I have been hearing for years upon years that to swing with power, you want to “emulate Sam Snead’s ‘squat,'” whatever that is supposed to mean.
I still hear it on TV and read it online.
I can show you below that the the half-way down position in just about any swing, good or bad, has the “squat” aspect to it, and it has nothing to do with Sam Snead.
If you think today’s pro tour players are good and that the longer ones among them hit it far (both accurate assessments, because I’m not saying they aren’t or that they don’t), then let me tell you something about my day yesterday and let you wonder what they could do with mechanically-sound and properly leveraged Classic Golf Swings.
Yesterday, I enjoyed a great day on the course out at Royal Ashburn G.C. with David D.
This track is the former Fall Q School venue of the former Canadian Tour, and the ironic thing is that I actually worked there as a locker room attendant for a summer coming out of high school – and never once saw the course!
In fact, before anyone accuses me of stealing his swing model, of course I didn’t – I don’t really watch instructional videos from even the game’s greatest players because I felt that watching their swings was good enough.
I might have saved myself time from the 12 years of my swing research however, if I had watched certain swingers’ explanations… thanks to Terry who posted a couple of Tom Watson video clips in the comments section of another piece on the swing in response to Jim’s “Aha” moment!
**Update – Video has been added to the body of the posting below /update
Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that so many in Wax Nation watch televised golf – but thanks to Frank Nobilo for pointing out something I see all the time, and for his shout-out on The Golf Channel last night during the 3rd Round coverage of the Sony Open in Honolulu.
Thanks as well to Peter A. with the heads-up, and to those of you who emailed me – I was watching the telecast but I had stepped away from the TV near the end of the broadcast, and I missed it!
Thanks to Pat G. for sending me the link.
Wow, I’m loving this from Phil Mickelson!
I just mentioned in this morning’s earlier posting that Phil Mickelson, the second in career majors among active players (if you count Tiger Woods as “active,” which is a stretch, but whatever), is a classic golf swing adherent.
I imagine Jack Nicklaus has reason to smile broadly today.
And I imagine that the ghosts of Hogan, Snead, Nelson and Bobby Jones have stopped spinning, at least for the time being.
I have been reading Brandel Chamblee’s newly released (and sure-fire bestseller) book on the swing, “The Anatomy of Greatness,” having been sent a copy by his publisher Classics of Golf with a request for my thoughts on it.
As for disclosure, I have received nothing for my agreement to review the book, and it wouldn’t matter – if I hadn’t received the book, I’d have surely browsed through it at the store, and would have run home with it.
Well, the bad news is that BT’s round of 73 at Bear Creek G.C. in Murietta C.A. was three strokes shy of Brian Smock (former PGA Tour player), who snagged the single spot to the PGA Tour Farmer’s Insurance Open.
The good news?
Lots of that. While I discuss, there are some pics of BT warming up this morning before I turned my phone off for the round.
OK, so when Jerry “BT” Crowell and I began to talk about working together, he stated a personal desire to achieve 115 mph club cruising impact speed and a top speed of at least 120 mph.
At the time, he was around 110 cruising speed and top of less than 115.
“No problem,” I said.
Originally published on the Smash Golf blog Sept 2, 2009
I was playing a round of golf yesterday working out more of the swing adjustment I made last week, and I was using irons off the tees on a few of the par 4’s instead of my driver.
I do this when I want to work on my irons because when I hit Driver on par 4’s, I am always left with a wedge to the green, and playing golf with Driver-wedge not only gets boring, you don’t get to use the irons in the bag.
WAX Golf 