Sometimes, when I want to torture myself (because I really hate looking at swings and swing models that aren’t optimal), I will go back and look at how I was swinging in the early years of my swing research, and today I decided to go back to 2011.
It was the year after my first MCS swing video and I was working on the second one that I would release the following winter (MCS 2.0), and while the swing was mechanically-correct, there were some issues good and bad that I’d like to point out.
Those of you who were around last winter will remember that I had been conducting research on the right-dominant swing model and that I had concluded around that time that I had already figured out the optimal golf swing model.
It is an ironic situation in which one may find oneself when realizing that one had actually accomplished one’s mission but lacked the knowledge or expertise at the time to actually recognize the accomplishment.
I don’t often see swings these days that take me back to the “good ol’ days” of when the Modern Golf Swing had only one major flaw – the nailing down of the leading foot on the back pivot.
For years, the trend has seen the Modern Gold Swing move ever further away from the fundamentals of the Classic Golf Swing, including the setup (largely due to back injuries, I’d wager) to that stilted, stacked and tilted horror show currently unfolding.
An up the line view of one of my driver swings from when I was shooting the “E = MCS” video back in 2017 shows how you can use the Ben Hogan “Perfect Pivot” to get great consistency in your golf swing.
I’ve said before that the golf swing isn’t really a rotary or “turning” motion, rather a pivot action and a down swing, where the hips and legs drive the swing and the turning of the hips are what rotate you to the finish.
The reason the optimal golf swing is vertical and not rotary or lateral is because, as I’ve said before, you are using leverage and gravity to swing down into impact, and if your position remains laterally stable, you are golden with a modicum of practice.
I have taken a 5 iron swing and a Driver, to illustrate how purely you can strike the ball without jumping out of your shoes or breaking yourself in the gym.
I looked at a swing clip of mine from ’07, that you’ve all seen before, and that something caught my eye, leading me to conclude…
… that in my first year of actual swing research (I started the mission in ’05 but didn’t have a chance to really hit balls regularly on the range until ’07 due to work and family constraints), I had what the Modern Golf Swing is killing itself to replicate.
I have taken a real-speed driver swing of mine back in 2015 when I was swinging regularly and in much better shape than I am currently, to illustrate something with regards to piece-work swinging.
You’ll notice that, when you watch Modern Golf Swing instruction, you will get someone spending five minutes on describing in minute detail all of the various moves you must make for the down swing from the transition to the post-impact finish.
I have so many thousands of swing clips that I’ve compiled over the years between 2007-2022 that it is sometimes surprising to look back on the various models I’ve worked on.
It is beyond doubt to me, however, that my favorite ever driver swings to watch face-on are from May 15, 2015 – I hardly ever swung exactly the same way from day to day, as I was conducting swing research, but that day stands out to me as the day I nailed it.
I’ve been searching through my fairly large swing archive from between 2015-2022 and have found some archived swings from 2022 that are pretty much how I would be telling people to swing with the MCS Golf Swing model.
The years of 2023-25 consisted mostly of my investigating just about every variation of the swing with regards to grip, stance and mechanics, but as I have said, I basically had the MCS swing model figured out by 2015 and, aside from my personal journey to swing like this model, there has been very little change in said model over the years.
My only disappointment with the upcoming video will be that I couldn’t actually get out there this season to make new video clips, due to my left shoulder issues that are still plaguing me after four months.
Barring that, I am excited about this project because, although my swing model was essentially created between 2015-17 (notice I haven’t even made a swing video since 2018), the years since have allowed me to refine and conceptualize the model, so there really is no great need for new swing clips.
WAX Golf 