Mac is a hitter, always has been… always will be…
Mac will tell you he is a hitter, I can see it, and can assure you
he is feeling it, and all the telltale signs are there even looking at
pictures.
Forget any hinging action on the backswing. Mac could start his swing at the top of his backswing, and would not lose any distance. In other words, you could hand the club to Mac, or place it in his hands at the top of his backswing, and he would be fine starting from there.
Mac is wise to NOT attempt a big load from the transition of backswing to downswing. He knows he would have no chance of maintaining the flex on the shaft all the way down if he did. This isn’t something you can’t see in stop action photos, but if you see him in person, it’s really obvious what he is doing. He has the look that he could stop at the top of his backswing, go have lunch, come back and continue his swing without any issues.
This is drive loading at it’s finest hour.
He loads the lag (flex) on the shaft on the way down, and much further down that most would be comfortable with. He really starts loading the stress on the shaft as he approaches parallel #3 not at the transition at the top.
This (Mac) is classic radial acceleration.
Radial acceleration is like the teeth spinning on a saw blade. (hitting)
Longitudinal acceleration is the force applied like cracking a whip, or water shooting down through a garden hose. (swinging)
Completely different action and intent.
A swinger can utilize things like maximum swing radius, and a big loading of the shaft at the backswing transfer to create a massive
centripetal force to then be unleashed upon the ball via centrifugal force, a snapping action, it would feel like an “out to in… to out” (think outward backswing, inward loading at the transfer, outward unleashing to the ball) Swinging feels like a three step process when you are trying to MAX it out.
Mac passes up on all this stuff, and focuses on drive loading the shaft through an accelerating rotation of the body. He keeps his hands in close like a figure skater would as they go into a spin…
like a spinning top.
Now if you take Ben Hogan, he loaded like a swinger, lots of lag loading, then added more drive load on the way down. He did both…
but he was smart to shorten his backswing to make this possible.
Is this theoretically the best way to swing a club? YES!
Is this practical for most humans that walk the earth? NO
Hogan had the fastest hips and rotation of any human I have seen.
The only other golfer that I have seen similar is the Peter Senior of the late 1980’s.
I can assure you that Mac experimented with this in his early days,
and came to the conclusion that for him, it would be better to simplify the motion.