Those of you who are still here from the Mike Austin/Dunaway era of the blog (2009-13) may remember that, when I built the MCS Golf Swing model and had it essentially finished around 2015, I said that it was simply the Mike Austin swing model but with a stable head on the back pivot.

Here is the proof of that statement, because I am now doing what I didn’t have the technical insight to do 15 years ago – you’ll all recall that my blog began as the documentation of my search for the perfect golf swing (let’s say optimal now), and I was still learning even as we all discussed golf swing mechanics.

Remembering those heady days now – you’ll recall that whenever I had some fresh new insight on the Austin swing, I didn’t keep it for myself – I would run to my computer to post the exciting news of this breakthrough or that one, and we’d all discuss it.

So, 15 years later, here is what I would have done back then if I had known the principles of the setup and pivot according to what I now know.

If you struggled to learn the Mike Austin swing model, as I said in yesterday’s post, it was because he said one thing and did another.

First, let’s take a look at what he says in this clip from one of his videos, starting at 1:48 and going to 1:56

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Austin said, “Everybody has the wrong idea about what the hips do – they try to turn their hips… you turn your hips, your head sways.”

Massive Sway

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I’ll ask you all – those of you who’ve watched Austin swing face-on, is there even one swing (aside from a wedge, perhaps) that you’ve ever seen where Austin’s head didn’t sway or shift to his right?

I haven’t. I mean, it was his signature move, wasn’t it?  Yet if you don’t watch closely and listen to him in his videos, his head was stable.  We know here that it wasn’t.

In fact, here is Mike Austin touting his Flammer (I had one sent to me by a late Austin friend, and later gave it to BT when I was done with Austin), and let’s see what we have:

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Let’s break this down.

How Was His Flammer Setup?

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Oh WOW, that’s a “Leaning A” setup, isn’t it?  Imagine that.  But wait, even though he’s set up in what I now call the “Leaning A” with his head over the right side, it moves even more on the pivot:

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If there is something I’ve learned about great swinging, friends, it’s that you can’t get away from the “Leaning A,” and that goes for Austin, who had a great swing – it was his model that was the problem.

When he demonstrated the Flammer, he set up with the “Leaning A,” then he performed his trademark shift to the right to set up the optimal impact position I’ve talked about for years now:

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Look at how far over to his right his head is at the top – directly over the right foot.

If you want to see where his power came from, it was that impact position – head over the right foot, hips shifted to the target and the spine tilting away.

It’s ironic that I twisted my brain for four years trying to swing like Austin not by watching his actual swing so much as watching his swing and listening to what he was saying in his videos, and the contradictions had me tied in knots trying to square a circle.

Austin impacted the ball in the proper impact position of the “Leaning A,” as did Mike Dunaway – that’s what made their swings great.  The only issue I have with either swinger is that they set up more centered than they should have, necessitating that head shift to the right, which for the average swinger is death.

There was an old head, I can’t remember who it was, who knew Mike Austin and obviously played golf with him.  When asked to confirm Austin’s prodigious power, he he affirmed it, with a caveat: “He was plenty long, but was always playing out from the trees!”

With that amount of head motion in a driver swing, I can’t say that I doubt this statement.

Still, a very good and athletic swing action.  Just a very convoluted and incorrect model that he taught, because it contradicted the way he himself swung, and of course, Mike Dunaway’s swing was nothing like the model they taught together.

I point these things out for the sake of accuracy, not to attack either swinger.

Their swings were their swings – excellent.

The model they taught was nonsense.