I played softball/baseball for years growing up, and while it helped me to be able to make very powerful swings in that sport (along with having swung axes and sledgehammers growing up the son of a carpenter-then-construction contractor), there is an element in the baseball swing that can really inhibit good golf swinging.
That element is the non-requirement to swing the bat behind you before swinging at a ball.
As I’ve been fond of saying, the target at which you’re swinging is not the actual target of your swing action.
The target of the swing action is the swing bottom, whether you’re swinging a driver or a lob wedge.
By impediments, I mean that there should be no part of a golf swing where one’s setup or mechanical action impedes the freedom of the swing itself.
In modern golf, you have the planting of the leading foot on the back pivot, which leads to every other problem you’ll find in modern swinging due to that massive flaw in the mechanics.
If you need any proof that the Classic Golf Swing hip action provides enough power for even the modern game and equipment, look no further than Ian Woosnam and Patty Sheehan for the evidence.
I just wrote a post on Patty Sheehan’s great MCS-like swing action, but don’t forget the “Wee Welshman” Ian Woosnam, who was one of the longest drivers in the game in his day and who, standing just 5’4.5″ or 164 cm tall, was pound for pound the most powerful driver, period.
I will never be accused of having looked at too many golfers’ swings, because I have invariably focused on the male subset of swingers, but I came across the Sybervision video featuring LPGA legend Patty Sheehan’s swing that just blew me away.
I have featured Mickey Wright’s swing in the past, but this swing model of Sheehan’s is absolutely the closest thing I’ve seen to the MCS Classic Golf Swing model I built between 2014-2017, to be completely honest.
You can believe this or not – I have written dozens of posts about him over the years since he turned pro in 2007, which was when I began my first blog SwingTheoryGolf on WordPress.
So I’ve seen him swing with changing models over the years, changes made necessary because of injuries, and he even at at time used a Classic-style lifting leading heel (I’d have to check my archive but I believe it would have been around the time he was winning majors).
I will admit to being a little bit, er, myopic, when it comes to what other people are doing.
If I were a song-writer, my response to others asking if I wanted to hear their music would be, “Not really, doing my own thing here.”
Game versus Sport, the eternal balancing act of golf, dictates that even mechanically-iffy swings can be successful given good impact conditions and an overall great short game.
But there is a reason you don’t see anyone anywhere swinging like Moe Norman, the man who could hit the ball practically dead straight – and we’re talking so little side-spin that the first time Moe was ever analyzed on a launch monitor, it was thought to be malfunctioning.
I’ve compared the leverage of a proper golf swing in years past to that of a judo throw – you can throw someone bigger and heavier than yourself to the ground with relative ease if you know how to leverage the move.
In the same vein, I can affirm that, just as with a judo throw, you can be much more effective swinging your golf club with natural leverage than with brute muscle force.
It looks with the forecasts that I will likely be able to get out to do some swing work either this coming week or at latest the next week, so I have a driver swing here I’ve gone back to inspect.
I’ve said that I can’t bear to look at any of my swing clips since I’ve made significant improvements to my MCS swing mechanics – the model itself hasn’t changed since my “E = MCS” video in 2017, but my swing sure has changed for the better since then.
This Classic Golf Swing driver below was a few weeks before my trip to the TXG facility to get some numbers and doesn’t actually make my eyes bleed.
WAX Golf 