The New Tour Swing 2

__Some prominent golfers advocate a big turn with the hips. I don't go along with this. Ben Hogan

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Our last entry included letters from three different readers noting similarities in our June New Tour Swing story to three different teaching philosphies. The teachers mentioned were Percy Boomer, David Lee and Ben Hogan. Senior Editor Peter Morrice contacted Mike Bennett, who with Andy Plummer teaches the new "Stack & Tilt" swing on tour. Here's what Bennett said about the similarities to each:

On Percy Boomer:

__“Boomer’s famous image “Turn in a Barrel” is a good idea, because it keeps you from moving off the ball on the backswing. But the swing is not that simple. Turn in a Barrel would work well if you were hitting a ball at waist height, like a baseball, but to hit a ball on the ground, you have to tilt forward at the waist and tilt toward the target as you swing back. It’s not as simple as just turning in a circle. You have to create descent in the golf swing—and that comes from the tilts.”

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On David Lee:

__“I don’t know everything that David Lee teaches, but I know he has students hit balls standing on their front leg only. This is similar to what we have our players do in that it’s a single-axis swing, with no shift to the right side. But I think he also teaches that the hands and arms go straight up on the backswing. In our swing, the hand path is much lower and more around the body. But swinging from a single-axis point is a lot like what we teach.”

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On Hogan:

__“If you look at old photos of Hogan, the midpoint of his shoulders was right at the ball when he hit it. In a lot of those photos, his spine is straight up and down on the backswing and at impact, with his shoulder and hip centers right on the ball. This is some of what we teach, so yes, we often use Hogan as an example. He also straightened his right leg on the backswing, with the left leg flexing forward. We teach that, too.”

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—Bob Carney