Originally Posted Dec 12, 2015. Re-posted in honor of Tom Watson as he announces his retirement at 69 from Champions Tour major play.
I’ve said before that golf will never be taken seriously as a “sport” (although it was for a brief period during the height of the Tiger Woods era) because it doesn’t follow the same athletic principles.
*Originally Posted February 6, 2019*
As I have time, I’ll be going through my archives to re-post articles that I still find relevant. This is one of them, edited slightly.
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Well, I had just said yesterday not to hold one’s breath on any major golf publications or channels discussing the results of the so-called “X-Factor” study we read about in the BBC…
And look here, friends – Golf Digest through GolfWorld courtesy of Joe Beall has just published a piece online doing exactly that:
Thanks to everyone who emailed/messaged about the following news piece, as I hadn’t yet seen it when I began getting your forwards! Once again, WAX Golf readers are on the ball.
While the title actually says, “X-Factor Golf Swing Linked To Back Pain,” you can’t have pain without damage, and if you’re damaging your back doing something repeatedly over a period of years – you’re going to destroy it.
I have been hearing for years upon years that to swing with power, you want to “emulate Sam Snead’s ‘squat,'” whatever that is supposed to mean.
I still hear it on TV and read it online.
I can show you below that the the half-way down position in just about any swing, good or bad, has the “squat” aspect to it, and it has nothing to do with Sam Snead.
In fact, before anyone accuses me of stealing his swing model, of course I didn’t – I don’t really watch instructional videos from even the game’s greatest players because I felt that watching their swings was good enough.
I might have saved myself time from the 12 years of my swing research however, if I had watched certain swingers’ explanations… thanks to Terry who posted a couple of Tom Watson video clips in the comments section of another piece on the swing in response to Jim’s “Aha” moment!
Thanks to Pat G. for sending me the link.
Wow, I’m loving this from Phil Mickelson!
I just mentioned in this morning’s earlier posting that Phil Mickelson, the second in career majors among active players (if you count Tiger Woods as “active,” which is a stretch, but whatever), is a classic golf swing adherent.
WAX Golf 