Good news comes to those who skim. And skim again. Steve Thom of North Aurora, Illinois, has found Stack & Tilt and is loving it.

I told myself I would regularly break 90 this year, but moped along at 100 every time I played. I was cursed with a nasty hook and maddening fats and thins. Lots of trial and error - not to mention countless buckets of balls - later I started experimenting with spine angle and on a whim tried holding myself to the left on the backswing. To my delight, the hook disappeared!

I felt like an idiot (albeit a vindicated idiot) when I started researching the issue only to find the June “Stack and Tilt” report. How on earth did I skip that? How many range balls have I tortured needlessly? There’s lots of golfing left to do this fall. I think my goal of breaking 90 just got the break it needed.

 

There is lots of golfing this fall, Steve, and for guys like us from Michigan and Illinois, with perhaps less necessity to be inside and watch college football than usual. There's also a bit more reading...Stack & Tilt Part II in the September issue. Also, check out editor Peter Finch's video lesson with "the new tour swing." He's stuck to it, he says, and is playing better. Good luck with S & T!

--Bob Carney

(Photo: Chris Stanford)

You wail, in lively letters to us, about pace of play. Without putting too fine a point on it, a few of you are approaching homicide over the television-trained duffers you play behind. This week you'll watch the Presidents Cup and wonder how it's possible to play a two-ball that takes longer than the law boards.

Which brings me to Indian cricket. Ancient, unchanging, out-of-step, cricket.

Did you catch the story in the Times yesterday about India's new compact, (3-hour instead of 5-days) version of cricket called Twenty20? Writer Somini Sengupta described the young Indian side:

Not only was the game different, but the team was unlike those past. This one was youthful, hip, dynamic and very...well, uncricket. Its members played fast and furious. They danced victoriously on the cricket pitch.....

Where gentlemen players once distinguished themselves in white trousers and knit vests, Twenty20 was accompanied by cheerleaders wearing what resembled sports bras. Restraint was out. Music was in.

This was no Play Cricket India promotion. This was "kamikaze cricket," someone called it, designed to revive a stuffy game.

Our problem is different. We're not stuffy. We're stuck. We've turned the game into a National Molasses- pouring contest. And we can't change.

Here's what I mean. This summer I played in a member-guest where flights of 8 played seven nine hole matches against one another. Two-and-half to three hours a nine.

Closer to home, our magazines, Golf World and Golf For Women on one side and Golf Digest on the other, play an annual Presidents Cup/Ryder Cup match. Most years it takes us six hours. Never less than five. Someone suggested the equivalent of kamikaze cricket: the alternate shot or foursomes format. Traditional. Quick. Still a good walk and still 18 holes. The response: Nothing doing. I want to play my own ball.

I know it's not true everywhere. We played quickly in a Cuscowilla member guest last weekend, where the competition never got in the way of the fun. But that's rare. An old editor friend said today that nine holes was our future: "Two hours, just the right amount of time." I agree. If we could play nine holes in two hours.

I'd love to think we can save the 18-hole round, too. Maybe it's time we took a lesson from that wild-and-crazy game, cricket.

--Bob Carney

(Photo: Alexander Joe/Agence France-Presse--Getty Images)

Dennis1, responding the FedEx Cup suggestions post here takes us to task for not covering Tiger's final "snub" of Tim Finchem at the closing ceremonies:

"Am I the only one that noticed the snub Tiger Woods gave Tim Finchem during the presentation of the Fed Ex Cup. Finchem handed the cup to Tiger and said that it had never been kissed, implying that Tiger should kiss the cup. Tiger looked at the cup but wouldn't kiss it. This was Tiger's way of showing his disdain for the way the FedEx Cup was crammed down their throats. I thought it was intended for all of us to see the tension between Tiger and Finchem. I Haven't seen any mention of this in magazines orsports pages. Are you guys afraid to print this story?"

"I thought it was pretty obvious watching the presentation that Finchem very much wanted Tiger to kiss the trophy and Tiger was making a point of not kissing it," said one...

In general, Tiger does not like to be pushed or forced to do anything, so this was his naturally contrary nature at work. But I also think he was sending a messag from himself and the players that the FedEx has not yet earned the kiss until some changes are made. As far as no coverage, I've seen it in several stories (Ferguson asked Tiger the question in the victory press conference and Tiger laughed it off), but perhaps it fell through the cracks at Golf World. "Snub" might not be the right word, but Tiger definitely defied Finchem.

Not quite, said another tour regular. Tiger's dissatisfied with aspects of the FedEx Cup, especially the deferred compensation, but this was not defiance.

He smooches the hardware when he wins majors. Don't know if he puts his lips on anything else that is awarded on an 18th green. As Finchem goes, I'd rate their relationship as a 4 on a 1-to-10 scale.

Not the hugs-and-kisses level for sure.

--Bob Carney

Dr. Andrew Williams of Repentigny, Quebec failed to find the "fun" in the Golf des Isles experience mentioned in our Long Weekend in October. Golf des Isles, you may recall, was one of several courses not far from this week's Presidents Cup that we recommended you try....

I noticed that your October issue mentions http://www.golfdesiles.com/ as a "fun" alternative to higher end course. Sure, fun if you like being chased like one of the local deer by the marshals, or searched by the ferry operator who has instructions to ensure you are not bringing your own food or water to the course... Yes, the view of the skyline is nice -- as is the view of the docks and discharging freighters -- but there are literally dozens of other cheaper, more picturesque courses in the Montreal area that are far more interesting and hospitable.

Doctor, I'm with you. I hate being chased like a deer. Perhaps you prefer the Club de Golf de l'ile de Montreal course (right) also mentioned in the story, by Patrick Ruddy of European Club fame. I haven't spent much time in Quebec, but my wife and I played a scenic Graham Cooke design called Owl's Head in Mansonville, just over the Vermont border and about 60 miles from Montreal. Our tightly-contested, annual anniversary competition resulted in several hours of chilly silence, as I recall. Good match play course.

--Bob Carney

(Photo Courtesy of Course)

California Reader Ed Reeder liked the Golf Tech story on driver versus 3-wood in the October issue:

I must say that your "Tight Fairway? Hit Your Driver", by Mike Stachura in October, was one of the best true science, no hype articles I have seen in a major golf publication for quite some time. Please keep presenting the facts that enable your readers to make informed choices!

That's our goal, Ed. I loved the piece, too, because it gave me permission to hit driver all day the last few rounds I've played. Missed about the same number of fairways.

So thanks. David Webber says he might have liked the story but our new layout uses a type size that's too small. He's not alone.

Your October 2007 issue was very interesting. At least the samll portion I could read...One wold think that the demographics of your reader wold be older than younger. Older means they probably had as hard a time reading the small print as I did....

--Bob Carney

I'm surprised we don't get this question more often. This comes from Ed Higgins of St. Louis:

You may have covered this in the past, but perhaps you could consider an article about course ratings and slopes.  I just returned from a wonderful trip to California, where we played Pebble, Spyglass and Spanish Bay and as I compared my experiences with the calculated difficulty of the course, they didn't match up, at least for me.  What's the difference between the two numbers?  Is one more predictive?  Is a course with a slope of 140 supposed to be ten strokes harder than one with a slope of 130 (with some adjustment for your handicap)?  Is length weighed more heavily than green speed?  Is the whole rating thing subjective or are there uniform standards?  Can you offer a "pocket converter" for the average player? 

Course rating is what a scratch player would shoot on the course. If the rating is 72.0, his or her score would be very close to that.

Slope rating is an indication of how much harder the course gets as one's handicap increases. If an average slope is 115, say, that's a gentle increase. A slope of 140 is an abrupt one, meaning that a 15 handicap will score much higher than the course rating plus 15.

Factors that contribute to course rating are carefully enumerated by course raters, usually from the state golf association, trained by the USGA and these associations. They include distance, rough, hazards, etc. Raters are educated about what contributes to a higher slope. For example, a 225-yard forced carry over water may not be a problem for the scratch player, but would be a huge problem for the high-handicapper. The presence or absence of such forced carries may result in a very different slope for courses of similar ratings. All of these factors are carefully codified, allowing for objective, consistent ratings and slopes from one course to another.

Hope this helps. Good idea for a story, though.

--Bob Carney

Ed McCreedy of Colt's Neck New Jersey liked David Owen's Back-Roads Scotland piece in October, recognizing a few of his own adventures in the story.

I thoroughly enjoyed David Owens' article, which hit the sweet spot. Having made about 14 trips to Scotland and played some 50 courses there (including all the biggies), my best memories are of those out of the way courses that one stumbles on. I've been fortunate to play Boat of Garten twice, and it is special. I would recommend nearby Carrbridge and Elgin on his next venture. Jim Finegan's writing [Where Golf is Great, Workman] led me to the nine hole course at Anstruther, with its dogleg par three along the  Firth of Forth. Last year, while staying in Aberfeldy. I played the course there, and asked a local road worker where else I should play. He suggested the nine hole course at Strathtay (in preference to the better known Pitlochry). I played nine holes alone on the course (5 pounds in the honor box) and another golfer arrived who played a second nine with me. A great hilly and quirky course. My new friend suggested we play Taymouth Castle the next day, which we did, for a completely different experience. I highly recommend Mr. Owens' method for getting to know a great country and its real golf experience.

Here's a theory, accepted only by this writer so far, on why: Because for one soggy, windy, feckless week, we are knocked and kicked free of our obsession with score. We play the sport we've turned into work. It's why we like playing your courses, Pete. Once in a while.

--Bob Carney

(Photo of Pete Dye's Ocean Course by Stephen Szurlej)

Robert Irwin of Sonora, California thinks we were sonoring when wrote the Rules Pop Quiz in the October issue. First, the quiz:

Q: You think the ball you just hit is in a water hazard, but you're not sure. Can you play a provisional ball?

A: Yes, but if it turns out the ball went into the hazard, the provisional must be abandoned, and you must proceed with your original ball.

Mr. Irwin isn't buying this. He feels that it reveals a laxness toward our rules column that is unacceptable:

You need to work harder to make sure that information presented in your "Rules" feature is correct. Rule 27-2 is quite clear, as is Decision 27-2a/2, and your October column contradicts them both. This is not the first time that I have found a rules error presented by your magazine, but it will be the last.

The question and answer on page 64 to which you refer is correct. If you check Decision 26-1/1, you will find "a player may NOT deem his ball lost in a water hazard simply because he thinks the ball may be in the hazard."

The question read, "You think the ball you just hit is in a water hazard but YOU'RE NOT SURE. Can you play a provisional ball?" Of course you can. There is not reasonable evidence to support the ball being lost in the hazard. In this case, if you don't find it in the hazard or outside, it should be treated as a lost ball.

Here's the key section of Rule 26-1:

Relief for Ball in Water Hazard It is a question of fact whether a ball lost after having been struck toward a water hazard is lost inside or outside the hazard. In order to treat the ball as lost in the hazard, there must be reasonable evidence tht the ball lodged in it. In the absence of such evidence, the ball must be treated as a lost ball and Rule 27 applies.

And the section of Rule 27-2:

Provisional Ball/Procedure If a ball may be lost outside a water hazard or may be out of bounds, to save time the player may play another ball provisionally in accordance with Rule 27-1. The player must inform his opponent in match play or his marker or fellow-competitor in stroke play that he intends to play a provisional ball, and he must play it before his or his partner goes foward to search for the original ball.

--Bob Carney

What a wonderful weekend for a kid from Michigan--38-0 wonderful, as a matter of fact--or anyone willing to rise early enough to watch thehttp://www.lpgascoring.com/9391/leaderboard/leaderboard.html. Brutal weather. Entertaining, if not always artful, golf. Lively commentary, even, as with Dottie Pepper's "Chokin' Dogs" comment, it wasn't intended.

But I was struck, after all of the discussion about Stack & Tilt in our magazine and on several blogs including this one, that most of the women's swings don't in any way resemble the S&T move. For the most part (I'm thinking Creamer, Gulbis, Inskter to name a few) players on both sides seemed to make swings closer to Curtis Strange than to Aaron Baddeley. Pat Hurst's steep move was perhaps the closest to what Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett are teaching, and Laura Davies move at impact resembled "the upward thrust of the lower body" that they talk about, but those were exceptions. Be interested in what the rest of you think....

--Bob Carney

Canadian kinesiologist Josh Leyes is leaning "no" on the Stack & Tilt, despite all the testimonials we've printed here.

I was intrigued upon my first reading about the "New Tour Swing" in the June issue, and was surprised to see another article on Plummer and Bennett's "Stack and Tilt" theory in the September issue. Having a degree in kinesiology and being a certified golf biomechanic, I must say that some of the ideas that they present about the golf swing as fact are simply asinine.

They contend that there should be no lateral move behind the ball in the backswing, but rather a slight shift toward the target. When have you ever seen a big league pitcher throw a 100 mph fastball by keeping their weight on his front foot in the windup? Or have you ever seen a heavyweight boxer deliver a knockout punch by keeping his weight on his lead foot? Never! It is simple physics that in any throwing motion (and the golf swing is such a motion) over 50% of the power generated in the swing/throw will come from the ground up. To do this efficiently there must be a loading of the right side followed by an unloading onto the left side (for a righty).

Josh challenges us to put the players on device that could measure weight at various points in the swing. Not a bad idea.

I think that Stack and Tilt ideas may give players a "feel" so they stay on top of the ball, but there is definitely a lateral shift of body weight in any decent backswing and that is fact, not feel.

And the real test of the method, he argues, is time.

I know that this is a new swing idea and is hot right now, but I will be interested to see if Plummer and Bennett's ideas stand the test of time like Ben Hogan's Five Lessons, which is still the basic blueprint for the fundamentals of the swing.

Fair enough. But I know folks who could never master Hogan's moves who are using Stack & Tilt to play better and pros whose careers it has revived. As editor Pete Finch, who made a video of his lesson, says, it's simplifies things for him. Never a bad thing.

--Bob Carney

(Photo by Chris Stanford)

I think my swing has been on the upright side probably through the years. But these guys who play by mechanical means with positions, I don't see how they can even play golf doing that. I have always felt you have to play golf by feel.

-- Jack Nicklaus, 1991

Not talking FedEx Cup, Day Three: From Frank Panetta in Saratoga, California comes a fond remembrance of Jack and second opinion on our delineation of the three Nicklaus swings in the October issue package.

How very nice to see Jack Nicklaus in his early years. I did get to see him for the first time at Monterey Peninsula Country Club in 1965. I was 14 years old and new to the game what thrill to stand next to him and watch that same swing that was on page 92 of this month's issue...

Jack Flick's comments about Jack's the Muscular Swing turned into the Classic Swing, I don't see at all...I see a swing that has deteriorated from the middle 1970's to his retirement. (This is obliviously do to hip issues, weight, flexibility, and the worst: old age starts moving in)

The Muscular Swing is really the Classic Swing... Jack Grout was a genius. He took this young boy and instilled in him the true classic swing and as everyone knows: "He is still the man to beat"

Frank, thanks for that. You can argue with the demarcation of the three swings, but not with Jim's compilation of the great man's basics. My favorite:

Jack practiced mechanically but played by feel.

Now there's a goal. One that I suspect is on Tiger's bulletin board along with that list of 18 majors.

--Bob Carney

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.

-- Edward Langley

Wow. The Rush discussion won't die. After of a bunch of our liberal-leaning readers protested the presence of Rush Limbaugh in the  August Issue, and we printed a letter in the October issue, now comes the Right to make things right for Rush. Continuing our break from FedEx Cup discussion, we prove again that we're an equal opportunity blog: "You disappointed us Rush Fans with your headline 'Don't Mix Golf And Politics', introducing a hateful letter that called  Rush Limbaugh vile names," says Tulsan Coleman Ferguson. The Nickerson letter, which also ran here, referred to the subject of our Final Exam as one of those "trouble-making, hypocritical windbags". Mr Ferguson again:

That type letter is beneath contempt and your magazine should apologize to Rush for its publication.  As a golfer actively playing  for over 50 years,  I consider Rush to be an asset to Golf.  His passion for the sport comes thru on his Radio Program as  word picture descriptions of his game and of  the many Golf Courses he plays.  Contrary to your headline, ("Don't Mix Golf and Politics") golf and politics often do mix as we golfers here in Tulsa learned this spring when our new Democrat Mayor, Kathy Taylor, announced she was closing a number of the city's Golf courses in order to use the money, "wasted by the city" on golf, elsewhere.   We Senior Golfers got involved in city politics and were successful in keeping the public courses open.  Golf is a sport that encourages civility and thus mixes well with all phases of life, including Politics.

Way to go, Tulsa seniors.

Meanwhile, the letter also caught the eye (ire?) of Paul Bopko of Sun Lakes, Arizona.   

It would have been kool for Dwight Nickerson to follow his own advice about keeping politics out of the Digest. True to his attitude his comments about Mr. Limbaugh were the usual crude and snide utterences of the Left!.

Thanks, Paul. Now we're even. We were going to ask Rush what he thought of the FedEx Cup set-up, but on second thought....

--Bob Carney

(Photo: Ben Van Hook)

Taking a day off from The Cup, we got an appreciative letter from Brian Doherty of Mill Creek, Washington about our September issue comparison of those two new, much talked-about courses, Erin Hills and Chambers Bay. Erin Hills, a collaboration of Dana Fry, Mike Hurdzan and Golf Digest Architecture Editor Ron Whitten, and Chambers Bay, designed by Robert Trent Jones II, are both talked up as future sites for majors. Doherty thinks they're up to it:

I have not been to the Erin Hills course, but I have played Chambers Bay... This is a U.S. Open site waiting to happen !! True, it'll need a few years to mature in, ala the Bandon courses, but it has the course, setting, nearby accommodations, difficulty, etc. etc to make it a top site and perhaps even a repeat US Open site !! Even comes complete with an active train track running along the course need to Puget Sound that reminds you of the great Irish and Scottish courses !! Plus there is a large public park going in right next door with a huge amphitheater ( Hootie & the Blowfish concert ?). I have been fortunate to have played many top public venues ( Pebble Beach, Pinehurst #2, Bandon/Pacific Dunes , etc. ) and this will fit right in quality wise, plus all the "modern requirements" needed to host an Open. IF the county... adds a second course ( and they have enough land to do it !) then this very well may become a top destination stop for golfers, ala the Bandon courses. The Northwest really needs another "major" and the PGA gave and then took away the PGA for 2010 ( due to a conflict with the Olympics in Vancouver, citing a concern over corporate sponsorships for two huge events so close together). Maybe the USGA will step in with the Open and be the benefactor...

By the way, you may find Erin Hills hosting a major, but you won't find it on Golf Digest's America's 100 Greatest Courses. Because of editor Whitten's involvement, it would not be eligible.

--Bob Carney

(Photo by Stephen Szurlej)

One of our readers has suggested that getting the tour players' attention for the FedEx Cup is simple. Make it winner take all. Actually, that reader's also a playing editor: Phil Mickelson. "Like the World Series of Poker," he says. "I think it would be cool."

Add that to the suggestion box. MulliganStu on Waggle Room takes the idea one step further. Make it winner-take-all and make it match play.

The three "playoffs" are played back-to-back-to-back, but then there's a one-week break - just like the week off prior to the Super Bowl - before the Tour Championship. That week break gives every golfer a chance to rest after at least three straight weeks of golf. It also gives the hype machines a chance to go into overdrive, as they do during the off-week before Super Bowl Week.

And there'll be plenty to hype, because the format of the Tour Championship will be so different.

First, the top four players in the FedEx point standings will get first-round byes. That makes those top four spots much more important than they are under the current format. It (along with the week off prior to the Tour Championship) provides incentive for golfers to play all three preliminaries.

Ok, but Stu acknowledges a big issue with his system: The winner of the last event may not be the FedEx Cup points winner. That's a problem. The other problem is (banish the thought) Tiger or Phil or Ernie, even with a bye, might be knocked out early. There goes the finale.

Let me suggest something really radical: Maybe this thing is working. Evidence: Tiger's into it, and yet he's not got it locked up. Stricker and Sabbatini have raised their games and would love to sneak that first Cup away from Tiger. There are a couple of others who could bring down Goliath. So we'll be watching this weekend. (If you went to Michigan, as I did, you might want to catch every minute on Saturday, too).

But a friend of mine who spends some time with the players thinks there is one issue in the "playoffs" about which the players won't talk: pro ams. Put bluntly, he asks, do pro-ams belong if these are really the playoffs? Is there something else we could do for the amateurs at this time of year?

Maybe a version of the East Lake Clinic (or the PGA Championship's champions clinic) is an idea that sticks.

--Bob Carney

Count Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post among those trying to fix the FedEx Cup playoffs, as so many of you readers are. Unlike most of you, who gently advise the players to "Man up, Alice," as one of you put it, Wilbon seems to empathize. His proposed amendments:

For starters, reduce it from four weeks to three. The top players simply aren't going to play four straight weeks. And from the results Tiger and Phil have, they shouldn't be told they have to. That one week off, scheduled however the players want, should appease a lot of people.

And which event goes? And who wants to tell them?

Start with 120 players, cut to 80, then to 40 or fewer. It would have an NCAA tournament feel. That would probably mean cutting the prize money, which the players would just have to swallow.

Four straight FedEx events means essentially a month away from home. Nobody should expect a pity party, but I understand Tiger and Phil saying: "No. I'm staying home."

A friend of mine observed that the the regular-season FedEx Cup points were like frequent flyer rewards and the players use them to "buy" various personal experiences: "I'm going to use 15,000 of my FedEx Cup points to attend my son's guitar recital, so I'll miss the Barclay's", and so on.

Kind of the way it works right now anyway. If you can afford it, you take time off. If you can't, you grind away.

--Bob Carney

Like the Bowl Championship Series in college football, the FedEx Cup "playoff" system is a solution crying out for another solution. In fact, a cynic would say both were designed to make us talk about them forever--and, of course, make endless suggestions for fixing them. Here's Dave Riffey of Shell Lake, Wisconsin, offering a very straightforward fix:

There is an easy solution to all the big boys skipping out on the Fed X Cup events....   MAKE ALL OF THE ORIGINAL 144 START FROM SCRATCH...EVERYONE STARTS WITH ZERO POINTS....   THEN YOU WOULD SEE A REAL PLAYOFF !!!   JUST LIKE ALL OTHER SPORTS AND THEIR PLAYOFFS...BASEBALL ...FOOTBALL..HOCKEY...TENNIS..ETC.  

Okay, Dave, it came through much clearer because of the all caps. But I'm not sure your idea will do it. As BTE says in a comment here yesterday, how do you convince guys who have multi-millions and want to see their kids make their first I-phone call that $10 million counts, be it deferred, annued or just spent on Bentleys?

Here are suggestions kicked around our water cooler, with their accompanying complications:

1. Allow the big guys (Top Three?) to sit out the first week. (Please keep that a secret from the folks at Barclays until a few minutes before the event.)

2. Rotate the first tournament among the Barclays, the Deutsche Bank and the BMW, and make it a "play-in" tournament that the very top players would not have play. As in, the Rose Bowl will mean zilch this year, but next year it will lead to the national championship game." Hire a Marine platoon to deliver the message to the first "play-in" event. Corollary: Rotate the Tour Championship among the four events.

3. Allow the big guys to choose one week to sit out. Interesting that this year Tiger, Ernie and Phil picked different weeks to throw Tim Finchem under the bus. Almost makes you think it was planned that way-- if it hadn't been for the press conferences the Commissioner had to endure.

4. Make everybody play all four. If you miss one, you might as well miss them all: You're gone; no chance to make any of the $63 million. Let the spouses provide consequences. ("Excuse me. You did what so that you could see who off on her first school bus?!!! Have you completely lost your mind?!")

5. Space out the four events, buying room to do that by asking the PGA to move the PGA Championship back and the Ryder Cup forward. Sell combined PGA Tour/NFL ticket packages. On second thought, never mind.

6. Eliminate one event. Three players will be fine with that. You may get a comment or two from the other fellows.

Number 3 looks better and better. Top three players are each allowed to choose one event they don't have to play. Player ranked No. 1 chooses from A, B or C event. Player No. 2 goes second and chooses from remaining two events. Player No. 3 gets the remaining week off.

Commissioner doesn't have to do any press conferences.

--Bob Carney

Reader Rob Garrison's from Illinois and he's not happy at all that Phil Mickelson chose to come to Illinois to do an outing and then skip the BMW Championship. Here's part of Rob's plea to Phil to suck it up and compete!

"With the BMW Championship playing threesomes the first two days, Mickelson again would have been playing with Tiger Woods, along with Steve Stricker. Come on Phil, as they say in that commercial, 'Man Up, Alice'. People in Chicagoland want to see you and I for one want to see some competition on tour. You giving #1 a run for his money is what we are praying for.

Some of us are just sick of old what's his name. Really, it isn't that I'm sick of watching Tiger play good golf. It's that I'm sick of the commentators fawning all over him. They give him every event before the first ball is struck...
 
Tiger is the worlds #1 player. I long for more. I long for competition. I grew up with Arnie, Jack, Gary, Lee and Tom. When a competitive situation arises I don't want to hear, 'I want to see my kids off to school.' or 'The commissioner didn't do what I asked him to do.' The Champions and LPGA Tours don't come to Chicagoland anymore and now the Western Open is gone. Replaced by the BMW Championship every other year in Lemont, IL.

Phil you have been my #1 golfer for a long time now and I'm really disappointed you won't be here this week. I'm hurt by your action. I hope your career isn't also hurt."

Well said, Rob. You've made it clear that there is another Mickelson "family" out there that to whom Phil has to answer.

--Bob Carney

(Photo: J. Rogash/Getty Images)
 

LEMONT, Ill.--Two weeks ago it was Tiger. Last week it was Ernie. This week it's Phil missing one of golf's lucrative "playoffs." Lots of talk here in Chicago about why one of these great players would miss a chance to earn some large piece of $63 million. We'll get letters suggesting that they're spoiled. We already have. We members of the media will stoke that a bit, as demonstrated by this exchange today with Commissioner Tim Finchem,  at the BMW Championship.

Q: Did you ever think you'd see the day where you would put up $63 million in prize money over four weeks and guys would be bitching about it?

Finchem: I don't think they're bitching about it. I wouldn't characterize it that way.

Q: Whining?

Finchem: We've got $28 million in cash and $35 million that's going into players' deferred accounts. I think thats--our job is to take actions and make decisions that are in the best interests of the tour players generally and the fans, and I think that's what we've done in this case. Can it be done differently? When you stand back and look at--you guys are taking a couple comments here, and I understand that, but when you stand back and look at the import of what these comments are about, these, again, are not fundamental questions.

Translation: The thing is OK, but players didn't pay attention when we explained it  and now they aren't happy. We may do something about that. In the next two months--Finchem's timeline--some "heavy lifting" (because contracts are in place) may be done to:
a) reschedule next year's events so that they are not four consecutive weeks;
b) reconsider the deferred compensation and possibly replace it with a mix of cash and deferred or all cash, or
c) make sure we have some formal meetings with the players so they can no longer say, as Ernie Els did Wednesday, that "unfortunately, no, they did not express anything to the players. They asked....questions but they didn't come out and say, 'OK, look, this is what we're going to do. What do you think?' It was all about---you know, it wasn't directly asked. . . . "

Q: Including the deferred $10 million first prize?

Els: The $10 million deal was a big deal. I don't think Tiger knew about it. Phil didn't know about it. I didn't know. When we heard about it, we thought, geez, that's unbelievable. It still is, but it's we're going to see that money hopefully 20, 25 years down the line.

Hey, this is  golf's version of the Bowl Championship Series,  the  BCS.  It will be debated endlessly, every year, whether it does or it doesn't change. Somebody will always be unhappy.  But we're talking about it, aren't we? And as with the BCS, the final result can make all things right.  In these four weeks, how many finishes will we get like last week when Phil and Tiger went down to the wire? And who will win that first Cup in Atlanta?

--Bob Carney

Instructor Peter Stern of Kings Point, New York, is not surprised by the success of Stack & Tilt pros this weekend in Boston. Aaron Baddeley (-11), Charlie Wi (-7), Will MacKenzie (-4), Mike Weir (-4) Dean Wilson (-4) and Tommy Armour III (+1) all fared reasonably well. But Stern, who's written before, isn't buying the "New Tour Swing" for amateurs. Add his name to the teachers who voiced doubts in September's Stack & Tilt Part II story:

Golf Digest, for the sake of average golfers (95%), I hope this will be the last issue regarding [this] swing theory.... this method will cause golfers to swing on a very vertical upright plane. What goes straight up, comes straight down which will only cause slices, pop-ups, loss of distance, toe shots and difficulty with the longer clubs. These are problems pretty much every mid- or high-handicapper faces.

As an analogy try hitting a Roger Clemens fastball with your weight starting on your front side.
Weight shift is important in every sport there is and golf is no different.

To quote, again, Butch Harmon in that issue: It ain't for everyone.

--Bob Carney

A glance at the leaderboard in Boston suggests it's been a good week for the Stack & Tilt contingent. With Brett Wetterich leading at minus 13, here are the Plummer/Bennett disciples:

• Aaron Baddeley -10
• Mike Weir -6   
• Will MacKenzie -6
• Charlie Wi -5
• Tommy Armour III -3
• Dean Wilson -1

By the way, Mulligan Stu on waggleroom.com faults us for not putting the side-by-side comparison of Baddeley and Jerry Barber, when we unearthed the Jerry Barber "Shiftless Swing" story from 1958. Good point by him. Here's that Barber sequence, followed by Baddeley.

--Bob Carney

(Baddeley photos: J. D. Cuban)

For more on Stack & Tilt (and teachers Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett) from a tour-player perspective, here are comments from Aaron Baddeley at the U.S. Open and Dean Wilson at the Sony:

Q. Can you take us through the maturation you referred to of when your swing and confidence kicked in, when you got better, why you're better and so forth?

AARON BADDELEY: I would say in October, November, 2005, I was out working with Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett, and ever since I started working with them, there's really been an upward curve of improvement of driving the ball in the fairway, hitting better iron shots. Yeah, I mean, that's just been a constant improvement, and I feel like every time I go to practice with them or even by myself, I know exactly what I need to work on. And I just feel like I'm going to keep improving because of what I'm working on.

Q: Early on when you came out here you had a rep that was similar to Faxon, just okay ball-striker and a really good putter. How much better -- I'm not going to look at stats because I don't always believe them, but how much better are you at keeping the ball and keeping it in play now than you were just two years ago?

AARON BADDELEY: I would say night and day to be honest, absolutely. I honestly feel that my driving is actually one of my strengths now, where it was never like that.
The thing that for me, most of that is every shot I hit, I know what happened. Andy and Mike are so great about teaching me about my swing and what I need to do and the couple of faults that creep in. When I do hit a shot like on the back nine today where I hit a couple of bad tee shots, I wasn't stressed because I knew what I needed to do. And on the front side, I don't think I missed a fairway.
So I think it worked out well in that sense.

Dean Wilson, who introduced Mike Weir to Plummer and Bennett, talked at the Sony Open about how he found Plummer and Bennett:

I was good friends with Grant Waite and always liked his golf swing and admired the way he swung the club. So I started talking to him and he introduced me to Mike and Andy, and from there, I think everything has just gotten better. So far on the whole in 2004, I didn't make enough, finished 133th. I had made about 150,000 up to the middle of the year and after working with Mike and Andy, first tournament back, I had the best tournament I ever had and made about another 400,000, 500,000 with them, but it wasn't enough to keep my card. Went back to Q-School, breezed through that. 2005 had my best year on Tour up to that point, and then last year was even better. So the more I work with them, the more I own the swing and my geometry starts getting better.

Q. Can you talk about what Andy and Mike have brought to your game what they have helped with you?

DEAN WILSON: Oh, they have brought everything with, their knowledge of the golf swing and the research that they have done and the studying that they have done over their careers over the last 10, 12 years, it's phenomenal. There's no way I would be sitting here as a tournament winner without those guys. They work really hard. They are out here every week with us, with me and the other guys on the program so to say. Andy walked with me all 18 holes today and watched every shot and he's always going home, drawing pictures or printing out the pictures, showing us what we need to work on. I can't emphasize them enough. It's phenomenal what they have done and the knowledge they have.

--Bob Carney

(Wilson photo: PGA Tour)