Tropicana Magazine Sep-Oct 2018 #120: Art As Life

THE SWING
SERGIO GARCIA
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY….
If you’re something of a consequentialist, it won’t matter
how your swing looks, it’s the score on the card at
the end of the game that matters. Still, having counted
down to the very best in the list of good golf swings,
we couldn’t overlook these golfers and their subjectively
ugly swings.
Lee Trevino
The Merry Mex, amiable Mexican-American golfing
legend Lee Trevino’s rise from cotton picking in Texas
as a child to golfing icon and US Champion is the stuff
of legend. Trevino’s passion for the game eventually
won him six major championships and an induction
into the Golf Hall Of Fame, yet he couldn’t shake off
his downward swing, which was so explosive on the
turn onlookers feared he would injure himself .
John Daly
Never quite fitting into the perceived view of a gentleman
player, John Daly was always going to be an
outsider. While he made up for it with his ridiculous
130 mph swing and 300 meter plus average driving
distance – it earned him the nickname Long John –
his self-taught over-swing was well documented and
would whip well past parallel on the upswing.
Jim Furyk
Hands down the most competent professional player
to grace this list, Jim Furyk’s aesthetically-challenged
swing has repeatedly been described in deservingly
colourful terms; our favourite is “an octopus falling out
of a tree’. But rather than be quick to judge, consider
how well adapted this much-maligned swing is – after
all it took him to US Open glory.
SEVE BALLESTEROS
TM | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018
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