I will be taking a little time to restore my mental faculties after having struggled with this last video, but I will take advantage of my first post-video blog post to share something about which I’m proud.
I used to suspect, beginning years back, that really great swingers never divulged their secrets to their golf swings, especially one Ben Hogan.
I also promised myself that when I made a swing video, I would never hold back on something that I knew with regards to how I swung myself, or what I saw in another swinger’s mechanics.
For example, when I first presented the “Ben Hogan” pivot in my 2014 video, I explained exactly how the early Hogan pivot worked when he was younger:
It was the same type of pivot action that Jack Nicklaus would end up employing, with that vigorous and very obvious heel lift:
Over the years, his pivot evolved slightly but still retained the mechanical action as the first one.
Hogan figured something out in his later years that improved his pivot, and his swing had had such a low heel lift that many people watching thought he was swinging with a planted leading foot.
I dispelled that myth with a simple collection of video swings that showed a clear, if even slight, separation of the leading heel on his full swings:
However, I went years not being able to figure out the mechanical difference between his earlier pivot, upon which I based the MCS Golf Swing pivot action, and that later very low-heel lifting pivot action that still gave one a full hip turn.
Then, I started seeing that same action in some of my own video swings:
… even though I couldn’t have told you at the time exactly what I was doing myself to mirror Hogan’s low heel and full hip turn pivot.
Then again, I’ve been involved in sports my whole life and always practiced technique to the point of it becoming unconscious – where I could smoothly perform a drop-step turn and fall-away jump shot in basketball, for example, without being able to exactly explain it – I just did it.
So, somewhere along the way, I began to swing at times with that later Hogan low-heel pivot:
… but I couldn’t have told you how I was doing it – I just did it.
Fast-forward to the past year, where I’ve been unable to swing because of Frozen Shoulder Syndrome, and I had all the time in the world to go over all of my video archives and, although I couldn’t swing, go over pivot drills.
It was in this time that I figured out how Hogan performed that low-heel pivot with the full hip turn.
I was gob-smacked when I finally got it, because I I had actually danced around the subject over decade ago in my “Kinesiology Of The MCS” video back in 2015.
That is where this is from:
That brings me back to the title – I never had any intention of keeping any secret on the golf swing to myself – I am far past the age of playing competitive golf, and aside from passing this stuff on to others, it means little to me other than having figured it out.
So, even as I changed my mind over the winter about making a long, drawn-out video on the golf swing and thought, “the explanations should be short and simple enough for a kid learning how to play golf to understand,” I resolved to keep my promise and share this new finding (along with the secret of why Jack Nicklaus’ weak grip was genius) in any video I was making.
I have kept my promise – the secret to Hogan’s last pivot mechanics are in this new video, as short as it is – if you follow the pivot instructions carefully, you will have it.
I may kick myself later for having revealed the secret, but I’m actually going to expand on this pivot action in my next and longer video when I’m able to swing again, so there it is.
Promise kept.
Thanks to everyone who has supported the blog, and I wish you all good swinging – I’m going to recharge my batteries for a day or two, but I’ll be around to answer comments and questions, I just won’t be posting anything new.
Next – more rehabbing of the shoulder and hopefully I’ll be back swinging in a month or so, and I’ll know in a few weeks if I’m physically up for shooting a new and comprehensive video.
See you all soon.
DJ
WAX Golf 