If you’ve gone through my breakdown of the Ben Hogan Swing video that was so shockingly incorrect in its analysis that I had to go through it point by point, then you know that I believe that this very video is responsible for all of the flawed Hogan swing instruction.
I decided to go through the clips online that I could find, and I’ll show the most egregious two YouTubers with a pretty large following.
Also, guess what the first video was?
This swing clip that I saw online and of which I’ve made a gif. is the sweetest swing I’ve ever seen from Ben Hogan, in terms of visual quality and that really brings forth the magic of his pivot action.
For those who think Hogan looked a little thick around the waist and upper legs, you are likely unaware of his physical struggles.
One may have been wondering, why did I say that Jack Nicklaus was the closest to optimal when it comes to the golf swing, but I’m constantly talking about Ben Hogan?
That’s because of the nature of swinging – Nicklaus was far more powerful in his swing, but Hogan was much more accurate and consistent because of the pivot action in his swing.
All of this Ben Hogan talk has reminded me of something amusing that happened to me a few years back.
The funny thing is – I have never pretended or tried to swing like Ben Hogan except for in the video “The Ben Hogan Project” in 2014 in which I did wear a driving cap like Hogan for the mood.
In that video, if I recall, I didn’t even really try to swing exactly like Hogan, I just pointed out his pivot action, later known as the “Perfect Pivot” in my subsequent videos, and to debunk all of the nonsense about his swing that so irritated me after I’d taken a hard look at his mechanics.
You can call this “Why You Can’t Learn Ben Hogan’s Swing Pt II,” because I already dismantled Jim McLean’s attempt to analyze the legend’s mechanics back in 2014.
Note: I have just finished writing this posting and, having outlined everything wrong with this video, I am convinced that this very video is what everyone has been using as their blueprint to to try to swing like Hogan, either personally or teach others, or both. Including Jim McLean.
This is incredible – I would never in my wildest dreams have traced the Tiger Woods Tai Chi squat exercise back to Ben Hogan, but here we are.
I remember Tiger Woods once saying that Moe Norman and Ben Hogan were the only two golfers who owned their swings, which leaves out others like Bobby Jones and of course Jack Nicklaus, among others.
Leaving that aside, Tiger also claimed that Hogan couldn’t have played on today’s Tour because he’d be too short-hitting, which is rich, because guess who Tiger Woods has been trying to emulate since at least his Sean Foley days?
No two people will ever look exactly alike swinging a golf swing, unless they are identical twins, I imagine.
However, I just decided on a whim to compare my 2015 driver setup from May of that year to Jack Nicklaus’ 1963 setup and to one of Rory McIlroy’s from the last couple of years, and the similarities are striking, especially since I had never tried to emulate either of them in my swinging.
I will be releasing a golf swing video this summer, hopefully by late June but no later than July if all goes well with the shooting and production.
I don’t currently have any brand new swings to show to illustrate the MCS Golf Swing (of the Classic Golf Swing type) model as it will look exactly, due to weather and the late openings of the facilities in my area, but I have found some swings from 2015 that are nearly identical to what you’ll see.
Let’s rinse the sour taste of the past few posts from our collective palates, shall we?
I’ve talked at length about how Jack Nicklaus’ swing model in 1963 was nearly optimal, but Ben Hogan has always been poetry in motion for me.
It is incredible to me that the videos on YouTube of the great Classic Golf Swing era don’t have so many more views, because these gents knew how to swing.
Of course, the old WAX Nation crew from the days of the Smash Golf blog and the DJ Watts Golf blog (I used to get bored of my sites and create new ones, but WAX Golf has been around since 2013) will remember this.
There are actually two pivot actions that I know of which are mechanically-correct – which one is optimal, I haven’t yet figured out, and each could be equally effective depending on the person using it.
WAX Golf 