Horton Smith (Video) - by Peter Finch
Horton Smith (Video) - by Peter Finch

One name which will forever be etched into the history of our game is Horton Smith. He won the first and the third ever Masters Tournament. So whatever happens his name will be on the locker in the club house for many, many, many years to come. Now Horton Smith was an interesting character in many ways and he had a very unique aspect to his swing that you do not see very often back in his era and the modern day era as well.

When Horton Smith was swinging and when he was actually hitting the shot his feet were very, very grounded, they didn’t actually move too much at all. Now when the old kind of fashion model of the swing, the left foot would rise very, very high, it would then plant and the right toe would come up and rise. Now within that era Horton Smith managed to be a very successful player while keeping both feet planted on the backswing and also on the through swing as well. They only started to rise with the right foot after impact about here and then as the swing continued upwards. Now what this was able to give Horton Smith was a lot of stability through the actual impact area. You can still get good distance, you can still get good connection whilst maintaining your feet planted but you just need to make sure that your weight is transferring over to the front foot during the downswing and it’s very possible to do that whilst maintaining both feet on the floor. So if you are wanting to give this an experiment do the swing, keep both feet on the floor during the backswing and through impact but make sure the weight moves over to the left hand side. It can feel strange, it can feel awkward but it worked for Horton Smith and you never know maybe it might work for you as well. 2015-04-20

One name which will forever be etched into the history of our game is Horton Smith. He won the first and the third ever Masters Tournament. So whatever happens his name will be on the locker in the club house for many, many, many years to come. Now Horton Smith was an interesting character in many ways and he had a very unique aspect to his swing that you do not see very often back in his era and the modern day era as well.

When Horton Smith was swinging and when he was actually hitting the shot his feet were very, very grounded, they didn’t actually move too much at all. Now when the old kind of fashion model of the swing, the left foot would rise very, very high, it would then plant and the right toe would come up and rise. Now within that era Horton Smith managed to be a very successful player while keeping both feet planted on the backswing and also on the through swing as well.

They only started to rise with the right foot after impact about here and then as the swing continued upwards. Now what this was able to give Horton Smith was a lot of stability through the actual impact area. You can still get good distance, you can still get good connection whilst maintaining your feet planted but you just need to make sure that your weight is transferring over to the front foot during the downswing and it’s very possible to do that whilst maintaining both feet on the floor.

So if you are wanting to give this an experiment do the swing, keep both feet on the floor during the backswing and through impact but make sure the weight moves over to the left hand side. It can feel strange, it can feel awkward but it worked for Horton Smith and you never know maybe it might work for you as well.