What You Can Learn From My Swing

I’ll walk you through it in nine steps

- TOM WATSON

I have always enjoyed studying and comparing sequence photographs of golf swings. I’ve learned from poring over pictures of the swings of Sam Snead and Ben Hogan, for example, and then relating them to my swing. I like to hear what great players think about and feel before and during their swings.

In the next nine pages, we’ll look at stop-action photos of my swing from two camera angles, face-on and down the target line. I picked pictures that show me at what I consider to be the crucial stages of the swing, and my commentary accompanies each photograph.

Essentially, I tried to make major points that can apply to your swing as well as mine. Since there are as many golf swings as there are sets of golfers’ fingerprints, it would be presumptuous to suggest that you just out-and-out copy my swing—not to mention silly. It could cause more damage than benefit.

But I strongly believe in a few fundamentals that underlie my swing and could help yours. I’m talking about factors like posture, balance, and left-side control, and I want to show you how I adhere to them throughout my swing.