Understanding the Unorthodox Swings - Part 6

Here I look at Allen Doyle’s swing.

Allen Doyle was an amateur golfer from LaGrange, Georgia and was a consistent winner and contender of top amateur tournaments like the Sunnehanna Invitational. He was also consistently appearing in US Amateur match play. Despite his excellent success as an amateur, he never turned professional until he was 48 years old and wound up winning 3 tournaments on the then Nike Tour (now the Nationwide Tour) and a year later he went onto the Champions Tour where he has 11 victories including 4 Champions Tour Major Championships.



Doyle was mostly known for his fantastic putting, but was also a very good ballstriker. His only weakness was his lack of length off the tee.

It’s easy to see why Doyle hit the ball short off the tee. He had a very short swing and teed the ball up towards the middle of his stance.


The picture above is of Doyle at the top of his swing which would probably be about ½ way back for many golfers. The ball position with the driver was more towards the middle of his stance, so he was likely hitting down on the ball with the driver which makes it very difficult to hit it far. However, he may have been more comfortable with the trajectory window of playing the ball further back in his stance with the driver.

Doyle was a good sized golfer, standing at about 6’3” tall. What really stands out to me about his swing was his excellent foot action and lower body action.


He certainly starts the downswing from the ground up, flexes the knees quite a bit, lowers his center of gravity and uses the ground to push off from to power his pivot.

He also utilizes pitch elbow to help maximize his trigger delay.

Like the other golfers examined in this unorthodox swings series, there is a ton of ‘good’ going on in this swing. In fact, I believe that if Doyle’s swing was not so short, his swing would be much more appealing to the rest of the golfing population.






3JACK