Stack & Tilt Doubter

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)