Mark Bemowski and Me

We typically compare ourselves to professional golfers and assume that we should be copying parts of their swings. I'm sure that it has occurred to some amateur golfers that these kinds of comparisons are unrealistic and frustrating exercises. Maybe we just don't have the athletic ability to copy professional swings.

I had the unique experience this year to follow one of Wisconsin's best amateur golfers, Mark Bemowski, and wrote about the experience here. One question that was on my mind throughout Mark's round was whether there was anything about his swing (as compared to mine) that allowed him to play such great golf through out his entire career.

Since this swing comparison might make more sense than comparing my swing to Tiger Woods or Ben Hogan, here is Mark's driver swing again followed by my driver swing from a relatively similar angle (both are hand-held, cell phone movies).

Maybe this goes without saying, but when I played against Mark in high school he had a long, powerful swing that reminded me a lot of the young guns he played against in this year's WSGA tournament (here and here). Today, Mark and I are both 64 years old, with swings that have had to adapt to aging bodies.

There are a couple of obvious differences in our swings: (1) Mark keeps his right leg more flexed than I do, (2) he shifts his weight slightly to his right foot while my weight stays pretty centered, (3) Mark seems to put a little more acceleration or snap into his tee shot than I do and (4) this was not Mark's best tee shot of the day (about 250 yards to the right side of the 10th fairway) while my shot was probably one of my best drives of the day on the 5rd hole at the House on the Rock front nine, also about 250 yards (check the 5th hole flyover, here).

Now, here's the brutal part. Compare our swings to Tiger and Hogan!

Look at (1) the full shoulder turns, (2) the flat left wrist at the top of the backswing and (3) the sit-down move through impact. These are obviously great, athletic golf swings. I've tried all these moves on the practice range. Without video taping, I can't actually be sure I'm making any of these moves correctly. One thing for sure, I cannot take any of these professional moves to the golf course. If I try thinking about these issues while I'm playing, my game immediately deteriorates.

When I get to the course, the best I can do is think about fairways, greens and tempo. The swing is what it is. I'm not sure what Mark Bemowski thinks about (maybe that's what separates us as golfers), so the best I can do is to compare his golf swing to mine (which seems a little more realistic than comparison to Tiger or Hogan)!