Most people who began playing golf in the 90’s or 00’s probably only know Johnny Miller from his days as an announcer on television.
On his best day in the 70’s, he was one of the best golfers on the planet, hands down.
He was the first tour player to shoot 63 in any round of a major, and he did it in the final round to win the ’73 US Open.
63 in a US Open to win it, with Tom Weiskopf finishing 3rd and Jack Nicklaus 4th – and people say Nicklaus played against farmers… OK, sure.
Miller did this in Jack’s prime, and farmers don’t shoot 63 in the US Open, especially the first one to ever do it in any round of a major.
He was a great short iron and wedge player and I want to show you all two things from his short iron play, which of course applies to all clubs in the MCS Golf Swing model because it uses the same “Leaning A” setup for them.
Taking a look at his instruction on hitting wedges, you can disregard the lack of the “Leaning A” setup because many Classic Golf Swing players back in the day leaned toward the target, which is one of the reasons they finished with a “Reverse-C” position – another being the lack of releasing the trailing foot on the finish.
Here is the clip that came across my YouTube feed a couple of minutes ago:
You’ll notice what caught my attention right off the bat – that thumbnail of Johnny at the top shows a posting pivot action similar to Ben Hogan’s Late pivot action we’ve been looking at for months now.
You can see clearly the straightened trailing leg and the lack of leading heel lift, and you can especially see it in his first swings at the beginning of the video clip:
That, my friends, is the quintessential Late Hogan or posting pivot that is the transition pivot between the traditional Classic pivot and the “Dunaway Post-Modern” pivot action. Great stuff there, no wonder Johnny nailed his wedges and short irons.
I’ve found that several golfers used that Late Hogan pivot here and there – I am of the opinion that there is a psychological aspect to doing this when one’s traditional pivot was the standard high-heel Classic pivot, which is why it appears here and there if you know what to look for.
Heck – I’ve done it myself years and years ago and only just noticed it last year when going through my swing archive!
Another thing you will notice about his setup:
I hate that leaning toward the target setup, but let’s just ignore that and look at something else – the kicked-in leg:
He even says at 1:15 of the clip:
What I try to do in my wedges which is a little unique, I think, is that I get in – I don’t stand just nice and straight, here – I actually get in very similar to an impact position at address…
It’s not unique if you’re from WAX Nation of course, because I’ve been stressing the importance of setting up with the kicked-in stance literally since I began blogging on the golf swing.
I can remember noticing it in my setup (because I was doing it purely from athletic intuition) around 2008, which would have been only my second year of seriously hitting balls (from ’05-’06, I spent most of my time just watching Moe Norman and Bobby Jones video and analyzing PGA Tour swings).
Here is a drive from 2008, and you can see I’m beginning my back pivot from the kicked-in position:
So, Johnny had some really good stuff going on there – I would only add that the lean towards the target isn’t optimal, but you can get away with it, the shorter the club.
He did it to be able to hit the ball on the descent to the the swing bottom, but we all know that you will get the same descending impact by adjusting the ball position in your stance with the proper “Leaning A” setup.
And look at Miller here with the driver setup:
Let’s get out the lines and see what he’s doing in his setup with that driver:
Yup… that “Leaning A” setup. Because of course, Johnny had that optimal impact position with that setup:
No wonder he was so good.
The best swingers had many similarities in their setups and pivot actions, and when you take all of the good things and throw out the idiosyncrasies (leaning to the target, shifting off and onto the ball, extra-wide stance, etc.), you are left with the MCS Golf Swing setup and pivot action.
WAX Golf 