One of the most celebrated aspects of the game we all love is the fact that there’s no single right way to swing the club.
Plenty of unorthodox — and even downright unattractive! — swings have still managed to propel players to the game’s greatest heights of glory.
Funky swings are not only fun to watch, they’re also ultra-relatable for the rest of us.
Remember Ho Sung Choi? The Korean player went viral in 2018 for his wacky, post-impact, one-legged finish. Once fans caught wind of his move, he became an instant sensation, and though he played in three PGA Tour events in 2019, he missed the cut in all of them, and hasn’t played on the PGA or Korn Ferry Tour since.
Luckily, there’s an incoming quirky swing to fill the void.
Meet Carl Yuan, a 25-year-old Chinese player whose performance on the Korn Ferry Tour this year (a win, three runner-up finishes and seven total top 10s) earned him the top spot on the Korn Ferry Tour rankings, which mean he’s one of 25 Korn Ferry Tour graudates who players who will be promoted to the PGA Tour for next season.
Check out Yuan’s unique action below.
Yuan, a former standout at the University of Washington, competed in last year’s Olympics for China, and says his instructors have never tried to change his action through the ball.
“All my coaches don’t stop me from doing that as long as I’m doing my fundamentals right,” Yuan told pgatour.com earlier this year. “It’s more I think it started with when I play, I learned to focus less on technique in tournaments, so all my intention is getting my ball from here to where I want to be, so I shift my mind to be more focused on how to get the ball there and what swing I need to pull off to get my ball there. I’m not doing those swings intentionally. They just come out.”
With a newly-minted PGA Tour card in his back pocket, it’s clear Yuan is on the right track. Fans can look forward to seeing his move in action at the PGA Tour’s 2022-23 season opener in Napa, Calif., at the Fortinet Championship, which will be played September 15-18.