As promised, here are two drives from August of 2022 showing me swinging from a virtually optimal setup that will essentially comprise the setup I describe and provide instructions for in my upcoming video.
This is a neutral setup, meaning you can set up this way over the ball whether you are left or right-dominant in swinging.
Now, this applies of course to all clubs, not just the driver, but I have found in my archives a swing session in which my setup and grip are nearly perfect with regards to swinging optimally.
Sadly, I am not enamored of the actual pivot action, but I was still hitting my irons and driver beautifully long and straight on this day of tinkering with my setup.
Of course, the old WAX Nation crew from the days of the Smash Golf blog and the DJ Watts Golf blog (I used to get bored of my sites and create new ones, but WAX Golf has been around since 2013) will remember this.
There are actually two pivot actions that I know of which are mechanically-correct – which one is optimal, I haven’t yet figured out, and each could be equally effective depending on the person using it.
I keep seeing his swings on Instagram and YouTube.
I am not going to tell you that I didn’t admire Fred Couples’ golf swing back in the day. It was smooth, powerful and many consider it the sweetest swing action ever.
I wouldn’t argue with any of the above – except that what was once a romance flick now looks to me like a horror movie, especially in slow motion takes.
I have spent much of the past couple of years just focusing on swing models and tinkering, but as recently as 2022, I was still banging drives of 330 yards and upwards with off the rack drivers.
This is the proof that my model search ended a while ago, but it took my being satisfied that I had looked into everything I possibly could, at which point I began to look back through my swing archive (2010-2024 is a lot of clips) and break down exactly what the optimal swing model looks like.
Update: I accidentally inserted previous Jack-DJ comparison pics, apologies. The correct pics have now been inserted /update
Here we go, WAX Nation – I actually kept looking through my archives and, incredibly, I found a video clip from just two days after the May 14, 2015 clips that I had gone over, with a setup that matches Jack Nicklaus’ adjusted setup even more, this one from May16th.
Not only did I get very close, I recorded myself hitting a drive right down the pipe with a hang-time of 7.5 seconds.
For reference, the average PGA Tour hang time for a drive is 6.3 seconds.
That’s a blast!
Once again, Jack Nicklaus has come to the table with his close-to-optimal setup from 1963, as he does time after time.
Once again, let me say this – there are endless ways to swing a golf club and probably countless variations that are pretty good – but there is only one optimal way to swing, and you’ll see what I mean below.
Here we go for the 2025 season, WAX Nation.
I have shown a swing gif before from 2015, which is what I am sure now is the best iteration of my MCS swing theory and model personally executed.
Yes, there are flaws – the grip was too strong, my stance was a whisker wider than required, the ball placement wasn’t optimal (the Driver shaft should be slight back-leaning and not vertical or forward-leaning with the driver), but the action… the action, my friends, is dynamic MCS all day long.
There’s nothing wrong with helping people improve their golf swings.
It is a tad disingenuous however in my opinion to present old and established mechanics principles as new and a result of “the advent of new technologies in the sport,” which is an exact sentence from the article I just read.
Or worse – it means that these basic principles aren’t being taught to beginning golfers.
Coincidences are funny, aren’t they? During my daily foray through Instagram and YouTube looking at current players’ golf swings, I ran across Jake Knapp, a 30 year old PGA Tour pro who stands around 180 cm (a shade less than 6’0″), who is a pretty long driver.
I was looking at his action and thought to myself, “A lot of power there, but I doubt very consistent, with what I see,” and immediately went to his profile on PGATour.com, which confirmed what I thought.
WAX Golf 