The main reason I said many years ago, when Tiger Woods officially hooked up with Sean Foley (he’d actually been seeing him on the sly for at least six months before breaking with Hank Haney) that he was going to break his back was because of his changed setup.
He changed from his right-to-center bias that you saw in his early years to what Foley was teaching, which was a Stack & Tilt type setup by any other name.
Sunday thoughts.
One thing that has struck me, since I began to unravel the mystery of the pivot action and since I have figured out the optimal grip (Classic neutral), has been how unnecessary and literally obsolete “tips” and “drills” have become.
This is, I suppose, because proper technique eliminates the need for little special things that you find all over YouTube and in magazines.
I watched an analysis of 3rd World Ranked Cameron Young’s golf swing from a couple of years back and noticed that he’s performing the Late Hogan pivot (very good), but his down swing is all wrong (mechanically), as was the analysis of his whole swing model.
It’s amazing that, to today, they’re still going with the “using the ground” nonsense with the Flying Foot (Trevor Immelman calls it a “floating foot) and trying to call it a power-enhancing move when there are two reasons for Cameron’s Flying Foot.
Most people who began playing golf in the 90’s or 00’s probably only know Johnny Miller from his days as an announcer on television.
On his best day in the 70’s, he was one of the best golfers on the planet, hands down.
He was the first tour player to shoot 63 in any round of a major, and he did it in the final round to win the ’73 US Open.
Whatever one may think of Mike Austin, he got pretty close to figuring out the optimal golf swing model – he didn’t by any means build the “perfect golf swing” model because, as I have written, his swing didn’t even match the model he taught.
Mike Dunaway, with Mike Austin, nearly got there – but the optimal golf swing model wouldn’t have a shifting head, because as we all know, the admonition has been there forever not to let the head move during the swing, so the rightward head shift is something that wouldn’t be in an optimal golf swing.
There was no post yesterday because I was working on something that came to fruition today.
It shouldn’t be a surprise what I said in the title because, let’s face it, the pivot is about how you move the hips and legs to make a back pivot.
I solved the pivot mystery without having hit a ball since May of last year.
What mystery is there to the pivot?
Those of you who are still here from the Mike Austin/Dunaway era of the blog (2009-13) may remember that, when I built the MCS Golf Swing model and had it essentially finished around 2015, I said that it was simply the Mike Austin swing model but with a stable head on the back pivot.
Here is the proof of that statement, because I am now doing what I didn’t have the technical insight to do 15 years ago – you’ll all recall that my blog began as the documentation of my search for the perfect golf swing (let’s say optimal now), and I was still learning even as we all discussed golf swing mechanics.
“Pivot Action” or “Golf Swing Model…” take your pick.
I am posting this historical narrative of my swing research journey from 2005 to today, so that late-comers to the blog can refer to this and yesterday’s posting to get up to speed on what my work has been about.
As for the title – it would be very ironic if I have, because I began this journey with the intention of figuring out the “perfect” golf swing if it didn’t already exist – and I thought it already did!
When I vowed to figure out the golf swing back on US Open Saturday back in 2005, I was in the Moe Norman camp for someone having the “perfect” golf swing. So, I spent two years studying and trying to replicate his swing action.
I deal with my title statement about other peoples’ swings, here is the thing about models.
From my experience in other sports like hockey, baseball, track & field, basketball etc., I know (outside of the golf world, apparently not so much inside it) that there is such a thing as kinesiology.
There is also a reason I am so harsh on the Modern Golf Swing and its proponents – they violate the principal tenets of kinesiology.
When you think about it, the Mike Dunaway-style golf swing still does have a free and full hip turn, but it doesn’t look anything like your typical “Classic Golf Swing” model.
I mean, if someone were to ask me to demonstrate a Classic Golf Swing, I would hardly rack up Dunaway’s model, would I?
WAX Golf 