I keep going through swing clips that I’ve amassed in these years of swing research, and I can’t escape the nagging (and nearly maddening) reality that I had indeed figured out the optimal action for the golf swing ten years ago.
Notice that I said “optimal action,” which then leaves room for two things that I neglected to notice or fix, for the next seven years.
Until I have new outdoor video this spring, these long iron swings from when I was shooting the “E = MCS” swing video are as good as any that I have in my archives.
There really is nothing wrong with the setup nor the mechanical action, it’s just that pesky right hand grip I was using because I was swinging left-dominant at the time.
I’ve of course hit longer drives than the one in this video, but when I drive balls into the executive course or over the mounds guarding the green on one of the hole, I don’t get any distance feedback other than, “Well, that one was pretty long…”
I can gauge my distances with irons pretty well when there are flags and greens at which to shoot, but the driving, I’m at a disadvantage hitting balls unless I’m in a place with a Foresight or Trackman (and I don’t trust these completely, because many times they give me distances that are well short of what I know I can do on the course or range).
I keep coming back to it, and I keep seeing it – I had actually nailed the MCS Golf Swing setup – the likely optimal one, at least for myself, way back in 2015, which was the first year I had built a swing model not trying to copy anyone.
Sure, I of course had looked at the greatest swingers when studying their setups and swing actions, but when I actually got over the ball, I wasn’t trying to emulate Ben Hogan or Jack Nicklaus, Mike Austin or Dunaway – I was just getting over the ball and slamming it.
This is an oldie, but just as relevant as the first I spoke about this concept – I even based a swing video on this concept back in 2013, and it’s as simple as… well… swinging a stick.
Some people come to golf without having had much exposure to other sports such as baseball or cricket, where swinging a stick-like object is similar to golf.
I haven’t invented anything with my work on the MCS Golf Swing models over the years – I spent the first part of my research looking only at the greatest swingers ever and compiling a list of things they did in common.
The first thing of course, was seeing that every great player in history when you talk of the absolute greatest swingers, used the Classic Golf Swing.
I talked the past week about the “Power Line,” which I call that straight line you can create from the joint of the leading shoulder down through the hands to the club head, and I’ll expand a little.
For the irons and other clubs except the Driver, it’s pretty simple – get that Power Line going vertically from shoulder to club head either past impact or just at impact (say, with a 3 or 5 metal when the ball is teed up) and you’re pretty much assured to have generated maximum leverage and power into the ball.
A little levity on this Friday, perhaps?
The solitary nature of my swing research means that I’m usually lost in my own world of swing analysis for hours at a time hitting balls, and I tend to forget that A) There are other people at the range, unless they do something to bother me and B) Not everyone can drive the ball over 300 yards.
I get some chuckles at times when I’m back home making swing clips or just analyzing swing after swing looking for things to work on, and then I notice what others around me are doing while I’m working out.
The reason so many people struggle to maximize their power with the golf swing is likely because they’re not set up in the proper manner in which to do so.
It is also a reason you’ll find all sorts of professional players who contort themselves coming into impact – they manage to get the power they want to generate, but at a cost to consistency and/or physical health.
I’ve just uploaded some irons swings from the same date as the down the line swings I shot back in August of 2022.
Now, I had said that I loved the setup viewed down the line and the face-on, not so much – however, upon review, it’s not so much the setup that I didn’t love, rather the pivot action.
WAX Golf 