The Sweet Swing of Ho-sung Choi

Ho-sung Choi is a revelation. His cork-screwing, falling-off-a-tightrope, waggling-at-the-clouds follow through has golf fans all atwitter.

Literally, check out Twitter. If you follow any account remotely connected to golf there is little chance you’ve escaped Ho-sung Mania.

Who among us hasn’t contorted our body in an awkward follow through trying to impart English and distance on the golf ball? Well, we have a new hero, but his swing is only half the reason.

He is surprisingly polarizing. There is no small contingent of analysts and fans who feel he is showboating. They believe he is making a mockery of stoic, old golf. They say he is poking fun at tradition, mugging for attention, and disrupting other competitors.

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By all accounts, Choi embraces the attention and has fun with it. Does he over-do it sometimes? Sure. Is it entertaining and harmless? Most signs point to yes.

In an article by The Straitstimes, he calls it his “Fisherman’s swing.” Choi, 44, explains in the same piece, “I am not as flexible as the young guys, and I can’t really turn my hips very well. This way, I get more power and have a lower chance of getting injured.”

Sure, I’ll buy that.

Think about it. Golf is a sport where you have to qualify to get in, play well the first two days to stay in, and do it over a long season to get invited back next year. There’s no such thing as a ‘bad contract’ in golf like there is in almost every other major professional sport.

If you don’t perform week in and week out, on any pro tour, you get cut. So why would someone knowingly adopt a swing that wasn’t benefiting their game?

They wouldn’t, otherwise, we’d have never heard about Ho-sung Choi. Clearly, the swing works for him.

Frankly, through impact, Choi doesn’t have a horrible swing. Look at Bubba Watson, Jim Furyk, or Lee Trevino. No teaching Pro would ever teach those moves.

Did Jim Furyk’s childhood Pro tell him, “Jimmy, you’re a good little athlete, but if you ever want to be good at golf, you need to draw an exaggerated horseshoe at the top of your backswing.”
Do you think Lee Trevino once got caught in a Texas hurricane with an umbrella and thought, “That’s the perfect takeaway.”?
Bubba’s feet look like Michael Flatley performing Lord of the Dance on a Crisco-covered ice rink.

Yet they all seem to have turned out OK. That’s a real credit to their commitment and drive to be their authentic selves.

It reminds me of a quote often attributed to Oscar Wilde. “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” It sounds like Wilde – wisdom delivered in a playful a barb.

It’s good advice for golfers, too. “Use your natural swing, everyone else’s is taken.”

Ho-sung Choi is really the right man at the right time for golf. The USGA has taken significant steps to make the game of golf faster, less encumbered by archaic traditions, and, dare I say it, fun.

This wasn’t easy for the USGA. They’ve never been accused of having a sense of humor, like … never. Indeed it seems the USGA has cultivated an inferiority complex vis a vis the R&A in an attempt to prove it’s obsessively more obstinate and repressed.

Making the rules changes we see this year – indeed softening the rules – wasn’t like ripping a Band-Aid off for the USGA; it was like ripping an arm off. Even some pros, who joust with the USGA on a regular basis, are pouting.

Let me say this. Figuring out how to drop a ball from knee height, as opposed to shoulder height, doesn’t require mental and physical gymnastics. Professor Bryson DeChambeau would do well to just get with the program. You’re telling me a guy who reads puts based on the gravitational pull of a waxing gibbous moon can’t drop his arm by his side and let go of a golf ball?

Let me ask you this. Do you think Ho-sung Choi is complaining about the new ball drop rule? I don’t either. Because he’s having fun. I know this because I see him stumble, contort and smile after every shot. I see the crowds giggle and clap and root him on. That’s good for golf.

The exciting part to all this is that Choi will be bringing his Fisherman Swing to the AT&T Pro/Am at Pebble Beach this year. With a field that includes a who’s who of global celebrities, it’s annually one of the most watched golf events outside the Majors.

Can you imagine Choi and Bill Murray in the same group? That should get the USGA’s blood up.

Let’s be clear, the USGA may have loosened up in 2019, but their reputation is still intact. They went from Torquemada to Nurse Ratchet. It wasn’t a big drop-off. However, they should be applauded for injecting some common sense into the game.

In a real sense, the USGA took stock of our increasingly more casual and time-crunched culture and said, “Maybe the game should reflect the culture rather than trying to constantly, maddeningly, swim against the current.”

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I’m guessing Ho-sung Choi will be remembered as a man of the times in 2019 – someone who had the audacity to (gasp!) be his own, unapologetic, natural, self. Choi is a golfer who competes at the highest levels, doesn’t bend under the weight of obnoxious tradition, and has fun playing a game.

We should all take a lesson from that Pro.

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