[Bigwill]

Good job, O.B. Left. These were the determining "Excessive Axis Tilt" factors that jumped out at me. In other words, the extreme condition evidenced in Jamie's swing is the result of his specialized procedure designed to minimize spin, not a need to stay "in balance".

Backspin is Compression Leakage. Under normal circumstances, it is a desired effect that results in Ball Control. But 'long drive' contestants are far more interested in Distance than Accuracy. Hence, they attempt to minimize Backspin, and in so doing, produce the near-equivalent of the baseball pitcher's knuckleball. A teed, intentional "flyer".

Interestingly, Deane Beaman, the former PGA TOUR Commissioner and also a former U.S. Amateur Champion and TOUR player, on several occasions beat Jack Nicklaus (and everybody else) in the exhibition long-drive contests held at various TOUR stops. What makes this a big deal is that Deane was one of the shortest hitters on TOUR! His secret? He would deliberately hit the ground just before impact, create a grass-driven flier, and let the 'no spin' knuckleball effect take care of the distance.

The long-drivers of today are accomplishing much the same thing . . .

Without the grass!

To piggyback on this, I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has read of tour players making conscious changes to their setups/swings in order to max out distance on a particular shot, or have read about them using driver specs that don't max out their distance, in an effort to maintain control.

While there are some aspects of setup and swing that lend themselves to both greater control and distance, some are mutually exclusive to each other, and you have to make a choice as to which components you'll need to comprominse (either in totality or in degrees) in order to gain more of one over the other.