I’ve had the Count Yogi DVD since I was sent the Mike Austin and Mike Dunaway videos many years back by a now-departed WAX Nation citizen who knew MA, but I’ve never really discussed his golf swing because it was, well, very peculiar.

Wouldn’t you know that, the minute I decided to take another look at Count Yogi, I immediately noticed that he has a Dunaway-style pivot, the Shift & Post action.

Like Austin, Count Yogi was a mythical cult figure with devoted followers and who hung around the stars in Hollywood (there is a video below where he is giving a golf demonstration at Tim Conway’s golf tournament), and there is absolutely no believing the numbers he was claimed to have.

That was likely what turned me off discussing his swing at all – he was a brilliant showman and carnival barker but his claimed scores and distances were laughably outrageous – things like having multiple holes in one on par 4 holes over 400 yards, having shot in the 50s dozens of times and never having scored higher than 67 in a tournament round.

Looking at his Shift & Post pivot action, that tells me that he had no impediments to the down swing action and so would likely have had good speed through impact and been a long hitter for his size (5’9″ or 175 cm tall) – just not the distances claimed.

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Regarding his “records” of hitting drives well over 400 yards in the era of persimmon woods and balata balls, one glance at him hitting balls is enough to tell you he likely didn’t even get it out past 300 yards, which only the truly longest hitters of the era could do.

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A look at his golf swing however would explain why he was a trick-shot artist – his technique, while unorthodox, featured a pretty good top position (he had a shift and post action into his left leg) and his impact position looks very Moe Norman-esqe.

The Count Yogi Youtube page doesn’t allow embedding of videos, but here is Yogi swinging in his 80s shortly before his death, and he essentially swung the same way his whole life:

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His setup looked unorthodox because he was a pure right-dominant swinger, so his left wrist was severely bent while the right remained straight, but once he got to the top:

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… he looked more of less proper (look at that full hip turn and tilt and the flat trailing heel), other than he didn’t cock his left wrist much at all – as I say, he was a pure right-dominant swinger and his setup and swing action reflected that.

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Coming down to impact, as I said, he looks very Moe Norman, and he finishes in a balanced position, and you can hear from the impact that he was hitting that ball purely.

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A great ball striker, but no way his records are halfway believable.  Again, the showman always embellishes.

One final note – it is getting very interesting to me that everywhere I look now, I am seeing swingers known for ball-striking who had a very similar pivot actions to the Late Hogan and Shift & Post.