I have followed professional golfer Scott Mccarran since he started on the PGA Tour in the 1990s, first at the now defunct Greater Milwaukee Open and just recently at the Tucson Conquistadore Classic now that Scott is on the Senior Tour. To me, Scott always had a beautiful swing and hit the ball a long way, but I never understood how he did it. Now, we have him explaining in his own words (video here) how he does it. I also took some practice round video at the Tucson Conquistadore Classic to compare the verbal explanation with his actual on-course swings.
The notable parts of Scott's swing explanation are his setup using the Reverse-K position and how he starts his swing using the standup move. If you are a Stack and Tilt player (see my comments here) you will be familiar with the standup move and will also find the Reverse-K setup position an important modification on the Stack and Tilt setup position. If you are left-anchor golfer (using E. A. Tishler's method here) you will also be interested to know that, at least at the Tucson Conquistadore Classic, E. A. Tischler was coaching Scott McCarron during the practice round and on the practice tee.
These face-on still images were taken from a video I recorded during the practice round at the Tucson Conquistadore Classic (video here).
These down-the-line still images were taken from a video I recorded during the practice round at the Tucson Conquistadore Classic (video here).
E. A. Tischler photographed as I said "Hey, I've read every book you've written on golf" which wasn't completely accurate (he has written a lot of books here) but got his attention.
UPDATE: Another Scott McCarron secret: CBD (here).
The Club at Vistoso in Oro Valley, Arizona is currently closed and has an uncertain future (see article above, click to enlarge, from Explorer and Marana News, Jan 9, 2019, p. 6). I have played the course and it was very nice. The course was closed because the club could not pay its watering bill, a big issue in arid climates. The answer to this problem is simple: Reduce the watering! For a number of reasons, obvious solutions are more difficult than they seem at first. Below is my suggestion. My solution will change the game and players will have to get used to it. Some just won't.
The graphic above shows a satellite view of the 18th hole from the Golf Club at Vistoso. Let's say the course only watered the areas circled in green. That would cut the watering area by approximately 2/5th, reducing the $300,000 watering bill by 40% and saving the course about $144,000. Let's be clear what this would mean. The greens, the tee boxes and landing areas in the middle of fairways (except on par 3s) would be watered. The remainder of the holes would be (1) in the Winter, dormant Bermuda grass and (2) in the Summer, after the monsoons, Bermuda rough.
There really is no reason why there should be a watered strip of green grass between the tee box and the green. If your drive is poorly hit and just dribbles on to the fairway in front of the tee box, it should be a penalty. It was a bad shot. You should not expect to have a good lie. If your second shot lands anywhere other than on the green, it should also be a penalty, not as bad as being in a sand trap, but a penalty none the less. And, hitting off dormant Bermuda grass that has been mowed is really not that much of a penalty and is sometimes easier than hitting off closely mown fairways on Arizona courses.
Unfortunately, most players will not accept this solution. They want to see green and lot of it. My question for them is: Would you rather have the Golf Club at Vistoso stay open or would you rather see green everywhere? In any event, it is a Fiction that golf courses have to be heavily watered to the point of bankruptcy.
NOTE: Watering in the Winter could be eliminated entirely. If the entire course is planted in Bermuda grass, the grass will simply be dormant. It can be mowed as needed (not very often). The areas circled in green above could be dyed green. This solution has actually been tried and I have played on an Arizona course that did it (at least for the greens, the course was the El Conquistador in Oro Valley). The greens were rolled and I had no trouble putting on them. Players (customers) refused to accept it. The El Conquistador course was recently purchased by the City of Oro Valley. It has yet to turn a profit and may not make it. My solution would also apply to the El Conquistador, keep it open and retain profitability.
Historically, public courses in Arizona (and other arid climates) had sand greens treated with oil. I have played on one in the 1960s (Papago Park in Phoenix soon to become the U of A team course). You had to "rake" your path to the ball before putting. The greens smelled of motor oil. We could go back there but oil is currently far too valuable to waste on golf greens.
Finally, Arizona courses are typically overseeded with Rye grass in the Winter, closing the courses for a few weeks. Take a look sometime at the cost of a small bag of grass seed. Multiply that out for a golf course. Courses in arid climates are paying box-car loads of money every year to reseed courses, another substantial expense that could be eliminated. Fact: I would rather be hitting the ball on not-so-green courses that are open and profitable!
UPDATE: Oro Valley is currently considering a General Plan Amendment for Re-zoining the golf course (here).
Jordan Speith just won the British Open to give him three Major championships plus winning the 2015 Fed Ex Cup. He is 23 years old. Speith's career is interesting because he has so quickly risen into the ranks of Golf's great players, comparable to Tiger Woods great career at this point, But what is even more interesting is that Jordan's golf swing has a swing flaw, called the chicken wing. What is even more interesting is that he shares that "swing flaw" with Arnold Palmer.
In the two images above, Arnold Palmer and Jordan Speith's swings are captured at the moment of impact. Both players have a very slight bend or bow in the left arm. Conventional golf instruction (here) holds that the left arm should form a straight line with the club at impact. Ignoring why golf instructors call the chicken wing a flaw, Palmer and Speith had very good reasons for what they were and are doing.
I followed Palmer in a exhibition match he played in the 1960s at Brown Deer Municipal Golf Course in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (my story is here as is a great video of Palmer's golf swing). My impression of Palmer's play was that he was very accurate, always hitting his drives down the middle, always very accurate with his irons. At the time, I had no idea why Palmer was such an accurate player. To a young high school-age kid, he was just "the King".
A few years ago, I found Plamer's instructional book Play Great Golf: Mastering the Fundamentals of Your Game in a dusty antique shop, bought it and read his first chapter ("The Five Fundamentals") very carefully. His fifth fundamental, accelerate through the ball, especially caught my attention and had a big impact on my game.
However, it was not until I viewed the video above on Jordan Speech's swing and recalled the first image above from Palmer's book (page 35) that I put it all together. Both Speith and Palmer used the "chicken wing" to hold the face square at impact, greatly improving their accuracy (the video explains very clearly the negative consequences of rotating the hands open on the backswing and closed on the follow through). I cannot do a better job of explaining this than is done in the video, but I can say that adding the "chicken wing" to Palmer's "acceleration" fundamental has greatly improved my accuracy and distance control.
EXERCISES
If you have been convinced by this discussion of two great golf swings (remember that Palmer's swing was also criticized by golf professionals of his day here), the next question is how to learn the chicken wing. Interestingly enough, this was easy for me because I was trained by Howie Atten, a local teaching pro outside Milwaukee (his Edgewater golf course in Grafton, WI is described on page 18 of this article) to use the chicken wing when hitting all my partial wedges (quarter- and half-swing).
Also, surprisingly enough, this is how Jordan Speith hits his wedges (images above and video here). My suggestion is to begin learning the chicken wing with pitching and chipping. Set up with the left arm bowed outward away from the body. Take the club back by first moving the clubs with your wrists (for very short chips, this is all you have to do) and the swing forward holding the angle of your wrists, maintaining the bow in your left arm while hitting down on the ball and through. You are concentrating on maintaining the club face square (as described in the video above) back and accelerate through impact smoothly.
The chicken-wing chip is very similar to Phil Mickelson's hinge-and-hold method (here) and Berhard Langer's chipping technique (here). It should also be noted that in Palmer's Five Fundamentals he comments (in the section on the grip, page 23):
To score well on the golf course, however, you have to be precise, both in the distance and the direction you hit the ball. You have to make contact squarely on the club face every time to get it airborne on a desired trajectory. Because so much more precision is required in golf, there is little room for error in the wrists. Remember, the correct grip controls the wrists. It prevents them from making excess movement, which ruins ball control.
In a future post, I will discuss the grip. If you are having trouble working the chicken wing into your full swing, it is probably your grip that is the problem. For the time being, concentrate on pitching and chipping.
I just read an article by John Feinstein It seems impossible, but Steve Stricker is actually nicer than you think. We're seeing a lot of articles about Steve Stricker right now because the US Open will be held next week at Erin Hills, a course in Hartford, Wisconsin. Sticker is a Wisconsin native and did a commercial for the coming US Open, but he was not given a sponsor's exemption to play in the event. No matter, Stricker went out and qualified for the Open and, in fact, was the medalist in the Memphis qualifying tournament. This is no small accomplishment. Qualification is brutal. The best amateur golfers I have ever met, guys that drive the ball over 300 yards and have tremendous short games, could not get through qualification. Sticker is a beast, a savage.
Steve Stricker has done another famous commercial for Avis, mentioned by Feinstein in the article (video above). What makes this commercial so funny is that it is "So Stricker!" in John Feinstein's words. I think it is one of the funniest commercials I have ever seen, but I am also a Midwesterner often mistaken for a New Yorker (read Feinstein's article, it is very funny and Feinstein is a New Yorker).
A friend and I walked the Erin Hills course in 2006 when it hosted the US Amateur. It is a long, brutal links course. Now that Steve Stricker has qualified, I wish him the best of luck in the Open. It will take every bit of Beast and Savage he can muster, and that is a lot.
In some ways, history has been unkind to Arnold Palmer. He is remembered for blowing a seven shot lead at the 1966 U.S. Open and his early-career swing was often criticized as "far from pretty," "will never win any prizes for aesthetics or grace," and lacking in "style points". His swing today gets even more criticism for poor setup and excessive head movement (here).
Palmer himself has been very self-depricating about his golf swing. Some comments I have heard him make include "I didn't really understand the golf swing very well," "My iron play was a detriment to my golf," "I hit the ball too low," "I really didn't win that much," etc.
I have a few Palmer stories. In the 1960s, I saw him play an exhibition round (I think with Gary Player and George Bayer) at the Brown Deer Golf Club in Milwaukee, WI. What struck my high school golf team and me was Palmer's ball flight. His drives started off low and took off like an F-80 jet fighter plane. Palmer also gave an exhibition (probably during the same time period) at the Odana Hills Golf Club in Madison, WI. On the 16th hole, a rock was placed for many years where Palmer hit his drive well over 300-yards in the left rough. Although the course was not watered during this period, the hole does play into the prevailing winds and Palmer was using a wooden-headed driver and a wound balata ball! It brings to mind Palmer's 346-yard drive on the first hole of the final round in the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills.
Unfortunately, for my high school golf team and me, Palmer did not write an instructional book until I was an adult (however that book, Play Great Golf: Mastering the Fundamentals of Your Game, is worth detailed study by every golfer). In the 1960s, we were pretty much limited to learning what we could (which was a lot, especially about course strategy) from the Niklaus instruction books. The Niklaus swing, however, was not well suited for me (right now I agree with Zach Johnson, never hit a fade). Looking back on my golf career, copying Palmer would have been more appropriate.
The video, above, is really fun. It shows Palmer's early career swing (you can see Palmer's current swing here) with a lot of fun analysis including the launch of a five-stage rocket. The assertion in the video is that Palmer had the most efficient golf swing they have ever analyzed in slow motion.
A few things I can point out that are not part of current golf instruction except Stack & Tilt, Shawn Foley, the new (old) Tiger Woods swing and a few others (here): (1) Head steady and centered, (2) right leg straightens on the backswing and left knee moves out toward the ball, (3) swing starts with the lower body (specifically, the left knee moving toward the target), and (4) the hands are the last swing component (stage 5 of the rocket launch) to move on the downswing. It's important to note that the swing is not a "hit" but rather a "move" starting with the lower body. If Palmer was really "hitting it hard" there would have been less leg movement and less shoulder turn. Palmer did hit it hard but it was a result of the complete move.
By the way, where did the current received wisdom about "moving your head 12 inches behind the ball" on the backswing come from? Certainly not from the swings of either Arnold Palmer, Jack Niklaus or any of that generation except possibly Trevino. And, more importantly, why is the lateral head movement superior or even necessary? Questions, questions, so many questions!
Let's also keep in mind that Arnold Palmer was still playing a lot of golf at Bay Hill Country Club right up to this January, still loved to play and has had no major career golf injuries of which I'm aware. In a sport that generates a lot of back, wrist, shoulder and elbow injuries, Palmer's swing and physique definitely allowed for longevity.
Finally, let's not forget Arnold Palmer's record (here): Amateur Wins (26), Professional Wins (94), Masters (4), U.S. Open (1) and British Open (2).
Today at the Tournament Player's Championship, the great Calvin Peete who died on April 2, 2015 was honored with a moment of silence and a view of his locker in the Champions Locker Room. Peete won the TPC in 1985. He had twelve tour wins, including winning the Greater Milwaukee Open (GMO) in 1979 and 1982. The PGA Tour Career Summary (here), shows his professional career starting in 1976. My remembrance is that I saw him play in the GMO earlier than 1976, but I must be wrong. Peete had an unusual looking golf swing, possibly the result of a broken left arm that never set properly and would not straighten (I also have a left arm that will not straighten and Peete's swing always interested me). Regardless, he led the PGA tour in driving accuracy for 10 straight years, 1981-1990. His win at the TPC capped a career that probably cannot be duplicated today: he was a Public Links golfer who grew up poor playing the Genesee Valley Park course in Rochester, NY while peddling goods to migrant workers.
The analysis of Calvin Peete's golf swing above by professional instructor Jim McLean shows a solid swing with very few unusual components.
Jim McLean points out a couple of differences with the modern swing: (1) Peete's head does not stay centered but moves both downward and forward during the swing and (2) Peete's leg drive (the solid yellow lines are his original leg locations at address) and forward motion are stronger than the modern player. Peete also did not maintain club head lag deep into the downswing. Typically, instructors want to see the club at the dashed yellow line halfway into the downswing. Peete's club has released to the solid red line. Peete was playing with persimmon woods and balata-covered golf balls which may have required a different swing. My remembrance is that Peete did not have a lot of length off the tee. What he lacked in distance, he made up for in accuracy and obviously he was able to hit the ball long enough to compete on the PGA Tour at the time.
Calvin Peete was one of the great, unique, self-taught golfers on the early PGA Tour. It was honor for me to have seen him play in his prime.
