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79-year-old Cheong Sai Fah hopes to revolutionise golf with his Reflex Convex Swing

Super senior golfer Cheong Sai Fah believes that he has found the ‘Holy Grail’ of the golf swing – the ‘Reflex Convex Swing’.

In fact, the 79-year-old’s conviction is so great that he has written a book on the subject, titled as such. The 200-plus-page labour of love was published earlier this year and Cheong has even sent copies to Malaysian No 1 Gavin Green and rising pro Genevieve Ling.

“The main aim of the convex swing is to strike the golf ball with a convex bow shaft. This is in sharp contrast with the concave bow strike of the Ben Hogan modern swing.

“The convex strike is more powerful than the concave strike of the Hogan swing by perhaps 20 percent. This can be deduced from the convex bend of the pole propelling a vaulter over the bar; a concave bend on the pole can’t do that. Or witness the convex bend of the tapered end of a fishing rod when you cast the line,” said the retiree, who is a member of Royal Selangor Golf Club (RSGC) where his son Jack serves as golf course superintendent.

The fundamentals of the convex swing, Cheong shares in his book, comprise a few key points:
1. A narrow stance, where the heels are not outside the shoulders
2. Left foot turned towards the target by 45 to 60 degrees
3. Right foot turned TOWARDS the target by 20 degrees
4. Linking of the body components in their natural orientations
5. Using the lower body’s rotary movement as the primary source of power.
6. Transmitting that power by pivoting on the left heel and fan-sliding the foot.

The book also touches on the various shots in golf, from hitting fades and draws to chipping, bunker play and putting.

Cheong noted that he has shared the book on various golf forums and the response has been mainly one of incredulity, especially from coaches.

“I did garner thousands of views but nearly all dismissed the idea without considering its merits, and despite me pointing out that a fishing rod or a vaulting pole has a convex bend strong enough to propel to the line-sinker or the vaulter over a high bar. That is not surprising because the convex strike is such a radical idea to the golfing fraternity,” he shared.

A single-handicap golfer in his heyday, Cheong still plays nine holes four days a week at RSGC. “At 79 years old, that is pretty good playing in the hot and humid Malaysian weather! I play to handicap 18 to 20, perhaps a buaya 20! My lowest was eight.”

Flipping through the book, it is strongly evident that Cheong’s professional background as a process engineer, mainly in the rubber industry, helped him pen this thoughts and theories in a well thought out, logical manner.

But it was his love for the game that pushed the project through. Cheong noted that the genesis for the book came way back in 1972 when he started playing golf.

“At that time, I read as many books on golf as I could lay my hands on. Two books, namely Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons and Mindy Blake’s The Golf Swing of the Future, had the most influence on me. As I went along, I gathered all the information that fitted into my formative ideas of how golf should be played … that was the process that contributed to writing the book,” he recalled.

Cheong finished the first draft after retiring in 1996 but the book was left on the back burner until about three years ago. “Then I made the effort to complete the book. It was actually only a year into writing it that I got the idea of striking the ball with a convex bend shaft … that came in a flash in the middle of one inspired night!

“But it took many hours and nights watching on YouTube the swings of many professionals striking the ball in slow motion. And I kept wondering why they all struck the ball with a concave bend shaft. The key was to ask the question, ‘why?’; in fact it was, ‘why not?’ Why not a convex bend shaft? Because I knew the convex bend is stronger than the concave bend,” Cheong elaborated.

Cheong stressed that the convex strike was not just a theoretical concept. “It took a fair bit of logical analytical thinking to decipher the reasons why all professionals have only been able to strike the ball with a concave bend shaft, and how my concept of a reflex swing can provide the means to achieve the convex strike on the ball.

Illustration of Ariya’s impact position in the book with the convex strike (left) compared to her actual strike (right)

“A key idea was to import the rotary movement of the lower body – a well-known technique used in field sports – to power the golf swing. Then everything fell into place!”

So is the reflex convex swing achievable by the modern golfer? Cheong believes that it is, citing Thailand golfer Ariya Jutanugaran as possessing the necessary swing and physical attributes to do so. “Her powerful lower body movement and left side dominant swing make her ideally suited to his swing,” he said.

Cheong also believes that both Gavin and Genevieve can achieve the convex strike and will gain distance and consistency by doing so. “I will be honoured when both Genevieve and Gavin give my swing system a chance. If they do, I am confident that they will succeed in achieving the revolutionary convex strike on the ball.  We can do Malaysia proud!”

One could say that by authoring and publishing such an extensive – and potentially revolutionary – book on the golf swing, Cheong has already done the country proud.

By Jonathan Ponniah

To order a copy of The Reflex Convex Swing, go to notionpress.com/read/the-reflex-convex-swing


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