I want WAX Nation to look at a true, honest-to-goodness Ben Hogan “Perfect Pivot” action (honest to goodness because it’s the man himself) and compare it to the action I had yesterday.
As my long-time readers know, I looked at Hogan’s pivot action back in 2014 and discovered to my amazement that no one on TV or in the magazines actually knew or could describe what he was doing!
On this PGA Championship moving day, I thought I’d look back at a particular golf swing of a player currently T4 going into Round 3..
With all of my personal angst regarding finding and building an “optimal” golf swing, I would like to stress in this posting that “optimal” simply means to me, the best possible swing action you can make with regards to efficiency, speed production and accuracy/consistency.
That doesn’t mean that a swing that isn’t “optimal” is bad – when I say a swing is mechanically-sound, but not optimal, I mean that I fully endorse a swing action like that but that it could be even better.
I was able to get out to the range today to see how the adjustments to my setup worked out, and I was quite pleased with the results.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to get a much better impact position than I did today with regards to the footwork, but while I continue to look at video, you can have a look at a drive that I absolutely slammed.
We recently had some convo in the comments section regarding my frustration with how the optimal MCS Golf Swing model has a flat-to-very-low trailing heel at impact (for leveraging and “using the ground”purposes).
Once again, my failure to execute the swing to achieve this stems from my not following my own dictates with the model.
I am pleased and more than a little humbled to say that the WAX Golf blog has officially passed 1 million views as of today.
Thanks to WAX Nation, and the nearly 10,000 comments that you’ve all contributed to the discussion on mechanically-correct golf swing principles.
I have so many swings on file in my archives, it is always a treat to go back to a particular month or year to look at what I was doing in my swing research.
I would also break my research progress down into at least 2, if not 3 separate phases.
I am still waiting for conditions in this area to allow some good swinging and video-taking, but while doing so, I’ve been getting my swing muscles back into shape after a long season off (I haven’t hit a ball in about 9 months to date), and I discovered something surprising today.
I’ve been working on the speed aspect of the pivot, just trying to get raw speed with the SwingRite, and take a look at the top position of my absolute fastest swings through the bottom:
Whether you’re swinging a Driver or wedge, the key to a proper and smooth release is to swing down and through, without trying to actually strike the ball itself (which will make you ball-oriented and prone to reacting to it instead of just swinging).
I’ve talked about how you don’t swing at the target, but you also shouldn’t swing to “hit down” on the ball with irons and wedges either – down and through in one continuous motion is the way to get your best results.
Here’s what I saw when I went looking for Brooks Koepka’s 6 mph decrease in club head velocity between 18″ pre-impact to impact, and it should be plain to see for anyone who analyzes motion.
I’ve said before, been saying for years, actually, that when you squat into the address you will restrict hip turn, and when you restrict hip turn on the back swing, your hips will reach impact position before the upper body.
I’ve been working on my own setup and pivot mechanics all winter, as you all know, because until it’s perfect, you can always make it better, and even if you never get there, it’s a fun journey to improve over time.
I would say that this “feel” for me at address gives me a great feeling of down swing speed and the gravity factor coming down makes the actual swing feel effortless through the bottom.
