George Knudson and Sam Snead both described the golf swing in the language of dance and rhythm long before force plates existed to confirm what they were were feeling and the forces they were creating.
When you have great footwork you have momentum, leverage and dynamic balance on your side versus working against you.
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Yep- everyone insists the swing works from the ground up - but very few live or teach by the same motto
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I love that Knudson photo. It so perfectly demonstrates him practicing as he preached. The weight moving off the heel of the trail foot to the toe of the lead foot.
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Absolutely, and is why taking care of one’s feet is important too. As a walk and carry player, with a brisk off-course walking route a couple times per week as well, I visit a podiatrist once each year at season’s end for a checkup. I just tell the Doc, keep me walkin’.
Lot of real sloppy footwork these days from the distance junkies.
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Spot on it’s rare to see a coach actually working on a clients footwork. I had a client this week that kept asking me about his backswing, top of swing and where should the elbow go. I simply said with your awful footwork none of that will ever matter because you are missing the most important elements of a good golf swing which are momentum, leverage and dynamic balance and they all start and end with more efficient footwork.
He finally started listening versus trying to tell me what he saw on Instagram and we started to make some good progress.
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Funny how that is 30 years ago I was at a club in the Hudson valley and one of the members booked me weekly for lessons. Each week I would spend 30 minutes watching listening and diagnosing and always tried to finish with a drill that he could take back to practice. Lessons were on Wednesdays and Thursday when he was on the practice tee he would be using a drill that was on the golf channel academy Wednesday night. SMH
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One of my habits at the range when there were breaks in my day was watching others on their practice tee. I would very seldom sit in my chair off to the side and watch their up top swing segments but down low segments instead and a very specific area down low- maybe I should call it a specific relationship down low.
Describing will be difficult but sitting at a 45-degree angle behind the player (like the Westwood picture I posted in the Chicken Wing thread) instead of down the line gives the best view from mid-thigh down to foot on the trail leg for seeing what kind of travel inward toward the ball was taking place from transition through the strike.
I would lower my head and the cap I was wearing would cover the up top stuff from my sight and I would just watch away, ball after ball, watching an area and the relationship occurring within that area between the trail lower leg from knee and club shaft.
On the downswing I would watch what type, and how much, activity occurred in the trail leg from knee down inward toward the ball, if any, in relationship to the flash of shaft before my eyes when it flashed through at the last moment from above my cap bill.
The senders were late with the weight shift- you would see the flash then the trail leg responding in earnest- and the bringers were earnest early with the weight shift from the trail side beating the shaft to the strike. I think it was Snead who said, Burke too, and others saying, the lead knee works behind the ball going back and the trail knee works in toward the ball going through.
Can’t find a better picture at the moment, but next time at a range check out this key relationship as a good indicator for correct pivot timing and continuity from ground up. Who needs high-tech when we have eyes for seeing that flash relationship.
Great topic Blades, there’s not a ground up topic that doesn’t get my attention but fast. 
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Spot on it’s probably one of the things I have to deal with weekly clients asking me about something they saw on television or social media and what are my thoughts on it.
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Such a different world now! 
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Really so true! The offset perspective you mention is exactly it. Much of what you see from directly down the line is white noise that distracts from what we’re really looking for. If the client is wearing shorts you can even notice the muscle contraction when the grip the ground with the toes of the trail foot. Then you can notice the subtle clockwise rotation on the ball of the foot and later the drive of the knee inward as you said. From there you can also see if the club flashes back post impact on the 7:30 path or if it’s lost out into “flipper’s orbit.” I wish thousands more golfers knew of and were members of this forum. The amount of knowledge available here that has been distilled through the variety of viewpoints is priceless.
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ABS is THE carriage trade forum on the net second to none as the place to shop, far surpassing GolfWrx which is like shopping at Walmart on a humid day.
For example, two short, but excellent videos with insights from one of the boys from the Texas hardpan from long ago, Homero Blancas, talking in general about the trail leg.
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Brillant! Homero Blancas…that’s a name I hadn’t heard in years! Thanks for sharing!
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