The Heel: Who Ended The Lift?

During last week's coverage of the WGC at Firestone, Peter Kostis asked Nick Faldo about the issue of heel lift. Kostis wanted to know why a common practice of nearly a century went away. For some reason, Sir Nick either didn't know the answer, or didn't find the question compelling, because even though Kostis asked him twice Faldo didn't answer him.

Now I am quite certain Johnny Miller would have talked about the subject for the next 30 minutes, but that's another story.

The question and Faldo's non-answer got me to thinking:

When did the heel lift leave the building and who made it go away?

By the mid-50s Ben Hogan still lifted his heel, if only a little.

Like many, I see the Hogan of the 50s as a harbinger of the modern swing, even down to the heel lift. He still had one, but it was almost an anachronism. It wasn't as if he needed it to get a full turn or that he lacked flexibility. It seemed more like an old habit than anything else.

Jack Nicklaus lifted plenty, as did Johnny Miller. It would seem both took more influence from Jones than from Hogan at least in that way. Tom Weiskopf still lifts, but as with Hogan's over a half century, it appears more habitual than functional.

I believe that it was Fred Couples more than anyone who made keeping the left heel on the ground at first fashionable and later fundamental. Couples really bridged the end of the Johnny Miller (A notorious heel lifter and arm rotator) Era to our contemporary game.

Watching Couples swing today it's all too easy to forget that he's over 50. Back in the early 80's Boom-Boom days he was like hot spaghetti. He swing was unimaginably wide and upright...all the while his heel stayed bolted to the turf.

Remember, too, that the television era really got going in the 80s and Fred Couples was the man. Of course, there are plenty of other reasons the heel lift faded away. Golf went from being a game that relied on a gradual gathering of centrifugal energy (the old school small muscle swing) to one that augmented centrifugal energy with leverage (the big muscle, one piece takeaway swing).

I wonder if the heel lift is gone for reasons that truly benefit the average golfer? I'm not sure. So much of golf's progress seems to benefit the very people who don't need help. High COR drivers, multi-piece balls make the game easier, in the main, for better players. The heel lift may have gone the way of the dinosaur because better players didn't need it but I'm not at all sure it's vanished from our local munys for the same good reason.