I’ll be at the golf academy range today doing a couple of different things. I’ll be trying to shoot some more New MCS – The Full Swing material, and if the light conditions aren’t up to standard, I’ll go with my Plan B, which is more research on what ails everyone with the modern driver.
Right now, it’s mixed sun and cloud, so Plan B is looking more likely, for today at least…
I wish I had a little better video set-up that would allow panning and zooming during shooting. It’s kind of hard to get a sense of what someone is doing with the ball when the camera is static.
I did try this little thing here with focusing the camera 300 yards down range and hitting balls to that general area.
I am going through all of the vintage drivers I’ve collected and had donated to the “cause,” to how they perform with the New MCS swing methodology.
I gotta tell you all, I have never hit my driver or drivers better in my entire life. My Formula has given me in the short few weeks of its existence, better and better swinging and ball striking with each day.
Those who have followed my blog for a while may be a little surprised by what I’m going to say, but the closer I got to figuring out and duplicating Mike Austin’s theoretical swing motion, the more speed I was losing at the end.
In the summer of 2011, when I was working on the MCS 2.0 Video, I hit a personal high of 131 mph on my SSR. I was able to drive the ball pretty smoothly in the 124-125mph range, and that wasn’t too bad.
I said yesterday in my Member section posting that I had got a couple of swings on video hitting my Geek DotCom This driver, but it was in fact the Titleist 975D driver that Kid Charlemagne captured me swinging on Friday when we spent the day together..
It was cold, and the lighting is bad, so you don’t see much of the body motion due to the heavy hoodie. But I was still getting 120-125mph on all my driver swings, whatever the driver, and the 975D was no exception.
Take a look at the launch angle I was getting with my Geek Dot Com This, which has a 6 degree loft.
This is what I’m talking about, using the swing to create the ball flight conditions you want rather than strange and twisted golf equipment. You want to hit a high ball with a low-lofted driver?
Not a problem with the New MCS motion, I’ll tell you. Even Macklemore standing behind me on the mat was checking it out.
I have said previously that there is a 
new setup required for the modern driver with the longer shaft and steeper lie angle.
I devised the New MCS to deal with this and to also return my golf swing motion to the one that I envisioned and not a model taken from someone else. In this, I was able to even improve what would have been the original “MCS” motion when swinging a “classic” driver.
I got out to try my new Geek Dot-Com This driver, with the Ozick Black Tie shaft and at 6 degrees of loft.
I gotta tell ya, I’m liking this Driver – I’m likin’ it a lot…
Well, not much more to say except, “Here’s the video.”
Just a little clip showing a Drive with my TaylorMade RBZ Tour driver, 7.5 degrees stiff flex (I’m going to need X or XX shafts, this thing felt like a wet noodle when I swung it at the range yesterday).
I will try to get some more video of the Driver, both RBZ and Geek drivers, either today or tomorrow (raining right now). But this is the first video of my swing using the “formula” I’ve developed for the Address Stance in the New MCS model.
Well, I guess there was a reason I so loved the TaylorMade RBZ when I tested and bought it. I still haven’t hit it yet, but I might take this driver and my new Geek out to the range today when I go out to work on the New MCS and Short Shots video clips for my Members.
Apparently, the RBZ is the best distance driver to get according to this testing conducted by MyGolfSpy. So what are the best drivers to get this year? Let’s take a look!
I’m wondering if the modern driver’s days are numbered. You have all been privy to my research findings that you can’t hold or swing the modern driver the way the old drivers were swung.
The lies are steeper, the shafts are longer, and of course the heads and balls are made differently, so we’re talking about two different animals here.
But what if the pros (who drive all the new equipment sales and hype) are starting to turn away from the monster-sized heads and extra-long shafts?
I sneaked out to the range this afternoon before the week-long rain and thunder show commenced (currently in the opening refrain), and I took some video of the down the line swing with the New MCS swing with wedge and 6 iron.
To my members, that footage will be up sometime tomorrow in the Section. For now, let me premiere the New MCS motion for the modern-built Driver, and now my work is truly complete.
(Update at bottom)
Here’s a hint - no one will ever hit drives in the modern era like Mike Austin did using his same technique – the Driver has changed and it’s not the same swing as with the other clubs.
When the driver was shorter and had a flatter lie, it was the same as the others. Now, you simply can’t match the Austin address with the Austin impact using the modern driver.
I actually got out to the golf academy late this morning, and the conditions were glorious. It got up to at least 9 or 10C before I left, and the bright sunshine just lifted my spirits after the long winter.
You’re probably wondering how I hit the ball. Well, let me tell you about that…
I haven’t hit balls seriously in about six months (since late September of last year, with a couple of days to finish my video shoot and then a dozen balls or so with Tony P in January), and I was hitting the driver at 118-123mph – there was a 131 and another 134, but I am not counting them – although the ball I hit with the 131 reading seemed to sail forever.
I just received a belated birthday present in the mail from the Big Toilet, and I have to tell you – he didn’t send any old thing…
Thanks to BT, DJ is now the proud owner of a Geek.Com This driver, 6 degrees loft, with a Matrix Ozik Black Tie 6M3 shaft, X-Flex. If you know anything about shafts… oh my, oh my….
Thanks to rpmgolfer for providing the head-spinning details on the absolute necessity to not let the right heel detach during the down swing (and the article uses Tiger Woods, who can barely walk anymore, no less, as an example of how to swing correctly).
Is it me or is golf instruction becoming increasingly bizarre and detached from reality? As in, someone is somewhere saying, “Let’s see how ridiculous a thing we can and still have people buy it…”
I almost forgot, my most recent swing videos were in MCS 3.0 and I completely forgot to add them to my swing collection here on the blog after production completed.
So, I’ll be posting some videos here, and they’ll later be added to a permanent “Swings” page.
More below the fold…
Now that the video and eBook have been completed, I can tell you all about my trip to the golf store, where I walked away with a driver that I absolutely am dying to get out on the range and the course.
It’s the TaylorMade Rocketballz Tour driver, last season’s model, that they were discounting to clear them out for the new year’s RBZ’s. I can’t figure how a $500 club is suddenly worth half that, still brand new, because the “hottest, newest” club is now available. To me, you either got ripped off when you bought the damned thing last year, or you’re getting a great deal now.
I have found that it is easier (for me, at least) to see the physical motion of the golf swing when the video is converted to a pencil-sketch animation.
Watching the swing from the back, I would like to point out how the entire down swing is powered by the forward pivot instead of torso core and arm muscle effort like the typical modern swing.
You just might enjoy playing with them every once in a while, even if you have the newest and greatest stuff.
Here’s an article I found while reading Geoff Shackelford’s blog this afternoon (one of the very few golf writers/bloggers I read regularly) on the eternal question regarding golf clubs, especially drivers – Old vs New?
