Johnny Miller Thinks Steve Stricker has the Swing of the Future

Steve Stricker has had an amazing year considering he pared back his schedule a huge amount, only playing in 13 events but winning over $4 million dollars with four second place finishes and a bunch of other good results eventually qualifying for the President’s Cup team, which he played in instead of going on a long planned hunting trip. He played great golf again in the President’s Cup, and it is here that we have Johnny discussing Steve’s swing, suggesting that it is the one that young players should be emulating. His reasoning is, as usual, fairly simplistic and not very well thought out, although it certainly would be nice to be able to do what Stricker seems to do so easily, which is to hit great iron shots while barely taking a divot. There aren’t many players in history who have been great ball strikers while “picking” the ball (Tom Watson comes to mind), and while Stricker has had a nice career and is certainly one of the best players around today he can’t really be spoken of in the same sentence as Tiger or other multiple major winners. The point here is not to disparage Stricker but to focus on Johnny’s suggestion that his swing doesn’t involve as much “timing” as ones that hit more down on the ball and take bigger divots. I would say that the opposite is actually true, that to hit it flush the way Steve does is much more difficult and that the lack of players who evidence that type of strike on the ball is proof of that. Also, suggesting that any type of swing takes the “timing” aspect out of golf, or even lessens it, is just dumb. Golf is a timing game, whether you take a divot or not, and poor technique simply requires more timing than most people are capable of producing. The fact that Stricker has less wrist cock than most and still manages to produce enough distance and ball compression to be a great player is testament to his talent and ability. We should also remember that Stricker fell into the abyss not too long ago with that same swing and after years of toil worked his way all the way back into the top 5 in the world. Anyone would love to emulate that.
 

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