The Surge Swing Simplified

Over the last few months, I've noticed a small, but consistent, thread of comments from people who seem to be struggling with the concept of the Surge Swing as they transition from a rotational swing. Since many rotational instructors break the swing into three distinct categories of motion I'm going to break down my swing into three highly-simplified movements--Up, Down and Up again--that form the basis of my limited turn, 3/4 vertical swing.

Before we get to that, though, let's examine the basic motions involved in a rotational swing. Rather than swinging on a vertical plane with your arms out in front, the primary direction of this type of swing is around your torso with very pronounced twisting of the hips, back and shoulders. Players using this type of swing often finish with a straight left knee with their weight planted firmly on a flat left foot. This puts unnatural stress on the knee and ankle joints which are not designed to take that kind of punishment. Just look at Tiger's swing and his history of left knee problems to see what I mean.

In the Peak Performance Golf Swing, we do not create these bad stress levels because as we transition we allow our weight to shift to the outside edge of our left foot. This small movement is critical because it doesn't cause our left knee to lock up and it also facilitates that 1-2" lateral shift we call The Bump. This then creates the "swing up/stand up" motion I call Pop Tart.

So with these comments in mind, let's get back to the three major components of motion in the Surge Swing I mentioned earlier--Up, Down and Up again. In the first movement, we swing back and up, turning only to the point where our forward arm is parallel to the toe line before we finish the vertical lift. At the top of the backswing, your club should be virtually vertical as seen from a down-the-line perspective.

The second motion is the downward part of the swing from the end of the back swing through to impact. This split-second part of the swing is where we shift weight to the outside edge of our left foot and do The Bump. Normally, we do not look at this section of the swing as something separate from the third part we call the Forward Upswing. This is because, with a vertical swing, gravity is our friend allowing us to concentrate on swinging up right from the beginning of our transition. By thinking of swinging up so early in the transition, we achieve maximum club head velocity just before, and through, impact whereas studies have shown that a rotational swing, while achieving the same maximum club head velocity, it does so much earlier in the swing and is actually decelerating at impact.

So even though there are three basic directions of movement to every swing, we do not want to think Up, Down Up. Rather, we want to think Up and Up for all the reasons cited above. Do that, and you'll soon be hitting the ball straighter and farther than you ever have before.

Keep it vertical!

The Surge