I was struck today watching the Pro Long Drive World Championship when I had a glance at the Seniors Final, after I’d taken in the Open Final yesterday.
Right off the bat, what I noticed was that the Senior swingers have far better technique than the younger Open competitors, and the reason for this is obvious – the older you get, the higher the risk of injury in something like a high-powered golf swing, so you’d better get mechanically-sound if you don’t want to snap something.
Not perfectly executed (a little too wide a stance for perfect), but here is what I expect to see from myself swinging according to the MCS Classic Golf Swing model.
I have never been happier looking at my own swing, and to be honest, these swings are definitely good enough to feature as the swing for an MCS video, finally.
Having gone over my swings from yesterday, I have looked over the setup which was exactly what I wanted to see, but for the left wrist set at address that I performed after the video shooting was finished.
As I said, the results were even better with both irons and Driver when I made that change idly while hitting my last balls with irons – and that’s the nature of discovery, in that rather than profound genius, one can make it with a casual, “what if I do this with my leading wrist on my irons, as it feels a little better in the setup?”
So, I made the setup adjustments that I felt were required to get across the finish line, and I may actually have had it, but by the time I got there, I’d already packed away the video equipment.
I put some more “drop” into my “Drop & Pop” as well, because when I pulled some shots left, I figured that I was swinging too circularly and not dropping on that transition.
I got back out and had a pretty interesting day at the lab today, with a better pivot action and what felt like more leverage as a result, but I didn’t spend any time fiddling with the launch monitor.
Seeing that I’ll be hitting balls all autumn and through the winter at the new golf sim that has opened up near my residence, I figure I’ll dispense with the SC300i as I’ll likely get better data with the TracerGolf’s high-speed camera system.
I didn’t hit a ball for three weeks, working instead on something that was bothering me about the setup and grip.
I was to have gone back to the range after a week following the last session but weather and life intervened, but I made it back out today, and what a change!
I’ve had some exciting breakthroughs in the 10 sessions swinging this season, but I don’t think I’m at the end of the line yet when it comes to leverage.
Basically, I’ve been reducing my left-side impulses, bit by gradual bit, to where I have crossed from swinging left-armed to more right-dominant, but I’m still seeing too much left side influence in both the back pivot and down swing.
There are some nice things I see in one particular face-on driver swing I shot on Tuesday, with regards to setup and pivot action.
Of course, because I got so many things right, it was a blast, and I would have thought it was close to perfect from the face-on angle of it.
I will admit to being a little bit, er, myopic, when it comes to what other people are doing.
If I were a song-writer, my response to others asking if I wanted to hear their music would be, “Not really, doing my own thing here.”
Game versus Sport, the eternal balancing act of golf, dictates that even mechanically-iffy swings can be successful given good impact conditions and an overall great short game.
But there is a reason you don’t see anyone anywhere swinging like Moe Norman, the man who could hit the ball practically dead straight – and we’re talking so little side-spin that the first time Moe was ever analyzed on a launch monitor, it was thought to be malfunctioning.
WAX Golf 