Despite his skinny frame at 6-foot-1, 155 pounds, Luke Clanton can dunk a basketball—with two hands! That kind of athletic ability is one major reason why the 21-year-old Florida State junior—and soon-to-be PGA Tour rookie—is pound per pound one of golf’s biggest hitters.
“He’s soooo athletic,” says Jeff Leishman, Clanton’s swing coach of four years. “He’s got very quick fast-twitch muscles. He can sprint fast. He can jump well. All those are contributing factors.”
In his first handful of appearances on the PGA Tour this season while still playing college golf, Clanton ranked in the top 10 in clubhead speed (124.3 miles per hour) and ball speed (184.7 mph), and was 12th in driving distance (317.2 yards).
An aberration? Hardly, his coach says. The world’s top-ranked amateur averaged 313 yards per drive in eight PGA Tour starts in 2024, part of a dazzling summer that included two runner-up finishes. Having accrued enough points through the PGA Tour University Accelerated program, Clanton will make his official pro debut after competing at the upcoming NCAA Championship with his FSU teammates at Omni LaCosta Resort. The Seminoles are looking for some revenge after losing in the finals of the 2024 NCAAs to Auburn, and Clanton is a favorite to claim the NCAA individual title.
Clanton’s athleticism—a combination of lateral, vertical and rotational action—is very noticeable in his driver swing.
At the top of the backswing, his right hip pocket is barely visible and he’s fully loaded into his right side.
Then, in a matter of blink, his hips go from about 50 degrees closed to 50 degrees open. That’s whip-fast rotation.
“The lateral movement is a transfer of pressure to his front side on the downswing,” says Leishman, one of Golf Digest’s Best Teachers in Florida. “The vertical is Luke pushing down and then up off the ground with his lead foot, which is very common today with golfers who are moving very fast.”
To get a feel for the same downswing movement, Leishman says to pretend you’re standing on a bathroom scale and try to make your weight go above its normal reading.
“You have to really push down into your lead foot, like you’re stomping down on that foot,” he says.
Clanton says his main swing thought is to bow his left wrist at the top of the backswing, which helps square the clubface and shallow his path on the downswing.
“It allows me to swing as far left as I want, and the ball won’t overcut,” says Clanton, who’s preferred shot shape is a fade. “It almost feels like I’m hitting a draw, although it’s always going to cut a bit.”
Clanton’s desired swing path is slightly out to in through impact. When it gets too much to the left, he says his contact and ball speed suffer.
“That’s about the only thing mechanical we work on today, besides centeredness of strike,” Leishman says. “We want to get where he can tap into his athleticism, and isn’t too cluttered with technical thoughts.”
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
