Before I get into this, a couple of points.
I am finding Modern Golf ever more laughable and, to keep my sanity, I have noticed that I am becoming a little, shall we say, “light-hearted” in my writing style.
It helps me cope with the trauma of what I see day in day out, so bear with me, if you will.
Update: Since posting this, I have uncovered evidence that takes the Tiger Squat back to his Sean Foley days, and it has just gotten worse and worse over time. /update
I have been wracking my brain for the past few days, trying to think of where the Squat & Dump move came from.
I have seen the Tiger Woods Tai-Chi routine, of course, but it wasn’t until I went looking for some old Tiger Woods swings that I found it – and yes, you can lay the blame on this horrific move on him and his coach at the time.
I can only call this new swing phenomenon what it looks like to me.
I will forever now call it the “Squat & Dump” Golf Swing, and I will say “Rest In Peace” at this time to all of the leading legs that will be destroyed by this horrific move.
If you look at the mechanics involved, there is no way that people will be able to swing this way for many years before, at the least, they destroy their leading knee joint.
You can probably file this away under “Famous Quotes Before Disaster,” because this type of attitude leads to tragic endings.
Scottie Scheffler actually laughed off the incident where he clearly experienced pain in the aftermath of a “what was that?” swing off the 11th tee last Friday.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it yet once more – the pros in the game of golf are using equipment meant to help hackers and amateurs play golf better, and they shouldn’t be permitted to do so.
It’s the equipment makers who actually rule golf today, not the associations – every time there is talk of bifurcation to equipment (different clubs and balls than what is offered to lower-skilled players of golf), they scream and threaten to sue.
I hate when this happens – for years, whenever I have singled out individual swingers in a post on unsound mechanics, they uncannily come down with an injury within weeks.
The reason I rail against unsound golf swings and mechanically-incorrect moves is because I’m trying to get people to avoid hurting themselves simply swinging a golf club.
I wasn’t watching yesterday’s Tour event, but a WAX Nation citizen (thanks, Chief!) alerted me to something that happened to Scottie Scheffler during his round.
While I would never blame or mock amateur golfers who have something like a heel spin in their mechanical action, it is a wonder to me that there are professional golfers out there who still do it.
I have been thinking about how to illustrate that the heel spin is from improper mechanics and not some physical impediment as many people with flaws in their swings claim to have, and this could be the one.
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.
This is something so basic that it’s incredible to find myself writing this post today. It’s simple kinesiology and I’ve dealt with the subject before when comparing other athletic motions, but here we go.
The Flying Foot Syndrome is destroying the leading knee joints of many who perform this move because it is not mechanically sound.
I didn’t think it could get any worse, what with golfers not knowing to properly release the trailing foot when the hip turn exceeds the ability to keep it anchored.
It was bad enough that the pundits and analysts couldn’t explain this swing flaw, then it got worse when they began to praise it as providing “vertical lift” by “using the ground” and all of that nonsense.
WAX Golf 