There is something to be said about having a background in diverse athletic pursuits – I played everything from footy (soccer) to baseball to hockey to basketball to competing in track & field, all between the ages of 7 to 23 before swinging a golf club for the first time at age 25.

During that time, I obviously acquired something of an instinct for self-preservation, shall we say, or avoiding injury through proper technique and the drilling of such.

When I then took up golf, I dabbled for a couple of years (never really doing the range thing, just slapping the ball around the course and chasing it) before getting serious about it after Tiger Woods’ Masters victory in ’97.

Fast-forward to 2009, where I had in the intervening 12 years become obsessed with the golf swing, to where I quit playing it all after the summer of ’99 until I decided in the spring of ’05 to figure it out for myself.

In ’09, I took the year off of range work and just played for fun whilst working on my swing on the golf course, and it was one of the greatest golf seasons of my life, in terms of pure enjoyment.

Back then, it seems that I was pretty left-biased in my setup and swing, and I did shoot some swings in the couple of times I did go to the range (I also shot some swings on the course whilst playing).

There is a huge difference however between how I did it and how the fellows are swinging left-biased (or Stack & Tilt style) today.

---

Today, they are swinging left-biased because they are nailing their leading foot down on the back pivot and staying on the left side is the only way to get a hip turn without twisting one’s lower back to shreds:

---

Absolutely ridiculous instruction, but I’m not here to complain about it.  I’m just giving a reference.

So, you’ll notice that all these stacking swingers are either rolling onto their leading ankle or performing the Flying Foot through impact.

So, how did I get away with hitting drives over 300 yards and sending 4 irons 250 yards and beyond (I once “drove” the ball 275 yards with a 4 iron on a 350 yard hole that season) without hurting myself or performing these acrobatics?

It’s because I used athletic intuition, and I was performing this move long before I saw Ben Hogan or Mike Austin doing it.

It’s called the Short-Stop Slide, or at least that’s what I’ve always called it.

In fact, let’s say that I did 2 things to avoid injury and instability – throw in the leading heel lift for good measure.  But the Short-Stop Slide was crucial.

Witness:

DJ Swings Left Biased 2009

---

Look again in slow-motion – you’ll not only notice the significant Short-Stop Slide, but also the fact that I was letting my leading heel lift to get even more hip turn than the Modern Golf Swing fellows due because of their nailed-down heel:

---

This was a very safe swing, and it was mechanically-sound – at no time would I ever have been in any more danger of hurting myself than swinging right-biased or center-biased, because of those two factors I’ve mentioned.

As for balance…

---

I finished very balanced on my leading foot and leg, and my only issues with this manner of swinging were in consistency and accuracy, because while it’s not mechanically unsound, it’s still far from the optimal way to swing.

---

I belted hell out of the ball swinging this way, but over the years, I moved to a more center-balanced swing model until, after looking at Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan and Sam Snead, I learned that the optimal stance is right-biased.

How did I do that?

Well, it’s a pretty short jump from knowing that the optimal impact position (shared by all of the great swingers) has the head over the right side at impact to figuring out that this is the way to set up.

Again, how do you get to that conclusion?

Because in the optimal golf swing, the head isn’t supposed to move laterally, so the position of the head at impact should be the position of the head in the setup:

---

The point that I’m getting at is that even in 2009, probably only a couple of years into my swing research (I decided on this mission in ’05 but due to work constraints, I didn’t really start to hit balls with frequency until the autumn of ’07, which is where my swing video library begins), I was avoiding all of the things you see players doing today to injure themselves.

I knew not to roll my leading ankle (I’ve sprained enough ankles playing basketball to stay far way from that), also not to twist my lower back like a dish towel (common sense), and also not to stay on the trailing foot through impact and to the finish.

You can add swinging left-biased to that list, post-2010.

So, in the three years from when I began to seriously hit balls in autumn ’07 (from ’05 to then, I didn’t do much more than study swings on video with a few range sessions), I either learned not to do (or avoided altogether) every mechanical error you see these swingers today performing at their peril and to their physical detriment.

I really had no clue in the first years, and I was guided by video-watching and personal range work and experimentation, and this is why I can’t watch golf on television.

If I knew, when I still had no idea what I was doing with a golf club, not to do the idiotic things I see world-class players doing today and over the years, how can I possibly sit down and watch that?

It’s ridiculous, it’s a scandalous thing to watch, knowing that the teachers and gurus are earning fortunes massacring the golf swing and that even the best players are risking and incurring injuries, some life-changing, listening to them.

I will talk golf swing, I will eat, breathe and sleep golf swing, but I will not subject my eyes and sanity to the madness going on in today’s game.