Golf Pro John Daly: Extra Long Backswing (Video) - by Pete Styles
Golf Pro John Daly: Extra Long Backswing (Video) - by Pete Styles

So we can't really talk about unconventional golf swings without mentioning John Daly. He’s probably the most recognizable golf swings you’ll ever see. He is a fairly recognizable character to be fair, but his golf swing definitely stands out as being unique.

From actually a decent fundamentals of setup, Daly’s featured move is this very, very long back swing, where sometimes the golf club will not just pass the parallel, but actually get down towards the vertical, very clearly inside through his left eye. You can see it here; it gets down towards his left knee even. And then from there he whips it back down as fast as he can, massive club head speed, but also needs an awful lot of athleticism and hand-eye coordination, to square that club up to the point of impact. You’ll notice with Daly that when he plays well he’s very, very good. When he plays badly, not so good, tends to shoot 62 or 82, depending on any given day.

I think the one thing that we can all learn from his golf swing, is that, you know, educated hands can make up for a bad position, but ultimately it’s better to not get into that bad position in the first place. So when you swing the golf club, the ideal position for a driver, would be to swing the golf club round about to three o’clock, the horizontal position here. Anything shorter than this, I still don’t mind, it would give you more control, slightly less power. Anything beyond this, there is a risk that you lose control, and for a lot of people, unless they’re very athletic, they’ll actually lose power by swinging further, because they would start to make some key mistakes. Left arm would start to bend, left heel, left hip would start to get out of position, left knee dives in. All these sorts of things would give you a lot of inconsistency, and often actually cost you power.

So, from a nice address position, nice turn up to the top, stopping at the top, checking the angle of the golf club, not three o’clock, and then drive down nice and powerfully. And I think if you avoid John Daly’s featured movement, you‘d actually be a better drive of the golf ball for it.

[playerProfile url="https://golf-info-guide.com/pga-players/john-daly/"][/playerProfile] 2012-04-25

So we can't really talk about unconventional golf swings without mentioning John Daly. He’s probably the most recognizable golf swings you’ll ever see. He is a fairly recognizable character to be fair, but his golf swing definitely stands out as being unique.

From actually a decent fundamentals of setup, Daly’s featured move is this very, very long back swing, where sometimes the golf club will not just pass the parallel, but actually get down towards the vertical, very clearly inside through his left eye. You can see it here; it gets down towards his left knee even. And then from there he whips it back down as fast as he can, massive club head speed, but also needs an awful lot of athleticism and hand-eye coordination, to square that club up to the point of impact. You’ll notice with Daly that when he plays well he’s very, very good. When he plays badly, not so good, tends to shoot 62 or 82, depending on any given day.

I think the one thing that we can all learn from his golf swing, is that, you know, educated hands can make up for a bad position, but ultimately it’s better to not get into that bad position in the first place. So when you swing the golf club, the ideal position for a driver, would be to swing the golf club round about to three o’clock, the horizontal position here. Anything shorter than this, I still don’t mind, it would give you more control, slightly less power. Anything beyond this, there is a risk that you lose control, and for a lot of people, unless they’re very athletic, they’ll actually lose power by swinging further, because they would start to make some key mistakes. Left arm would start to bend, left heel, left hip would start to get out of position, left knee dives in. All these sorts of things would give you a lot of inconsistency, and often actually cost you power.

So, from a nice address position, nice turn up to the top, stopping at the top, checking the angle of the golf club, not three o’clock, and then drive down nice and powerfully. And I think if you avoid John Daly’s featured movement, you‘d actually be a better drive of the golf ball for it.

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