catches reflects off a white sticker on the shaft in motion.

The club swings down to the swing bottom and then back up perfectly naturally on any golf swing, and I’ve put a vertical white line through the approximate spot the club reaches bottom.

Anywhere past that white line, the club is beginning to arc back upwards, all by itself, and that’s all you need for a positive or upward attack angle into the ball.

Before the white line, you’ve got neutral to negative attack angle into the ball.

So, by simply moving the ball toward the target in your stance, you will progressively increase the attack angle, and a positive attack angle is what gives you “vertical lift,” and you’ve seen stats where I was getting tons of vertical lift by having the ball forward of the swing bottom:

See the Launch Angle at 14.8 degrees (just above the yellow circle) when I was swinging an 8 degree Callaway Rogue, and a positive Attack Angle of 4.7 degrees (far right green circle), all without doing anything to my leading foot or leg.

Not to mention, I wrote a post a while back showing the worst of the PGA Tour’s Flying Footers, and that they had neutral or very low launch angles:

There are reasons I stopped watching golf on television, and two of them are the awful mechanics of the players themselves that give me a headache, and the abysmal technical commentary from the analysts.

When you see something being done so incorrectly and absolutely unbelievable technical analysis from people who either have no clue with regards to kinesiology or how a club travels or are lying through their teeth about it to excuse the terrible mechanics (like calling Scottie Scheffler’s dancing feet “fantastic footwork”), it’s better to just not watch it at all.

I also like to have a little bit of actual sports in my telecast to go along with the ads that isn’t mostly holing out gimme putts, but that’s another story… some say it’s excellent nap material…