This is something so basic that it’s incredible to find myself writing this post today.  It’s simple kinesiology and I’ve dealt with the subject before when comparing other athletic motions, but here we go.

The Flying Foot Syndrome is destroying the leading knee joints of many who perform this move because it is not mechanically sound.

That alone should be enough to make anyone wary of trying to swing this way, as you are very likely to injure yourself, especially the faster you swing.

It is also not an optimal motion for throwing or swinging in a direction away from oneself because it doesn’t follow natural motion and weight transfer.

If you look at a javelin throw or a baseball/cricket throw, you would always transfer the body weight in the direction of the throw, and you would release the trailing leg:

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I’ve shown how the closest action to the golf swing, a cricket bat swing, demonstrates the same law of weight transfer fully to the leading supporting limb (leg) in the direction of the swing, while releasing the trailing foot and leg when the hip turn necessitates it:

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Among the greatest golfers of the Classic Golf Swing era, you had swingers following these principles for the most part, and they never had to jerk their leading foot back from its position in order to finish balanced because they transferred their weight fully or nearly fully to that leading foot through impact, and they released the trailing foot when the hip turn and weight shift necessitated:

Ben Hogan

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One of the greatest swingers ever, Byron Nelson, also had this move, and it was a signature of his golf swing:

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Any instability in the leading foot through impact was a definite swing flaw, because even some of the greatest swingers ever were sometimes lacking in the full understanding of the move such as performed by Ben Hogan above, and you got a spinning foot like below:

Sam Snead

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This comes from turning the body behind the leading foot rather than getting onto it, so Sammy had an improper weight shift above, but he wasn’t always this sloppy, as shown from other times in his career when he did it better:

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Even there, you see a little heel spin on the leading foot, but he at least did get his weight onto it and off the trailing foot.

You will never, in any other sport than golf, see this ridiculous hanging on for dear life with the trailing foot to anchor the body in place while yanking the supposedly supporting leading foot and leg back to avoid torque damage and maintain balance.

This:

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… is a swing flaw that some of the better players (not swingers, because this is bad) will display on the professional circuits, and it is nothing more than that – a failure to shift into the leading foot and to turn on it, instead of behind it.

This:

Bryson DeChambeau

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… is absolute garbage, and a complete trashing of the principles of proper motion i.e. Kinesiology.

And lest anyone get cheeky and suggest that this is for “vertical lift” or to “use the ground,”

• you aren’t lifting the club, you are swinging it down and through in a circular arc and it will come up by itself after reaching the swing bottom,
• the loft of the club and a positive attack angle will give the ball its lift naturally, as I show a huge positive attack angle below, while also “using the ground” to shift my weight to the leading foot and release the trailing:

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You are swinging a golf club downwards, not throwing a shot-put, for the love of all that is good and proper:

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I have never taken a Kinesiology course in college, much less even a course in such – I have simply participated in sports for my entire life as a child into adulthood, and this is something that is taught in every sport without the scientific jargon.

You just learn or are taught to do it, and I had to conduct my own swing research when I couldn’t find anyone to teach me a mechanically-sound golf swing.

So, I return to:

• The Flying Foot is a swing flaw and is incredibly dangerous because of the constant hyperextension of the leading knee joint to perform this move,
• It is mechanically-unsound and
• It is the opposite of optimal athletic motion when swinging an object

For these reasons , anyone actually teaching this type of nonsense:

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… is in my eyes automatically disqualified from even teaching the golf swing to others, and should be in jeopardy of malpractice/negligence legal action.