An Ugly Swing to Learn From

The Player’s Championship was an exciting match to watch because the course is designed to tear the hearts out of great players and leave the cream at the top. As much as I was happy to see Rory McIlroy add this critical win to his young career, at the age of 48 it was even more exciting to see Jim Furyk charge up the leader board to finish 1 stroke off the win. We really should take a lesson from this veteran golfer with that ugly swing.

With $70 million in career earnings, Jim Furyk is the 4th highest on that list. So that begs the question: why is he so good with such an ugly swing? He must be doing something right and we should all take a closer look to understand why he is so successful. His “ugly” swing has made him one of the most CONSISTENT golfers in the game.

There is no one in golf that swings like Jim Furyk. He has this crazy looping swing over the top of his head. Then he creates a downswing on the perfect plane. The plane of his downswing is exactly the same as every great golfer who swings from the inside slot (as David Leadbetter calls it) and directly up his target line. Jim is not thinking about his crazy loop in his backswing. He just has one thought to avoid swinging over the top. Tiger and Cameron Champ do a very modified version of it too.

Cameron Champ drops the head of his club about 10 inches at the top of his backswing so that he can swing from his inside slot and up his target line (to avoid swinging over the top).

Why is Furyk so Consistent?
1/ We all know that if we could eliminate our mishits that we would all have lower scores. Jim not only avoids mishits but his hideous swing is always controlling the perfect direction of his shots.

2/ His crazy looping backswing allows him to swing high and then loop down and perfectly up the slot on every swing. If you ignore the ugliness at the top of his swing you will see that it prevents him from swinging over the top and gives him time to bump his hips forward in preparation for his perfect downswing.

3/ Bad golf swings are caused by rushing the downswing before we complete our transition from up to down. Rushing the arms before allowing our hips to start the downswing creates our fat hits, thin hits and slices. Our swing is ALL ARMS and we are forgetting to keep our hips moving. Jim Furyk is using his looping swing at the top as if it is part of acrobatic routing to prepare for his downswing.

Here is a YouTube Video of Jim Furyk’s Swing in Slow Motion

Click to watch it:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7jePVzL47E

The next time you work on your swing at the range, you may want to take a little more time in your transition to drop down into the slot for a more consistent, controlled swing. Of course you should be practicing with your GOLFSTR+ as a reminder to keep your leading arm straight for a consistent swing distance down to the ball. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

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