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Here is a video that is proof that if you are gifted enough you can hit the golf ball exceptionally well while doing a bunch of things that most teachers would regard as poor technique. At full speed Reed’s swing looks perfectly normal, and since he routinely hits great shots and wins lots of money you might figure that it would be something to emulate. When we slow it down, however, we see that a lot of what he does any decent teaching pro would never think of teaching. For one thing, you will never see a more open club face than Reed’s, and he does it with a neutral grip. In transition, he opens the face even more by adding to the cup in his left wrist, and as the club approaches impact it is still way open. Another thing that stands out is his almost total lack of lateral movement relative to his starting position, which some players get close to with a driver but almost none with an iron. His toes come off the ground at impact, and his hands roll the club over so hard that his right palm leaves his left thumb, a la Vijay Singh, Fred Couples, and Phil Mickelson. The fact that he won $5,000,000 last year and has 5 tour wins to his credit, not to mention being the hero of the Ryder Cup, should endear him to anyone who would like to believe that you don’t have to do everything in a manner that would be “acceptable” to be good. The problem is that the clear majority of golfers couldn’t begin to hit the ball at all swinging like Reed, which leaves them to try to work on more normal, basic technique that follows the more conventional “rules” that govern how a ball should be struck. One thing is for sure though, he is lots of fun to watch.
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