Menu
Tom Pernice is easily one of the best ball strikers on the Champions Tour, and I don’t hold it against him that he has worked for years with Jim Hardy. As I have said in the past, I have nothing against what Hardy teaches, although I would treat the movement of the right arm in the swing completely differently than what Hardy espouses in his books and clinics. My problem with Hardy is his use of Ben Hogan to demonstrate his idea of right arm action, that is that the right arm stays up and back in transition while the clubface closes right from the top. With the right arm behind the hip (according to Hardy) the hands can find “the inner circle”, or an approach to impact that is close to or right on the original shaft plane at address. Of course, Hogan never did any such thing in his swing, and as I have documented in past videos (Ben Hogan and the Myth of the One Plane Swing) there is not one moving picture that shows Hogan using this type of action.
Thus, I thought it would be interesting to look at Pernice’s swing in his recent Champions Tour victory to see if there was evidence of Hardy’s preferred right arm movement. I can’t say that I was surprised to see Pernice use Hogan’s true right arm action, which is to drive the right elbow inward and shallow the shaft with the hands moving out toward the ball in the first moments of transition. Once he has accomplished this move I can see where he rolls his left arm down his chest and does not continue to drive the upper right arm in front of him, but that is after the all- important start down. Anyway, you watch and judge for yourselves. As is always the case, a moving picture is worth a thousand words.
Join the forum discussion on this post