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Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson put on an awesome driving exhibition at the recent WGC tournament in Mexico. Here we see them on the same tee box filmed with the same camera, so we can watch and compare how they manage to hit it out there 370 to over 400 yards (it was at 8000 feet elevation, but Kuchar was in the group regularly 50 yards behind). McIlroy has more early movement into his right side and has a huge stretch of his upper body, while DJ gets the same type of stretch with an earlier set of the wrists. In both cases it’s obvious that we are watching two of the greatest athletes to play the game, the Michael Jordans of golf. One interesting thing I picked up after watching for a while is the forward hunching of the shoulders in the takeaway. I see this as a way to coil the upper trunk to the max while keeping the right shoulder from pulling back too much approaching the top of the swing in an attempt to turn more. With the right scapula pushed forward right from the start of the swing they both keep the upper arm in a position where it can get back in front of the right hip approaching impact. DJ has his right upper arm well in front of him during the entire swing, while McIlroy has it a bit more pulled back at the top but has the ability to get it back in front of him in a timely fashion. Also, of note is the tremendous upward thrust of the legs and pelvis into impact.
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