You’ve seen lots of face-on clips of the golf swing, but not as many rear views, I would wager.
I talk a good bit about Ben Hogan’s “Perfect Pivot” action, and here is how you can identify it when you view a golf swing from the rear angle.
There are 3 things that one requires to have a similar action.
Those are:
- A right-biased setup or address position over the ball,
- The “turning barrel” action of the hips, shifting neither to the right nor the left and
- The stable head position on the back pivot.
Hogan talked about using his right leg to “brace” against a shift to the right, and everyone since a certain 1960s video has interpreted it to mean that you brace the right leg to restrict the hip turn, which is a wild misunderstanding of epic proportions.
Looking at Hogan’s pivot from somewhat of a rear view (I have never found one that was straight-on from the rear angle), you can see clearly that Hogan’s hips turned and turned freely (the leading heel wouldn’t otherwise separate from the ground), whilst his right leg braced against the hips shifting to the right:
One thing my swing has in common with Hogan’s (I’ve never tried to swing exactly like him for several reasons) is a slight shift of the head towards the target on the transition, sort of a “stepping into it” move from the top to transfer weight to the leading foot:
Now, Hogan did himself have a slight shift of the head on the back pivot, but that was something he did that one doesn’t have to do, and I would say that a “Perfect Pivot” isn’t a perfect pivot if the head does move, giving Hogan an exemption on that due to the fact that his was a deliberate shift and not one born of a faulty pivot action.
The MCS Golf Swing model certainly holds to the stable head principle on the back pivot, and once I figured out Hogan’s pivot action, head stability wasn’t an issue, and watch how the hips turn perfectly, never crossing the vertical hip line whilst the right leg braces to push the right hip behind me:
Having a stable head is crucial to grooving a consistent and repeatable action, because if you do everything else correctly, you’re assured of solid ball-striking with a much narrower window for error to creep through.
Regular Speed
With a proper setup and a stable head on the back pivot, you can really generate speed and power without having to jump out of your shoes, because the speed and power come from leverage created by the hips and legs on the down swing.
No ankle rolling nor Flying Foot, just pure leverage.
That is how you perform Ben Hogan’s “Perfect Pivot” action.
WAX Golf 
Who else amongst your long-timers (old-timers 😉 will admit to spending literally hours staring at Hogan’s *ss, as well as the rest of the wonderful Cano videos? 🙂
Interesting take, datadoc 😂
It’s fascinating to me that we can’t get square-on rear views of Hogan’s swing. Almost as though he didn’t want them taken.
Yh, when I saw you mentioned it I thought to myself “Wait…” so looked through youtube,google,and skimmed through Follow The Sun but couldn’t find any from that angle. Is that the real Ben Hogan secret?
It could be that people shot surreptitious videos of him and none dared get directly behind him, where he might notice and they might incur his infamous short temper with looky-loos.
Other than that, I would have no clue why there is no straight on rear view clip of him that I can find.
Years ago I had the DJ watts Hogan video and played pretty good. Now I cant find it..lol. Any chance of resending me the link?
Hope all is well DJ
Ah Vanquish, long time no talk! 🙂 Doing, well, sir.
Unfortunately, I removed all of my videos from the download platform due to their age (“The Ben Hogan Project” is from 2014), and all the videos I produced pre-2015 were stored on an old drive going back a few computers, that I may have somewhere but is not I thought I had put it. I will have another look.
Welp, here you articulated your reason for a steady head lol. Didn’t read this article before I responded to your previous one – my bad 🙂
All good, Scott – questions beget answers!
The golf swing fascinates me. At its core, it’s a simple act—using an implement to strike a stationary object. Even toddlers intuitively grasp the basic motion. Yet, the moment we aim to hit that object dead-center with precision, power, and directional control, it transforms into something intricate and elusive. What seems so basic becomes a lifelong puzzle.
There’s no mystery to it. People took up the game and learned to play 100 years ago. Most self-taught. All that’s required is a proper model of motion, just as you have in a basketball free-throw, baseball pitch or sprinting technique.
The problem in today’s golf game is in the instruction. It’s garbage. You’re better off trying to learn it yourself than going to a modern golf swing instructor.