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When I first saw Jazz hit a shot on the telecast of the PGA Championship at Bethpage, I had a flashback to my student Willy Wilcox, whose quirky looking swing that I saw for the first time on television in 2015 fascinated me immediately. Willy’s swing has a distinct pattern: hands and arms inward early in the backswing, shaft moving more vertical mid-backswing, then a hard kick to flatten the shaft in transition. The overall effect was whip-like, and the freedom of the foot movement and huge right-side bend through impact was distinctive. Jazz’s swing has a lot of the backswing and transition elements of Willy’s (although from a conventionally square stance as opposed to Willy’s extremely open one) but is quite different in the right arm action and leg movement in the forward swing. Jazz keeps the clubhead low to the ground in the takeaway but manages to stand the shaft up by P3. When he kicks the club flat in transition, he pulls his right arm downward using much more vertical adduction than Willy, and approaches impact with his upper right arm fully back behind his side. His right leg thrusts momentarily toward the ball, stick his arm behind him even more, but he recovers by driving the right side of his pelvis up and left while opening his hips a huge amount and leaving his right arm bent well past impact. The amount of right-side bend Jazz demonstrates into and through impact is truly astounding, and time will tell if his body will hold up under the stress. As he moves from P5 to P6 it would seem impossible for him not to get the club stuck coming too far from the inside, but with the pivot help just described and some expert left forearm and wrist supination/flexion he squares the face and exits nicely to the left.
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