Back in June 2013, I posted the following on my old blog DJ Watts Golf (I’ve edited it slightly due to its age) about the ever-raging debate about who was greater, Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods:
Someone finally had the wherewithal to do some number-crunching to put to rest the old canard that even if he never wins 18 majors, Tiger Woods is still better than Jack Nicklaus because Tiger won his majors against “better players” and “deeper fields.”
There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the announced golf ball rollback that will decrease the distance one is able to attain.
What hasn’t been discussed, and this is my personal prediction, is that golf swing injuries will likely increase with swingers going after the ball even harder than they have been, to try to retain their current distances.
I am tempted to say that if Jack Nicklaus had swung his entire career with just one adjustment to his 1963 swing model (narrowing the stance), he would likely have won everything under the sun much as Byron Nelson did before retiring in his prime.
Nelson, if you don’t know, had set the PGA Tour record for consecutive Tour wins (11) and wins in a single season (18), both in the 1945 season, at the end of which he retired to pursue his true love – farming.
Greg Norman is considered to have been the greatest driver ever using a persimmon club and his slide from dominance actually came as a consequence of the introduction of larger, metal-headed clubs which allowed lesser drivers to equal him in accuracy and distance because they were more forgiving.
Just as Lord Byron Nelson replied more or less when asked how much modern equipment would have helped him, “Not at all – I struck the ball with the sweet spot, so more forgiving clubs wouldn’t have improved my game,” this would apply in part to Norman as well.
Grumpy Post Warning: I had no idea when I clicked on the following YouTube video that it would so depress me.
I mean, 10 “Amazing” golf swings, there’s got to be at least a few swings that would be mechanically-sound, right?
WRONG.
I made mention of Jack’s grip a little while back and that I was still looking into it, and I believe I have just figured out what made him so powerful and yet so accurate simultaneously.
Take a look at his 1963 grip at a time where he was becoming dominant – he won six events that year and the only year in which he won more events was in 1973, video of which I’m trying to hunt down to look at his stance and grip for a comparison.
The video from Golf Digest is called The Science Behind Gordon Sargent’s Insane Swing Speed, but I’ll just call it what it is – A Recipe For Disaster.
I’ve already (long ago) pointed out that any real science that looks at the X Factor notion of Jim McLean infamy concludes that it is physically unsound and puts golfers at a higher risk of back injury, but why quibble?
I found this pretty good short clip from Brandel Chamblee on the Classic Golf Swing pivot – although he can be rather controversial on television and a little contradictory at times (he’s always loved and praised Tiger Woods’ various swing models, all of which are Modern and completely unsound as TW’s injury list can attest to), he is pretty sound on swing mechanics, generally speaking.
I’ll say right now about the title – I don’t believe in “magic moves,” as that implies there is something special about swinging a golf club when it’s simple stance and mechanics – any “magic move” is nothing more than mechanically-sound motion.
Having had a depressing look at the current state of affairs in today’s pro game with driving accuracy, I was actually a little but not very surprised that Rory McIlroy came in 157th on the Tour, because I didn’t know this until I had looked at his driver swing.
When I saw what he was doing, I thought to myself, “he can’t be hitting that many fairways with this move,” and proved myself right when I went looking for the just-completed season’s driving stats.
If you want to know why Rory McIlroy is such a long driver of the ball but also a very woeful one accuracy-wise, then you only have to look at what he’s doing with his pivot.
Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with his setup – I’ve commented on it before and how it supports my hypothesis on the address position – it’s when he gets moving that the issues begin.
WAX Golf 