Breezing through social media yesterday I came through something wonderful. Something weird and wonderful. This guy, at a TopGolf, ripping one a monster drive with one of the more unique golf swings I’ve ever seen.
It’s a thing of beauty, check it out:
This cracks me up. Dude absolutely hammers it. pic.twitter.com/L31GmMHLUA
— LKD (@LukeKerrDineen) October 9, 2018
I’m shaken. Have I been swinging the golf club wrong this entire time? I’m kidding of course, but I am curious, so let’s break it down.
As an Englishman, I’ve literally never played baseball before in my life, but this seems like a reasonably conventional baseball stance.
But this I understand.
As he steps into the ball he effectively assumes a top-of-the-backswing — and it’s looking quite good! The left arm is a bit bent, sure, but the lower and upper bodies are both fully coiled, and the club is basically in-line with his target. I’ve drawn a line down both his clubshaft and footline to illustrate this. As you can see, they’re pretty parallel.
In transition is lower body drives hard and he’s done a good job of making sure his right elbow and arms aren’t getting trapped behind him; they’re working towards the ball really well.
A lot of baseball players-turned-golfers tend to hit slices, because the motion in baseball requires more staying back and spinning than the golf swing, where golfers drive onto their lead foot more. You can see elements of that here — his left leg has buckled and there’s a lot of weight is on his right side — but his arms have straightened well and his hands have squared the clubface. Lots of power here.
You can see his weight topple down and to his right side because of that baseball-style spin move I just mentioned. But the most important part of this picture? The ball — a hard, power draw. Can’t argue with results!
