The King of Spoof

As some of you may know, Leslie Nielsen passed away last week.  If you are not familiar with his work, let me just tell you that when it comes to outrageous, over-the-top comedy he was the best there ever was.  If you are ever in the mood to just laugh without using any brain activity whatsoever, then you should check out the Naked Gun series.

Not only was he funny in movies but he was also a great writer.  As long as I can remember, I have had Leslie Nielsen's Stupid Little Golf Book in my bathroom.  It is one of the funniest books I have ever read.   I feel like it connected me to the game of golf as a young kid.  Here is an excerpt from that book:

ARE YOU SWINGING HARD ENOUGH?
        
Bad golfers look at Freddie Couples's slow, deliberate, effortless swing and say to themselves, "Gee, if I could just swing the club like that, I could hit the ball a mile."
        
That's just plain nonsense.  If you get up on the tee and swing that driver as easy as Freddie does, you'll hit the ball fifty-five yards.
        
The only way the average player can get any distance is by swinging the club as hard as possible, and that total-power "killing" swing starts with a good solid death grip.

Sam Snead said he held the club as lightly as he would if he had a live bird in his hands, but I want you to grab that thing as if you were throttling a poisonous snake or trying to squeeze one last bit of toothpaste out of a crowbar.
        
To initiate your swing, clench your teeth in a firm "jaw press" and then pull the club sharply up.  A good way to visualize this critical early part of the "takeaway" is to imagine you're whisking a tablecloth out from under an eleborately set-up banquet table.  It doesn't matter if all the china and glasses end up on the floor -- you just want a nice, fast tugging motion that gets the club headed back in a hurry.
        
The key to really powdering the ball is starting your downswing as early in your backswing as you can -- preferably before the club gets much higher than waist-high, and long before it has been raised into the power-robbing "busboy" position way up around your head.
        
A lot of golfers say to themselves, "One-and-two" to get a sense of when to trigger the downswing.  This is crazy.  If you've got to count, just say "Two!" and smack the ball.
       
The swinging motion you're after is somewhere between that long, lateral move the guy makes when he rings the gong at the beginning of J. Arthur Rank films and the forceful body-powered chopping stroke you'd use if you were demolishing a cinder-block wall with a sledgehammer.
       
How can you tell if you've really gotten every last ounce of oomph at your command into the shot?  Ideally, one or both of your feet should come out of your shoes, your club shaft should bounce sharply off your shoulder (I like to see a callus there), and your watch should stop.
        
You aren't overswinging unless the club actually flies out of your hand (except on the drive, where this is normal), or the head comes off, or you finish your follow-through on your hands and knees (unless it's a long-iron, in which case this position is okay).
        
I know what you're going to say.  Why doesn't Freddie Couples swing hard and really crush the ball?  Well, think about it.  What is the use of a 725-yard drive on a 390-yard par-4?






Here is one of my favorite Leslie Nielsen clips.  In this scene he is a detective posing as an umpire searching for someone who has a bomb.  I think they were going to blow up the Queen of England, but I can't remember why she was at a baseball game.  Yeah it's not the deepest movie I've ever seen but it was pretty darn funny.








Here is a picture I saw on a joke news site about his passing...

The headline was, "Pallbearers Carry Leslie Nielsen's Coffin Without Incident."  I think that's just the kind of joke that he would enjoy.