I will likely be busy this weekend with the kids out for summer break today and our National holiday on Monday, but I got some video clips of some irons I was hitting today (since some people might want to see more than just Driver swings, I guess).
I don’t usually take video of my irons when I’m working out at the range, because I think the Driver is the hardest club to master. Once you pound your Driver, I assume that hitting a PW or 7 iron has to be nearly automatic. I could be wrong.
I’ve had some time to revisit what I wrote about last winter, a concept I termed the “Leaning A.” It has to do, of course, with the Address Stance portion of the Fundamentals Trifecta.
I was able to get two different clips from the last week that illustrate the difference between a forward-leaning A and a backward-leaning A, and I think you’ll all be able to see what I’m talking about.
I haven’t hit balls in three days because of the heatwave and family events, but I got out today to hit a couple of buckets and work on the flatter plane swing.
I was pleased with the results, but still not happy with the “feel.” I imagine after years of swinging with a very steep plane, it’s going to take a while before it begins to feel like a natural swing.
As I said after watching Mike Dunaway’s swing motion, I had come to believe that my swing plane was much too steep. It was also a reason I had a little over-the-top action as well.
It was a difficult thing to reconcile because I’d been swinging with a very high hand position and steep left arm years before I even heard of and began to study Mike Austin’s swing mechanics.
I got an email yesterday from an MCS 2.0 student (who claims to me that he’s watched my video over 200 times, which is a feat in itself, I have to say), I’ll just call him by his initials C.B., and he had some great things to say about his progress.
I wanted to hook up with him for some personal lessons after he’d contacted me, but I was unable to land a free-lance location to give lessons, which was disappointing. However, C.B. seems to be doing some fine by himself!
As promised, I’m writing a post on the golf swing of the great Arnold Palmer, and although I said it wouldn’t be pretty, that really only applies to AP’s follow-through action.
As you would expect from someone who won 7 Major titles and 62 PGA Tour events in all, he had a great swing which relied on a flawless pivot and awesome leverage.
One of the old Smash Golf blog commenters (stewart m) led me to this greatYoutube clip of Billy Casper showing the old-school Classic and mechanically-correct swing.
The clip is over 3 minutes long, but just watch the first minute and a half and see how Billy set up for his Driver, and you would think that I had learned the golf swing from Billy.
One of the DJ Watts Golf community sent me this great little clip of Mike Austin hitting an iron shot down the line.
He looks to be in his early 60′s, but since he lived to be 95 and was still hitting balls at 79 until his stroke in 1989, I have no idea exactly. He could have been 70, for all I know. Judging by the clothes and music, I’d guess sometime in the 70′s to early 80′s?
I posted something earlier in the season about how I was going to adjust my stance to more resemble Mike Austin’s at address, and this is what I’ve done so far.
It takes a while for the changes to feel natural and I noticed yesterday while looking at my stance down-the-line that I have been able to do so.
I have said in the past that I paid more attention to what Mike Austin had done regarding his theory on the golf swing when he was actually still swinging the club than on anything he had come up with after his stroke, when he could no longer swing but continued to think about mechanics.
Well, I have to admit that, despite my resistance in promoting or using the counter-rotation theory that MA came up with in the ’90′s, it works. In fact, it works completely in how the body and joints function in the back swing when in the correct athletic pre-swing address position.
Our resident So-Cal instuctor/commenter paid a visit to an old friend of Mike Austin’s this week.
Aside from working personally with Smiley Jones on his swing, BigToilet got a chance to talk to one of the last remaining original Austin circle members, and I got a couple of photos to post on the blog.
One of the things I always noticed about Mike Dunaway’s swing was how flat his position looked at the top of the back swing.
It’s actually not flat at all, but the illusion is created because of the angle between his left arm and that of his shoulders. They’re nearly on the same line, but you’ll see that it’s hardly a flat angle, looking at the plane of his left arm.
Brandon posted a Youtube clip of Mike Dunaway yesterday that I hadn’t seen before (and I thought I’d seen everything Austin/Dunaway).
It shows a slightly different technique than the on the Peaceriver DVD.
