I reached this conclusion when I realized that the four gentlemen in this small study group of mine (only the four best players of all time) all had idiosyncratic moves that may have been caused or at least influenced by the weak grip.
I thought, coming home on Tuesday afternoon, that I had not made any significant progress on the finalization of the swing model.
First, it was over 31C (approx 88F) with a humidex into the mid-30’s (high 90’sF) and I thought I was going to melt after the first few warm-up swings.
I know most people will be taking in the Open Championship today and I’ll be out until the afternoon, so I thought I’d just put up something light before I head out.
It always tickles me to see people launching themselves into the air and analysts saying that it’s to create “vertical lift” on the ball, because the club face is what’s making the ball move from it’s teed position and not the swinger’s body or feet.
You can call this Pt 2 of yesterday’s posting, wherein I’ll clarify what I mean by “optimal swing” and how it pertains to modeling.
There is of course no limit to the number of different ways in which people swing a golf club – I would never say that there is only “one swing model,” because you see people playing golf and winning millions of dollars with varying degrees of difference in their swings.
I always say that although Jack Nicklaus didn’t have a “perfect” golf swing, it was closest to the optimal in his best form and you can’t go wrong emulating him.
Case in point – although I looked at all of the greatest swingers from Bobby Jones to Tom Watson, there is only one you have to compare your own swing to, and that’s Nicklaus.
I’ve just looked at some of the video I shot today and can confirm that today is the 1st day in my life that I’ve swung a golf club properly.
Not perfectly, mind you – but I’m finally there, setting up with 1. a right dominant hand and arm position, 2. a neutral grip and 3. swinging with a floating pivot action and 4. swinging right arm dominant, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to have finally got to this point.
Following my looking into the neutral vs “weak” grip issue, I’ve rebuilt both the MCS Classic Golf Swing and Post-Modern Golf Swing models, because one must completely dismantle and rebuild anything where a fundamental change emerges.
It is not an earth-shattering process – the grip is the first thing one establishes (or should be), even before building the stance, so changing the grip actually required me to rebuild my stances for both models, and it only took a day or two.
I wrote about how 23 year old Jack Nicklaus’ swing at that time was so close to being unable to be improved upon, and let me show you what I meant by that.
His down the line has always been what one would call an optimal stance, with the erect, non-squatting posture, relaxed upper spine and weight balanced over the feet.
I’ve said that if you don’t implement all parts of a working model, it is bound to fall apart, but I’ve just discovered something in reverse – fix the issue and everything first unravels but then can be rearranged correctly.
You’ll note that, time and time again, I made changes to my setup and mechanics, only to say that while it was an improvement, there was still something off with the motion.
I got home and looked at some of the video I shot today, and I can’t believe how weak my grip felt today versus how it looks – it’s weaker than last week but still on the strong side, I’d say.
While it may not look much weaker, it definitely made a difference in my setup and swing action and I believe I’m not there yet but nearly.
WAX Golf 