What a great Masters weekend it was last week! Scottie dominated the whole weekend and what he has done on tour, winning his last 4 out of 6 tournaments, is incredible! While a lot of the conversation is centered around Scottie, there was more talk around his unconventional golf swing mechanics.
I wanted to break down what was happening biomechanically and anatomically during his swing. This article isn’t to say it is bad or good, just simply what is happening during the swing.
As we all know Scottie’s right foot moves backwards during his transition and through the ball. This is an interesting phenomenon, but it makes sense why his body is doing this.
First we need to break down what happens at the feet in the golf swing. During the backswing for a right handed golfer, the right foot is pushing down and forward, as the left foot is pushing down and backwards. Go ahead and stand up, get into your golf posture and try it, you should feel some interesting things happening in your body.
This creates a ton of ground forces that can transfer up the body, properly firing muscles through fascial lines. Which in laymen’s terms means if you do this properly with your feet, you create a really stable base for you to rotate around. The equal and opposite reaction happens on the downswing; the right foot now has to push down and backwards as the left foot pushes down and forwards. This again creates a ton of ground forces for the golfer to put maximal force into the ball.
So what is happening up the chain? A few weeks ago I touched on what the body does when it rotates, now let’s apply this to Scottie’s swing. During the backswing the left Anterior Oblique Sling (AOS) (Connection from chest to opposite adductor muscle, pictured below) and the right Posterior Oblique Sling (POS) (connection from latissimus dorsi to opposite Glute Max, pictured below) are firing hard to keep the golfer from swaying off the ball and helping the golfer rotate.
The right AOS and left POS are fully stretching, creating a rubber band effect in the backswing. As you stretch that rubber band, it needs to snap back creating a lot of force at the other end. On the downswing the equal and opposite reaction is happening. Once fully stretched, that AOS and POS have to maximally contract to get force into the ball.
This is exactly what Scottie is doing in his swing. When his feet are moving forward and backwards, he puts so much force into the ground, his right foot actually moves during this reaction. This could be due to his body not being able to handle the force or it is just his body’s natural reaction to the forces he is putting on his body. When he gets the foot moving backwards, he is maximally firing his left POS, his right glute and left lat are working together to distribute the force from the ground. This is as if Scottie is taking a step backwards with his right foot.
This move obviously is working very well for Scottie and I am excited to see how far it takes him on the PGA Tour!
