I know I said I’d be posting more frequently, and the delay in getting back to things has been caused by my working on the pivot using the pivot drills I came up with last spring and refined over the summer into autumn.
Just because I have delayed the “MCS – The Power Of The Pivot” video while I work on related things doesn’t mean I stopped working on the video – I am still hard at it!
You will also remember that, last year, I talked about the three pivot types – the traditional Classic Golf Swing pivot, the still-Classic pivot with the low lifting leading heel that I was calling the “Late Hogan” pivot, and then the Mike Dunaway pivot action.
I had also said that the “Late Hogan Pivot” was the connector or transitional action linking the traditional Classic to the Post-Modern.
Well, we can dispense with all of that after the past week of work I’ve been doing on the pivots.
At the end of the day, you see, it all comes down to what I’ve said for years, that motion is motion – which means that there is really only one type of pivot action, but you can make changes to the setup and get completely different-looking swings.
I will now relegate the traditional Classic Golf Swing to the status of “It’s OK, it’s mechanically-correct, but not the best way to pivot because of the rotary nature. Not optimal.”
The optimal Classic Golf Swing, MCS-version, is what I’m working on with the “Power of the Pivot” video.
I knew that my former golf swing videos were obsolete, but I had always thought that they were so because of my not performing the model to my satisfaction, or because my understanding of mechanics had improved since the making of ABC or XYZ video.
I stand by the two reasons, but there is also another reason, the actual reason my former videos are obsolete (in terms of mechanically-correct or sound swing actions) is because of the Vertical vs Rotary nature of the golf swing.
Traditional Classic Pivot
I could perform the swing perfectly according to MCS with the traditional pivot action, but it would still not be optimal as it’s too rotary.
The Modern Golf Swing is even worse, let me say right now – it’s still a rotary action (squat, turn and swipe or squat and dump), but throw in the fact that it’s mechanically-unsound and it doesn’t even get invited to the ball, in a just world.
So, it seems I may have to begin to change my oh-so-familiar terminology developed over the years of blogging on the golf swing.
Forget Classic and Modern.
There is only Optimal and Mechanically-Correct, and I will only deal with the vertical pivot action from now on unless critiquing a golf swing.
Late Hogan or Vertical Pivot
That means, the “Late Hogan” pivot action that I introduced in the last video I released belongs to the family of Mechanically Correct Vertical pivot types and, in its proper design and execution, it becomes the Optimal way to swing a golf club.
Now, you may ask, isn’t Mike Dunaway’s pivot type better? More powerful?
My answer right now would be, no and perhaps.
It isn’t better, because no one has ever recreated Dunaway’s swing action and it has taken me so long myself to figure it out and duplicate the action that it can’t be optimal.
If very few people can perform it, it can’t be. Perhaps when I get around to releasing a video on how to pivot like Dunaway (but with a stable head), then it might gain some traction.
Dick Fosbury
No one knew how to high jump like Dick Fosbury until he gained success with his technique and then taught others or other people studied it and learned how to do it, but the fact that every world-class high jumper now uses the Fosbury Flop is the proof of it being optimal.
Not only that, it actually has been improved since Fosbury invented it – now, jumpers increase lift with the arms rather than leading the jump with their head as Dick did above:
If there was a better way to do it than you’re seeing above, someone would have figured it out by now after 60 plus years (1963).
I try to be scientific in my approach to golf swing mechanics. I hold a particular view on something, and just as they do in the scientific community, if something comes along to change my view in light of new data, then I adapt.
Just as in scientific theory, there is no definite “proof” that a theory is true – only “to the best of our knowledge at this time…”
I used to think Ben Hogan’s “Perfect Pivot” action was it.
It’s still very good, and one that should be emulated in a traditional Classic Golf Swing.
But we’ve moved on from that here at WAX Golf. We are after optimal, and that lies in the vertical pivot action.
Right now, I don’t see Mike Dunaway’s swing action, even an adjusted one with a stable head during the pivot, as optimal.
Change the balance and setup of the same action, because motion is motion and they both have the same pivot action from different setups and balances, and you get what I’m working on.
More to come.
