It is always amazing to me that players can go their whole career without understanding the True fundamentals of the golf swing.  Make no mistake there are quite a few GREAT players with BAD swings on all of the Tours RIGHT NOW!!  The problem is they never last!!  It is because of the simple Laws of Physics, the bad information will eventually get them.

Here is a great kid, Chris Riley that has never been taught the correct information about the golf swing, and it sure is a shame he has a ton of talent.  He was playing so well for a time he made the Ryder Cup team.  But he has ALWAYS gotten the club dead shut with a huge block in his swing as you see here.  Look at his left arm sliding across his chest and the elbow facing behind him.  He could be fixed over a weekend if he ever ran into someone that understands the swing.  His Teachers over the years obviously think if he is shooting low scores and putting everything he looks at in the hole, everything is OK.  This could not be further from the truth.  You MUST help students out by fixing there flaws so the swing will stand the test of time and pressure.  I want all of my students copying the players that LAST for 10, 20, even 30 years on Tour and are still winning.  Not the guys and gals you see for a couple years and never hear from again. 

You see this time and time again it makes me think many teachers don’t really help these players, they hang on to them!!

Craig Perks is another that comes to mind.  Another GREAT TALENT with a bad swing.  It just did not hold up over time.  I read an article (not sure if he said it or not) that he just could not take the pressure of winning the Players Championship in 2002 which was no doubt HUGE.  But pressure is having a couple kids a mortgage and trying to pay for gas and food.  I wouldn’t call picking up a check that he made in a week that most could not come close to making in 10 years pressure, I would call it INCENTIVE!!  In the picture above he is WAY under it.

Chris Dimarco is another going down the wrong road and does not know it!!  He has already had one surgery on his left shoulder and will have another and another if he keeps finishing his swing like he does.  What I think is funny and somewhat sad most that analyze his swing call it an anti-hook swing.  Well let me tell you something he can hook it, slice it, or hit it dead straight it all depends on where his hands are!! 

Zach Johnson will be the next great talent that will hurt his shoulder, back or have ball striking problems because of his swing.  This guy won one of the biggest events in golf with a horrible swing!!  Just think how great he would be with a good motion.  This is what most people do not understand, they see someone winning huge like Zach and think he must have a great swing.  NO he is a great player!!  With unfortunately a bad swing.  It WILL catch up to him, unless he changes it. 

Here is Tiger in December of 2005 working on horrible information he got which thankfully he has since completely abandoned and is now back to his perfect motion he learned when he was a kid.  Notice how DEAD shut the club is at the top and he is working on rotating his right forearm down and into his right side in the downswing.  WOW!! He goes onto say he is working on not getting his right arm and side TRAPPED like he has a tendency to do.  Well guess what everyone, what he is working on here IS getting his right side trapped or stuck, same thing. All this stuff got him was a couple missed cuts and a ton of pressure on his back, joints and left knee!!

The morale of the story is working on the wrong information or allowing students to keep doing something wrong will catch up to them.  Just like the old story goes, you can pay me now or pay me later.