By 1939 or early 1940, Mike Austin had left Atlanta in his rear view mirror and headed cross country towards L.A. in hopes of fame and fortune.
On the way he stopped in Chicago, where he first encountered Hilary Frankenburg, aka Count Yogi – who would become a notable trick shot artist and apparently a superb scoring golfer as well.
Count Yogi had his own teaching studio and offered Mike a stall. Mike hadn’t quite filled into his 6’3″ frame yet despite being 25 years old – he was quite skinny.
While in Chicago, Austin encountered Doc Edgerton, the man who invented stroboscopic (slow motion) photography and was able to measure golf swings. Mike clocked in at 155 mph!
Regarding his immense speed, Mike often used the phrase ‘It’s in the HONS MON!’ and encouraged us to freely accelerate the clubhead by whipping the clubhead about the wrists in a semi circle.
But there is a ‘secret’ move, which falls under a category called ‘parametric acceleration’ – Other than in the golf world, this is a bit of a nonsensical term, but it describes the counter action of the handle to help accelerate the head of the club in response.
First, let’s start by considering a basic pendulum swing:
Next, consider what would happen if instead of the top end of the pendulum being fixed, a force was pulling it. Upwards and backwards away from it’s swing direction. The bottom of the pendulum would ACCELERATE faster than gravity.
We can also apply this to a golf swing, and get the same beneficial effect.
Pulling the handle upwards is talked about frequently on forums nowadays, but not much about going BACKWARDS. In the above video, I explain how we do this.
Also consider this graph:
The line represents the speed of the club’s handle, in miles per hour. It clearly peaks before impact, then abruptly slows down as you are striking the ball.
Highly skilled, fast swinging golfers actually cause the handle of the club to slow down as they approach the ball – in fact, the more abruptly you can do this, the faster you’ll go.
But how do we do this? It’s actually multiple actions each with their own vectors that end up with a net force acting to slow the handle. But believe me, you’ll never feel like you’re slowing down, nor should you try for this feel. Always feel quick and explosive!
And keep in mind that powerful golfers used the path of the HANDLE to help speed up the CLUBHEAD. The handle must go around to the left, upwards, and back into towards the golfer’s belly, as it slows down.