The debate whether the golf motion is a swing or a hit has been around forever. My absolute bias for this article is that the golf swing is a motion where the hit becomes a collision on a longer swing journey. I see it much more of a discussion between length of journey than hit or swing. Golf’s greatest swingers took the long journey.

The “hit” would be a short journey motion where you are basically done just after the ball. This also works, but has clear disadvantages vs a longer journey, and it isn’t what I write about in this article.

I will below identify some of my favorite long journey swingers through history and then intentionally remove players from the list to strengthen my point – natural flow trumps manipulation.

Golf’s Greatest Swingers – Qualification Parameters:

• Power comes from utilizing the hands, clubshaft and clubhead to its max potential without disrupting its natural flow. 
• Strengthening the natural flow is however very much encouraged (think Arnold Palmer).
• Manipulating the flow is discouraged as it leads to compensations.

The Great Swinger List

And yes, there are loads of other great swinging golf geniuses. These are more or less from the top of my head.

What Happened in the 70s and Forward?

Back in the day, 1920-1960, you basically couldn’t manipulate the clubs natural flow since it would demolish your game. If you for instance watch the swinging motion of Ben Hogan’s idol Wild Bill Melhorn you’ll be amazed how smooth yet powerful it is. Check it out here if you wish.

Once the equipment became a bit “better” manipulation started happening. And again, not talking about strengthening the natural motion (like Palmer), but rather to force power or control with disrupting the flow. You can read about manipulation here.

The point is – manipulate the flow and negative compensations will happen. In fact most manipulation will over time lead to injuries. Let the next section shed some light on what I mean.

List Removals Explained – Golf’s Greatest Swingers

Billy Casper & Lee Trevino & Greg Norman: All of these gentlemen push their hands towards the target. This leads to the need to lean to the right which puts additional pressure on your spine. Mr Norman needed massages right left and center after playing golf.

Later Sir Nick Faldo – the early Faldo, before swing change, had one of the flowiest swings of all time. The collaboration with mr Leadbetter and the winning streak they went on actually produced a slightly thinner strike, a more fade biased shot and a bit more machine like presence. The winning speaks for itself but this article is just about swinging so there you go.

Later Tiger Woods (2000 and forward) – When Butch Harmond induced a stronger grip on Tiger, compensations started happening. What do you need to play golf with a strong lead hand grip? Push the hands and let the left arm move away from the body. What do you need to do to offset this added out to in component? Tilt to the right. What did Tiger get? Massive back issues. Then again, Tiger has made so many swing changes that I just keep it simple and to broad strokes. Mr Woods won the masters with 12 strokes in 1997 and yet he wasn’t satisfied due to the swing plane problematics he observed on video. His intense work ethic and constant strive forward paired with observational technology proved to be devastating for the latter parts of his career. I don’t argue that his swing 2000-2005 paired with the best mental faculties in golf produced amazing results. But I do argue that it lead him down paths of swing remodeling that took him out of the game.

Justin Thomas: He swings so much energy pound per pound into that golf ball. In fact a bit too much. He rotates through jumping which moves the path outside and he offset this with leaning to the right.

Later Rory McIlroy: I’d put pre 2010 Rory as my top 5 swings of all time. Then he got “instructed” and offset the natural balance of his swinging motion. Once the juice of his old behavior started running out (meaning he had gone down different “instruction routes” for too long) the majors stopped happening. Only due to this? Likely not. Does it influence it? Definitely.

Early Jason Day: Massive push of the hands towards the target and over stimulated lead leg extension = lean to the right = back problems.

*Ben Hogan – The Unique “Hitter”?

Mr Hogan has been described as a hitter more than any golfer I know of. I sincerely believe he is a swinger who has just put on a strait-jacket to make it look tight and tidy. He came from the background of fearing the snap hook so much that he basically did anything to cope with it including enforced forearm rotation and hand manipulation to produce a “fade sensation” but still the swinging elements with an active movement all the way to the finish position outweighs all potential hitting style components.

**Fred Couples – the smoothest swinger with some problems?

My favorite flow in a motion ever but it has indeed come with some issues. Mr Couples had some back issues in his career and I would put his later swing now on the senior tour as even better than his heyday when he won the masters. I believe his swing thought back in the day was to wait in transition and then release hard towards the target. This equals a hand push and a more “fade” touch on the ball flight. These days he has mentioned that he tries to “get his hands to his left shoulder ASAP”. This stimulates a more active post impact motion and lengthens the complete journey.

*** Scottie Scheffler – old school swinger in a merry-go-around

The current world number 1 (Late 2024) is using the complete swing arc to his advantage but he is tweaking it to keep up with the distance game of modern golf. Instead of just allowing his body to follow (which would probably set his distance back 10% ish) he induces body rotation more than anyone. It kind of works like this: His downswing plane is stimulated so much from the inside that his trail foot loses its footing (think bowling for a second) and because of this he can allow much more body rotation through the ball. The body rotation acts as a steepener compared to the path’s shallowness. It matches up (a very simplified analysis) but at heart Mr Scheffler is using the club’s inherent dynamic to full effect.

Summary – Golf’s Greatest Swingers

If you figure out how to harness the natural power potency using the dynamics of the golf club, stimulated by the hands and the arms movement and intentions, the world of great ball striking opens up.

Most of these swingers play a much easier game than most modern golfers. The observation of a “natural swinger” looks like he/she is flipping the club and this is absolutely right. But they do it in a way that keeps the blade in check through understanding how and where to intentionally stimulate the release of force of the swing. In most cases, except e.g. Scottie Scheffler and Justin Thomas, the body is of more reactive nature to the backswing setup and the natural swinging intentions. 

My absolute belief is that the best swings of all time happened in the 20-70s. If these guys were time machined into the tours today they would amaze the world. Therefore, I base my complete teaching system on the inner workings of golf’s greatest swingers.

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