It’s amazing that the idea of the fixed fulcrum has gone away with the Modern Golf Swing, which is a large part of the reason that people struggle to gain consistency in their ball-striking.

I’ve made the analogy of sitting in a chair and throwing darts at a board, compared to trying to achieve the same consistency throwing darts at a board while someone pushes and pulls the chair sideways.

It doesn’t take a genius to know which method everyone would prefer, and yet you now have virtually no discussion of maintaining lateral stability in the swing, particularly the down swing.

There are four things that, if you nail them, will give you a massive advantage in ball-striking, and those are:

• proper alignment,
• a stable or fixed fulcrum,
• the proper ball position and
• the proper grip

These are all crucial, because if you have set up with the proper alignment to the target line, your swing fulcrum is fixed (no lateral or vertical motion), and you have the proper ball position in your stance, then coming into impact with the face square as intended (or slightly closed or open if you’re trying to shape a shot) virtually assure a good result.

Change any one of those things (or more, if you’re the average golfer), and you will now be at a disadvantage and will have to employ at least one if not more compensations in your swing in order to try to achieve the desired result.

Moe Norman didn’t have the perfect swing, far from it – what he did was hit a million balls a day to ingrain the compensations he had to make in order to strike the ball nearly perfectly.

The same goes with Ben Hogan.  All day, every day, because even a day off meant less consistency.

Far easier to practice the above four than to do what the alternative method entails – hit a million balls per day to ingrain compensations and ensure consistency.

Below, is the halfway down to halfway finished sequence of a 5 iron, and if you just focus on my head through the action, you’ll see the Iron Byron-like effect of having a fixed fulcrum and the ball in the proper position:

You’ll also get the gist of the no-turn down swing – I am not turning through this shot whatsoever.

My hips are turning, yes, but if you take a look at my upper arms and shoulders through the sequence, you’ll see how it’s the arm action combined with the turning hips that swing the club down through the swing bottom.

There’s no turning through the shot, and that’s how, if your grip is proper so that you can return the club face squarely to the ball, and it’s in the proper position for impact with that particular club, you can literally strike the ball on the same line, swing after swing.

It’s the ultimate in power and precision with minimal effort.

It’s also how, when I was hitting my iron at a 245 yard green the day I shot this 5 iron swing, I was able to not only fly that ball around 245 yards on one swing, it went dead straight and rolled through that green.  Instagram video of that at bottom.

It’s one thing to hit it straight.

It’s another thing to hit it long.

It’s grand to be able to do both.