Here’s what I saw when I went looking for Brooks Koepka’s 6 mph decrease in club head velocity between 18″ pre-impact to impact, and it should be plain to see for anyone who analyzes motion.
I’ve said before, been saying for years, actually, that when you squat into the address you will restrict hip turn, and when you restrict hip turn on the back swing, your hips will reach impact position before the upper body.
J.S. sent me a clip of European Tour winner Van Phillips explaining his take on the “using the ground” meme so prevalent and so misapprehended in the golf world.
First of all, he does get it right in the beginning when he talks about shifting weight, because that’s exactly how one applies force to the ground.
I’ve been working on my own setup and pivot mechanics all winter, as you all know, because until it’s perfect, you can always make it better, and even if you never get there, it’s a fun journey to improve over time.
I would say that this “feel” for me at address gives me a great feeling of down swing speed and the gravity factor coming down makes the actual swing feel effortless through the bottom.
Note: I know what day today is, but this is not an April Fool’s posting.
I’ve been exploring the pivot since my rib injury left me unable to swing two-handed for most of the post-New Year winter, but as I said a few weeks back, there’s a silver lining to that cloud.
Unable to swing right-handed, I was swinging for a few weeks left-arm-only, which made me really focus on the relationship to the leading side and the hip action on the back pivot.
I sometimes struggle with finding ways to prove things about Mike Dunaway, because he never played competitive golf and his long drive days (of the sort that inspired Art Sellinger, founder of Long Drivers Of America) were long before the advent of YouTube.
Therefore, you don’t see a lot of “proof” of how powerful and long Dunaway was other than things like LDOA naming him the Father of Modern Long Drive and awarding him a lifetime achievement prize for his pioneering work.
I love when something I see online sparks a “hmm” moment, making me go back to check what I’ve written about this thing or that – and I end up being validated.
I have talked extensively this past autumn and winter on the nature of “tight” when it comes to the pivot and top position before the transition, and I showed John Daly as an example of how one can have a tight position even when way past parallel at the top with the club shaft.
As I’ve been saying with regards to optimal technique for power production and accuracy/consistency, the tendency to turn toward the target during the down swing makes it very difficult to build a repeating swing without years and hours of practice and swinging.
Responding to longtime WAX Nation citizen Goose’s comment yesterday on the concept, here is the “Figure 7” that Mike Austin and Mike Dunaway used to explain the nature of the leading arm and leading side leverage.
I have said before that, even after I stopped trying to model the MCS Golf Swing after Mike Austin’s model, that there is still probably 90% commonality between his and Dunaway’s and the MCS models.
I’ve been talking about the difference between a “flippy” or “casting” release and a proper, powerful and mechanically-correct release action.
Let’s take a look at the late great Mike Dunaway, the “Father of Modern Long Drive,” demonstrate and and explain what I’ve been saying about the release action, more specifically with the left or leading head release.
When I talk about the “swing angle,” I mean that you must get the arms, hands and club behind you with the tightest position possible for the most efficient leverage generation.
You can see how efficiently one is leveraging the club when looking at the trailing heel at impact, for example.
