The Loop

Stack & Tilt: Hallelujah!

The golf swing is like a suitcase into which we are trying to pack one too many things. John Updike, quoted in the Gigantic Book of Golf Quotations

We've received slew of Amens! from readers adopting the New Tour Swing espoused by Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett in the June issue.   None matches this one from Bob Champion of San Francisco, entitled "Free at Last!," for pure enthusiasm. I quote in part:

__About 10 years ago I was wired to a computer to analyze my golf swing from every angle. My “key” problem was that I was straightening my right leg on the backswing, another “major swing flaw.”

So, I purchased a practice device that strapped around my right knee to prevent it from straightening during the backswing. Boy did I work on that, only to still have the "problem." And, I’ve continued to believe that I must keep my right leg bent during and at the top of my backswing.

Now, I read in The New Tour Swing that one requirement is straightening the right leg in the backswing. What’s a struggling golfer to believe? The answer: Nothing, except one basic truth.

That truth is that each of us has a unique and natural golf swing that is simply the way in which we would throw a golf club down the fairway, a system used in Fred Shoemaker’s Extraordinary Golf school and demonstrated in his book, Extraordinary Golf: The Art of the Possible.

If your right leg straightens when you swing back to throw a golf club, then it is OK for it to straighten, naturally, in your golf swing. And, if your right heel is on the ground as you throw the club, then it is not a major swing flaw if it is on the ground at impact in hitting a golf ball.

So, many thanks for “The New Tour Swing.” It has, at last, set this old golfer free to swing a golf club simply the way my body has always wanted to do so. __

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Blake Myers of Greenville, South Carolina brings up the question of Stack & Tilt on the driver swing.

__I liked the article on a new to swing based on a new way to think.  However, you didn’t address the driver.  Are stack and tilters supposed to hit down on the long ball too? __

This came up before, Blake, and Andy Plummer sent this advice to keep the driver swing more level:

__"Players who feel too steep coming down with the driver should try one of three things: First, make sure the ball position is far enough forward. The ball should be opposite the front heel with the driver. Second, keep the hand path more to the inside, both on the backswing and more importantly on the downswing. When the hands move out and away from the body on the downswing, the swing gets too steep and over the top. This is a common fault with the driver. Third, the player might need to stand up faster on the downswing. That upward thrust of the lower body helps to shallow out the swing." __

Keep stacking, keep tilting!

—Bob Carney

(photo of Aaron Baddeley by J. D. Cuban)