It’s a pity Tom Weiskopf didn’t win more majors than the one U.S. Open that he bagged, because his golf swing has to be one of my top 5 to watch.

It was powerful and athletic, so mechanically-correct – and if you want to know how powerful, Jack Nicklaus said that the only golfer who could consistently out-drive him was Weiskopf.

Showing his swing below, I would only have two little quibbles with Tom’s swing mechanics.

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His setup was very much in line with the MCS Golf Swing school of thought – upright, balanced over the feet instead of out in front, arms hanging relaxed, and with a nice “Leaning A” front view with the spine tilting away from the target.

Looking at his setup, very Nicklaus-like:

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… perhaps a tad-outstretched with the arms compared to Jack, but nearly carbon-copy excellence from the two.

Face-on:

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… again a near-exact replica, one of the other, between Nicklaus’ “this is the way to do it” setup and Weiskopf’s actually setup.

In motion, you got the same flying right elbow as Nicklaus, with a beautiful, flowing swing action:

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That little hitch that you might spy on the down swing coming into impact came from, I suspect, his Hogan-esque quality, which was a shift off the ball on the back pivot, and another shift back toward the target on the down swing with a really strong leg drive:

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Because of that shift, he would have been too far into the ball to get proper contact, and so he performed that “Trebuchet Drop” action into impact to re-orient his position, that you’ve seen in my swing, especially back when I was swinging left-dominant.

Otherwise, a superb swing action, don’t you think?  So pleasant to the eyes.

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Now, Weiskopf finished with a Reverse-C arc, which modern analysts love to point to as some sort of flaw in the Classic Golf Swing, but the only reason he had one (and mostly true of all of the Reverse-C finishers) was because he drove so vigorously into his leading foot on and didn’t release his trailing foot.

It had nothing to do with the swing model, and everything to do with the footwork.

The funny thing is, Weiskopf was 6’3″ or 1.91 cm tall, and quite athletic, so he didn’t even need that shifting to generate his power, but he probably felt more powerful with that strong leg drive to transition from the top.

He was still a very vertical swinger like Jack, which you will get with that proper setup, and if he had simply swung up and back down like Jack, he would likely have been even longer and straighter than he was.

Who knows, he may have needed the shift because of his slightly extended reach with the arms, but if he let them hang a little more naturally like JN, it’s possible the shift wouldn’t have been required.

Nitpicking aside, a great swing that I put alongside Nicklaus and Snead for power and athleticism, adding George Knudson and Hogan as the five swings I could watch all day long if forced to.