There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the announced golf ball rollback that will decrease the distance one is able to attain.
What hasn’t been discussed, and this is my personal prediction, is that golf swing injuries will likely increase with swingers going after the ball even harder than they have been, to try to retain their current distances.
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.
I said a couple of years ago that I would tone down my aggressive rhetoric when discussing the Modern Golf Swing and all of its madness.
I am only human however and sometimes I just can’t sugarcoat my despair about how I regularly trip over incredible golf videos and articles, and by incredible I mean, I can’t believe what I’m watching and reading.
If you didn’t have The Golf Channel in the 90’s through the 00’s, you really have missed out.
I remember getting it on my cable package in ’97 and dropping it in 2016 when we cut the cord because it no longer offered value of any amount for me, but the first ten years I watched it, there was gold in them thar hills.
Bear in mind that there is a difference between the standard Classic Golf Swing and what I call the optimal Classic Golf Swing, and there will be two obvious differences between the two – the grip and the footwork.
Many people who play golf either pay little heed or none at all to the crucial element of footwork.
I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable New Year – but I’ve just watched a Youtube video from a channel that purports to be about “Athletic Motion” in the golf swing – and all they’re doing is superimposing a modern pro swing model onto a screen and comparing it to the struggling student’s action.
At this point, I switched the video off in disgust and said aloud to no one but myself, “Golf is the ONLY sport…!!!”
It’s certain that this will be WAX Golf’s last post of 2023 and I thought I’d return to one of my pet peeves.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to convince the world at large that the Flying Foot Syndrome is a swing flaw and not an aid – it goes back so far that I even found evidence of it going back to the Bing Crosby event days.
Greg Norman is considered to have been the greatest driver ever using a persimmon club and his slide from dominance actually came as a consequence of the introduction of larger, metal-headed clubs which allowed lesser drivers to equal him in accuracy and distance because they were more forgiving.
Just as Lord Byron Nelson replied more or less when asked how much modern equipment would have helped him, “Not at all – I struck the ball with the sweet spot, so more forgiving clubs wouldn’t have improved my game,” this would apply in part to Norman as well.
I have continued to work on the swing model and am currently just doing speed work with the swing aid to prepare for my next swing session.
One thing I’ve noticed is that, since I came up with the stance and mechanical action for my re-made swing, I would likely swing exactly the same way whether I was making a smooth swing on the course or trying to pound the cover off the ball.
Grumpy Post Warning: I had no idea when I clicked on the following YouTube video that it would so depress me.
I mean, 10 “Amazing” golf swings, there’s got to be at least a few swings that would be mechanically-sound, right?
WRONG.
WAX Golf 