Jason Dufner celebratesTim Sharp/The Associated Press
Does any professional golfer define "laid-back?" more than Jason Dufner? He won the HP Byron Nelson Championship in Irving, Tex. a year ago and is defending his title there this week. Watching and listening to Dufner, you realize golf really is a game for individuals, no matter how much thinking has been tilting towards a "right" way to swing the club and a "right" way to be on the course.
Dufner, of course, hit the world of social media hard last month after he visited a class in Dallas. There he was with the kids in school. He was sitting back against a wall when somebody took a photo of him. The look was, well, laid-back. This was pure Dufner. "Dufnering" was born. His fellow players imitated him. People everywhere got into "Dufnering."
But for Dufner, the pose wasn't, well, a pose. He was being himself, and that's what makes it fun to watch him play golf and to listen to him during interviews. Check him out on the course. There he is, ambling over to his ball. Now he's studying the shot he faces. Now he's over the ball.
He's waggling. He's wiggling the club. There's nothing set or mechanical about his waggle. In a way, his routine, which isn't a routine at all because it varies, is pure Ben Hogan. Hogan wrote in his classic book Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf, that a player shouldn't groove the waggle. The waggle should reflect the shot the golfer is about to play.
It's not clear, however, whether the Dufner waggle even relates to the shot. He's said that his waggle doesn't have a purpose. He just does it, and then he sets the club down before starting it away. Why analyze Dufner's waggle? It's personal. Maybe it can work only for him. Dufner watched video of earlier generations of players, including Hogan and Sam Snead. Somehow he started waggling, his way, the Dufner way. He bends his right wrist during his waggle, but he's not bent, so to speak, in his takeaway.
I'm sure golfers all over the world's courses have tried to incorporate Dufner's waggle, figuring if it's good for him, it must be good for them. I'm reminded of what happened after Mike Weir won the 2003 Masters. He had, and, to some extent, still has, a distinctive waggle in which he lifts the club into a position he wants to achieve during his swing. His waggle is his way of previewing where he'd like to direct his club.
Kids and adults alike were practicing and using the Weir waggle after that Masters. Only they know if it helped them. But the Weir waggle took on a national life, at least in Canada. And when Dufner is contending and winning, I see golfers the next while trying his waggle.
The more I think about this subject, the more I realize that golfers throughout the history of the game have tried to find a way to get from a static position over the ball to the swing itself. Surely one of the most difficult aspects of golf is that you have to get the club moving. How do you start the thing moving? It's not natural to stand there. This is a sport, isn't it? Aren't you supposed to move in a sport?
Hence the pre-swing routines that players have developed. Hence the waggle. It can all get a much sometimes.
This brings to mind the story of Sandy Herd, the famous golfer from St. Andrews who won the 1902 Open. Herd was the first golfer to win the Open with a rubber-cored ball, which had replaced the gutta-percha ball. He was also famous for his many "ferocious" waggles, as they were called.
Herd was playing a tournament once when somebody started counting his waggles, quietly. "Twelve, thirteen." Herd stopped and said, "Laddie, you canna count. That was 15. Now we'll start again."
Many years later, Sergio Garcia developed his own multiple waggle drama. He couldn't help himself as he "milked" the club. He gripped. He regripped. He Sergioed, shall we say, up to a count in the 20s, so many waggles that spectators during the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black on Long Island suggested he hit the ball already.
How many waggles are too many waggles? Every golfer has to find the right waggle session that works for him or her. Herd? Hogan? Garcia? Weir? Dufner?
"Think of the waggle as a way to relax under pressure," Tom Watson advises in his book The Timeless Swing. "Develop your own routine for getting into the swing–but stay in motion."
That's timeless, and always timely, advice. Take Watson's advice to heart. Watch Dufner wiggle and waggle. Waggle your way to better golf.
RELATED LINK: More blogs from Lorne Rubenstein
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Lorne Rubenstein has written a golf column for The Globe and Mail since 1980. He has played golf since the early 1960s and was the Royal Canadian Golf Association's first curator of its museum and library at the Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ontario and the first editor of Score, Canada's Golf Magazine, where he continues to write a column and features. He has won four first-place awards from the Golf Writers Association of America, one National Magazine Award in Canada, and he won the award for the best feature in 2009 from the Golf Journalists Association of Canada. Lorne has written 12 books, including Mike Weir: The Road to the Masters (2003); A Disorderly Compendium of Golf, with Jeff Neuman (2006); This Round's on Me (2009); and the latest Moe & Me: Encounters with Moe Norman, Golf's Mysterious Genius (2012). He is a member of the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame and the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. Lorne can be reached at lornerubenstein@me.com. You can now follow him on Twitter @lornerubenstein