Golf instruction for everyone --
beginner, professional, and instructor;
utterly simple to learn, while
thorough, detailed, and comprehensive
enough for the most demanding engineer.
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This page is about the strongest man ever
to hit a golf ball: the founder of the "350 Club,"
the irascible Michael Hoke Austin
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Mike Austin was a phenomenon. I met with him
in June, 2005 a few months before his death at age of 94, where I witnessed for
myself his passion, his brusque manner, and his brash ego. In his younger
days before his stroke (at age 64, for example, when he hit his 515 yard drive),
he was an incredibly powerful physical specimen: his forearms were enormous and
he could lift automobile engines with his bare hands.
Read about him here.
As an engineer and kinesiologist by academic
training and a naturally gifted athlete by genetic makeup, he was unique in the
history of golf for his ability to hit the ball "further than God." The
swing he used was absolutely orthodox in its form and method, but because of his
forearm strength, he consciously added force from the muscles of his hands and
arms in ways that almost all of the rest of us simply cannot. What I am
saying is that he not only capitalized on "centrifugal force" by powering his
swing with his legs, hips, and torso rotation; he added leverage from his hands
as well that gave his clubhead much greater speed for the collision.
People without extraordinary strength in their forearms will not feel or be able
consciously to increase clubhead speed with leverage in that way, while people
who are "arm" strong may indeed profit from the emphasis he gives to the
action of the hands in his instruction. In either event, his "method" was
near perfection, and a pupil does not have to have great strength to "swing like
Mike." Clearly in his lifetime he taught thousands, women included,
obviously, who clearly didn't have his kind of physical makeup. To profit
by his instruction you do not need his kind of physical strength, and if you DO
have that, you'll love to see what he had to say about it.
My
own book and DVD instruction "Golf Is Not That Hard"
was written and
videotaped expressly to pass on what Mike taught and did in his very long
career. It emphasizes "the throw" from the top - a deliberate
application of force experienced in the right forearm, and at the same time
fully explains the role of the "compound pivot" (a buzzword for the motion of
the hips that slide to the left and then turn in a seamless flow) as the primary
source of motion and power in a perfect golf swing.
(Other "Mike Austin" swing instruction is
available elsewhere where "the throw" is different, i.e., where a slapping underhanded
"uppercut" action of the right wrist is featured, along with what is dubbed as
"counter-rotation" of the right arm--the opposite of the action that Mike
himself did and taught prior to his stroke. MY book does NOT advocate
that, since I wanted to pass on what Mike ACTUALLY did and taught when he was
healthy and active.)
The book and 4-hour DVD are described
here. |
