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Without a doubt, Henrik Stenson’s ball striking and putting will go down as one of the greatest final round performances in major championship history. Stenson’s swing is as solid as it gets, and would be a model to emulate, were it not for the unique and eccentric trigger he utilizes to get his swing started, one which would be pretty much impossible to copy. Stenson starts in an absolutely textbook address position, then makes a radical movement into a completely different position, coming to a complete stop there for a brief moment before starting away. The movement is not a simple forward press, although the hands and arms do press forward toward the target. Stenson moves his entire body (upper and lower) away from the ball (to a much deeper hip position) and to the right, with his hips sliding 6 inches or more away from their original centered position while at the same time counter rotating counter-clockwise to the left. From this deeper, right loaded position he then center-loads his pelvis while moving his head back to where it started by the time he gets to the top of his swing. His right arm gets fairly deep behind him and winds up slightly behind his right side on the approach to impact, but he is so strong and has such great hip depth and rotation that he is still able to get open enough and his hands forward enough to utilize a drive/hold release and straighten his right arm to the left after impact. He obviously has come up with this fairly wild trigger move to counter some chronic tendencies, and if he is not as consistent as some of the great players of the day it might be because of the difficulty in accurately repeating this starting move. One thing is for sure, it certainly worked perfectly last week.
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