I have talked about how, when I began my golf swing research, I had chosen Moe Norman’s swing to study because of how it was always being called the “perfect swing.”
I have of course concluded that, while he could strike a ball nearly perfectly straight time after time, it wasn’t an optimal golf swing.
I’ve taken Jack Nicklaus’ driver swing from the Masters in 1963 to illustrate the power of hip & leg action regarding the leveraging of the golf swing, something that has been lost with both the Modern Golf Swing models & the Flying Foot Syndrome.
It would likely surprise modern golf students to learn that what makes it so difficult to get a 90 degree shoulder turn at the top with a planted leading heel is also what makes the Classic Golf Swing so effortless in power production via leverage.
It is now becoming evident to me that, out of all of the issues that people investigate with regards to swing modelling (ball position, stance, etc.), the grip is most overlooked part of it all.
I have spent years believing simply because he set the standard over a century ago that Harry Vardon’s grip was the correct one to employ.
I have talked about how rotation is the enemy of gravity, and for some this may seem strange, as the popular opinion is that one must rotate in the golf swing.
That opinion is wrong, mechanically-speaking, and I’ll show you an example in the extreme to illustrate the difference between a proper rotation around the supporting leg over rotating in place during a swing.
If this analogy works for anyone, consider the moment of impact in the golf swing as the moment a door swings closed.
At impact, the door has swung shut, so one must ask oneself, “from which point is the door shutting?”
I spent year upon head-clanging year “pulling” my golf swing with the leading arm, and am just now getting comfortable with a purely trailing arm swing action.
I mentioned in my last post that I have set my swing aid to a difficulty setting that simply will not snap unless I’m swinging with a pure trailing arm motion.
The difference in speed and power production when you properly use leverage and gravity versus when you don’t, is massive.
The entire point of building an optimal setup from the ground up is to maximize the benefits of leverage and gravity, and that includes the grip, of course.
I would love nothing more than to have figured out what made the old Classic Golf Swing grip so effective and to at the same time stick a dagger in the Modern Golf Swing instruction scam.
To wit: Imagine that the grip change from the old Classic era along with the restricted-hip pivot are why people have so much difficulty making a proper and athletic swing at the ball.
I have been discussing Jack Nicklaus’ 1963 setup, swing and grip for some time as you all know, and I concluded that his grip in this setup was optimal.
The question however would be, is it optimal, period?Ā Or was it optimal because of the way he set up over the ball, and would a stronger grip than his work as well in a slightly different setup?
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.
WAX Golf 