Thanks to WAX Golf denizen MC for forwarding the following golf article.
One of the things that has bothered me in the years I’ve been blogging on the golf swing has been the overwhelming silence from the Classic Golf Swing era greats (those still with us) on the Modern Golf Swing.
Sure, Jack Nicklaus trashed the idea of the X-Factor swing in his book “Golf My Way” back in 1974, but that’s 50 years ago.
The video clip I just watched should be titled “How to complicate a golf swing beyond belief and ensure years of expensive lessons,” because that’s all I can see in it.
I know that everyone thinks that this is the way Ben Hogan swung, but once again, no one pays attention to what he was doing, and so you get people who have no business being golf swing instructors because what they’re teaching is ridiculous and harmful.
I made a little swing gif. that easily shows how a mechanically-correct golf swing creates effortless leverage where the Modern Golf Swing fails miserably.
Swingers today are being taught the ridiculous reverse-pivot where the weight never really leaves the leading foot, followed by a “drop” with the arms and finally the turn and swipe action through the bottom.
It’s a pity Tom Weiskopf didn’t win more majors than the one U.S. Open that he bagged, because his golf swing has to be one of my top 5 to watch.
It was powerful and athletic, so mechanically-correct – and if you want to know how powerful, Jack Nicklaus said that the only golfer who could consistently out-drive him was Weiskopf.
The answer is very simple – I don’t actually “squat” in my swing, as I’ve said for a long time that this position is merely a snapshot in a down swing where the weight is transferring from the trailing to the leading side.
It is useful to show positions in a swing, but useless to try to teach “swing by position,” because it occurs so quickly.
I didn’t even notice something in the text from Ben Hogan’s book until after I had already published my post yesterday, but as I was glancing over it, a word in that selected excerpt fairly leaped off the screen – I was amazed I hadn’t noticed it before.
Once again, Ben Hogan absolutely muddled something up in his description of the pivot, but even if he did, I have questions to ask of the Modern Golf Swing people trying to recreate his swing.
I hate to say this, but I have never been one to avoid facts or to hide my head in the sand, and this is it – Ben Hogan clearly, most definitely heel-lifted (that can’t be argued against with a straight face), but he muddled the issue with his book and some people’s poor reading comprehension.
WAX Nation citizen AK sent me excerpts from Hogan’s book (which I have in my library, but which I haven’t read in decades other than to look for online quotes), and we found therein a likely cause of the “Hogan said not to lift the heel” legend.
An up the line view of one of my driver swings from when I was shooting the “E = MCS” video back in 2017 shows how you can use the Ben Hogan “Perfect Pivot” to get great consistency in your golf swing.
I’ve said before that the golf swing isn’t really a rotary or “turning” motion, rather a pivot action and a down swing, where the hips and legs drive the swing and the turning of the hips are what rotate you to the finish.
The reason the optimal golf swing is vertical and not rotary or lateral is because, as I’ve said before, you are using leverage and gravity to swing down into impact, and if your position remains laterally stable, you are golden with a modicum of practice.
I have taken a 5 iron swing and a Driver, to illustrate how purely you can strike the ball without jumping out of your shoes or breaking yourself in the gym.
I have been reviewing the vast quantity of swing clips that I shot with the assistance of The Welshman back in the spring of 2017 for the “E = MCS” swing video, and they truly have withstood the test of time, regardless of my earlier opinion.
One thing I love to look for (and I’m never disappointed on a good swing) is that shaft impact line and how the body and club interact with it when you watch a swing down the line.
