Ronan Rafferty-before and after.
Born 1964
Rafferty was born in Newry, Northern Ireland. A prodigious youth champion he won the Boys Amateur Championship aged 15, and qualified for the Open Championship at sixteen. He tied for first place with Peter McEvoy in the 1980 English Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship turning Professional the following year in 1981.
A natural golfer with a natural swing, the high-speed film taken in his early tour days shows Rafferty's beautiful wide swing and wonderful Irish rhythm.
For a period Rafferty was one of the best professional golfers in Europe. Between 1987 and 1993, he won 12 official tournaments around the world: five in Australia, and seven in Europe. He led the 1989 European Order Of Merit and in the same year qualified for the Ryder Cup team.
Unfortunately, his stellar career was a little short and ended fairly abruptly in the mid-nineteen-nineties. Perhaps it was as a result of tuition that eventually upset his natural base, or it might have also been a niggling injury that finally took its toll.
The later swing of Rafferty- now narrowed down with arms seeking height rather than width, and missing the glorious former flow he was endowed with.
Beware the Guru-or what do you think?
Christy O`Connor Jnr.
Born in 1948 the son of a farmer.
Like most top Irish golfers a natural swinger. The wonderful player O`Connor senior was his uncle.
Most swing students will point to the active left knee and foot of the O`Connor Jnr swing.
Padraig Harrington
Born 1971 in Dublin
Padraig Harrington has won three major championships: The Open Championship in 2007 and 2008 and the PGA Championship also in 2008.
After a successful amateur career, including winning the Walker Cup with the Great Britain & Ireland team in his third appearance in 1995, Harrington turned professional later that year, joining the European Tour in 1996. Going on to the Ryder Cup he was a member of six consecutive Ryder Cup teams between 1999 and 2010.
In 2024 he will receive the distinction of being an inductee in the World Golf hall of Fame.
The Harrington swing is a high-tempo movement with one or two individual quirks. It starts with a frantic preparation over the ball with head bobbing up and down rapidly, which sets the tone for the whole movement. The position Harrington takes for his left foot in his start position is unusual in that it is not flared outwards but sits at right angles to target. The left foot rising in the backswing from this start would normally lead to an unbalanced out-of-center movement with a normal golfer. Of course this is not so with Harrington as he makes a perfect collection of energy, both in center and plane and continues through the ball at high-speed to the end of the swing. I am now told he has changed this foot position in the last few years.
Philip Walton-Born 28 March 1962 in County Meath
Walton has won three European Tour events and four Irish PGA Championships.
He made his only Ryder Cup appearance for Europe in 1995 at Oak Hill, where he beat Jay Haas on the final green of the crucial penultimate singles match.
Philip Walton`s swing is fairly conventional when compared to many of the countrymen he preceeded. Although a little lumpy and static the Walton action was still consistent and effective enough to make him.
Des Smythe- a story of longevity
