 I was fascinated by these sequences of the Jim Furyk golf swing. He has been on our radar for several years now but the more I study it, the more I think his is a combination of pieces of every dodgy amateur swing put together like a jigsaw to make something that actually works. The bottom line is that the clubface is square at impact and it doesn't matter how you get there. Tell us what you think you can learn from it - if anything - or if any parts remind you of yourself or your mates' swings. And don't be afraid to put up your own swings for forum/expert analysis. Looks like we could be creating a whole new forum category here. ED
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 Furyk and Allan Doyle's are probably the extremes of idiosynchratic swings that are successful on tours at the moment. Like the members swings posted here recently at GM, it does show, and confirm, that there is more than one way to skin a cat! Get the clubhead reasonably on the right path and square at impact witha bit of speed and the ball doesn't know what contortions went before to achieve that. I guess if I have learnt something from Furyk, Doyle, Kenny Perry etc its that there are certain essentials, but outside of that you have quite a lot of freedom on how you achieve those essentials. We all have to be careful that we don't use the Furyk example etc as excuse for not improving and refining our own technique, its still IMO preferable to have a classic swing than a home-grown one. But the home-grown can be successful. One other thing is that none of these swing vids can show where the ball made impact on the clubface. If there is one thing that will improve ones golf is getting more consistent impact on the clubface sweetspot.
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 "think his is a combination of pieces of every dodgy amateur swing put together " Thats a bit harsh BOB  Furyk just takes the club up on a more vertical plane than (some would say is ideal eg Hogan and his glass pane ) and re-routes it to a flatter more on- line plane in his downswing. Tiger does a hilarious impression of Furyk's swing.. I enjoy watching video of Hagen no follow through, Doyle hockey style, Thorpe crazy finish, Quigly, Chi Chi, Sanders 3/4, Palmers slash and a whole host of Modern and Old School quirky yet effective swings and even KJ Choi has a few quirks. Makes me feel alot better about my ugly swing I know so many guys with 'pretty' conventional looking swings who are just poor ball strickers, so IMO being able to strike the ball with some consistency and authority is more important than tecnique. I also think decent ball stricking is innate. That's the gospel according to John Jacobs, who also famously said he would'nt cross the road to watch Nicklaus swing !
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 I love it myself, its nice to see an unconventional swing do the business in amongst the more favoured technical examples, the way Furyk manages to drop the club back into perfect plain after a rather steep backswing is a joy to watch. The natural talent shines through and Im glad he didnt try to change his swing to a more conventional number, as I expect he would have been put under pressure to do so at some stage in his carreer, probably would have wrecked his game, and robbed us of a great golfer.
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 It's great! I love to watch classic swingers, but to know there are still unconventional swings out there at the very top of the game is good to see. It'd be boring as hell if everyone was like the Swedes. not that I have anything against 'em.
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 Surely we can't have this conversation without mentioning Eamonn Darcy?(scroll to the bottom for a clip)
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Gary, that was one crazy lunge!
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There is one crucial point that people always miss when talking about home grown swings, thats how many make it on tour, currently there are about 4 or 5 that you can pick out as actually different. so about 4% of tour pro's. And the opposite is true of conventional swings - there are about 4% or 5% of amatuers who have one of those!
To me that shows how much harder it is to achieve these heights without coming back (at least most of the way) to a conventional swing. It just shows how acomplished Furyk, Bubba, Daly really are repeating there swings and the co-ordination they can achieve within themselves.
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My question is how does he get the the down swing back in to position so easly and consistantly? When you look at the swing at the top, the position of the club alters about 10 degrees to the left to get him in the correct position for the down swing.
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Talkin of Darcy...you see alot of weird and wonderful but incredibly effective swings in Ireland. A high percentage of Paddys play and they just grip it and rip it....none of that poncing about with X factor angles and Stack Tilt rubbish.
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A better way of comparing swings would be just to take the impact position. You'll see just about every tour pro and top amateur in a similar position, and every handicapper in a variety of other positions.
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Good point Creo, As long as your in the correct position at impact, the ball will do what you want it to do. But it just amazes me how Furyk gets the club in the correct position with such consistancy.
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 As long as your in the correct position at impact, the ball will do what you want it to do. How does that work? If the club is square to the ball at impact, but coming across the line, you will slice the ball, for example. So surely the position at impact and the swing path both have to be correct. (Or is that what you meant?)
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Mr rubbish, I'm sure that's exactly what they meant
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The "position" that I referred to at impact was the club fairly square and travelling on a reasonably correct path. Thus resulting in the desired ball flight and direction. Most good players get in a fairly similar position at impact, most poor players get in a variety of positions, none of them desired. If you can get in that good position through whatever means and eccentricities then what happened before has far less importance.
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| Edited: 18/01/08 20:44 |
I met an ex Walker Cup player who became a teaching pro who told me that whenever he stood on the first tee watching his opponent swinging, if that person had a "funny looking swing", he knew he was in for a hell of a tough match. He also told me that, in all the time he was a teaching pro, he never tried to change an odd swing that worked for the individual but spent a lot of time unpicking so-called classic swings that pupils had been taught.
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