Stack & Tilt

Why did I think this would raise it's head. If that was the case why did Plummer & Bennet think the Stack & Tilt method was the correct way to do it and not The Modern Swing surely they should have just analysed it's flaws and just corrected them not changed the whole thing.
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I didn't say that...S&T is 'a swing' as much as the conventional swing is.
We as amateur golfers have our own swings and inside those swings are flaws which prevent us from hitting 'the perfect game'. Those flaws can be corrected irregardless of what swing type you use. If a pro says to fix those flaws I must change your swing to either S&T or Conventional then the pro is wrong.
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What I was trying to get across is that every pro has a thought on how the golf swing should work whether it be transfer weight or leave it where it was. They will always try to get you to swing the way they think will make you the best you can be, which will end up being what they know and think is best.

If you find a pro who know's both method's he will still have a view on which is best. Take a kid to them who has never hit a golf ball and tell them you want them to be the next Tiger Woods and you will find out what method is the best, in their opinion!!!
 
BH may look like he's stacking but he's not tilted toward target so I'm guessing just cos his left knee is bent it doesn't mean he's weighting it on the backswing. I think that's a more conventional swing than an S&T one. :D
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This is a common error, the 'Tilt' is not towards the target.
It's actually spine angle. What Ben is doing is keeping weight centered and then transferring it forward and not backward which in essence is what the s&t is about.
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Have you read The Modern Fundamentals? I didn't read Hogan saying keep your weight centred and leave the weight on your left foot, well not until it comes to playing your short shots. As I said like religion THEY ALL WORK :rolleyes:. It is just whatever floats your boat at the time.
 
Oh and by the way stack and tilt is a really new swing here's a young up and comer using it :-P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nCuPJjoeWc&feature=related
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You got the wrong guy, everyone jumps on the fact that it looks like Hogans spine is 1.259975342° away from the target :)

This vid gets interesting at approx the 1min, watch and listen carefully....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMDPIqRf0zs

What is clear though is that if you take the best parts of Bobby Jones, add in a pinch of Hogan, top it with some Nicklaus and a sprinkle of Woods and you will end up with a fairly solid swing.... Stack and Tilt.
 
Is this Interesting?

Neither Ben or Byron have their hands forward enough at setup. They both appear, to me, to have their hands too high at the top of the backswing. I'm not convinced that either of them are doing anything non conventional so far.

Then it all happens on the downswing.

They get to this position :

ST1.jpg


which seems to me to be the most important point in the S&T approach. This is where the hips get out of the way to let the club release through.

Now, I have to admit that I don't understand S&T fully. But I've seen it work.

The question is :

Can it work for everyone, or is it important that everyone has at least some elements of S&T in their swing?

If all the greats have some points of S&T, then is S&T anything different? Or is it just another conventional swing with a different set up position?

Just playing devil's advocate a bit. But hoping to see where my mind takes me.
 
What about this comparison ?

I'm in a not dissimilar place to Murph.

I had a swing 15 years ago. It wasn't a very good swing, but it was mine, and I worked hard to make it stand up to pressure as best I could. IE I ingrained it.

Now I'm restarting, again, and trying to do the correct thing with weight shift, etc etc , yadda yadda yadda.

Which is stupidly impossible because there are just too many swingthoughts to get in and out of my mind in the 2 seconds available.

So at the moment I'm trying the more centred approach to a 'traditional' swing, with the idea of making sure my weight stays above the ball on the downswing. Which is a little S&Tish. Basically it's more :- set up and swing.

It's already a vast improvement on my recent too thinky no feely swing, but it feels natural enough to my ancient muscle memory of years gone by.

I've no way of telling, but I bet that if I continue the way I'm going, I'll gradually incorporate the best of both in my swing. Because I think that is the easiest way for the majority of us to go.

But if we allow that Hogan etc had elements of S&T in their swing, then it follows that we will all aim to have some elements in ours.

Maybe it's just an argument about definitions and semantics, not an argument about the golf swing.

 
As someone who teaches the conventional swing, I've found this interesting.
Especially about the S&T guy who needs help with his swing.
The problem as I see it is no-one teaches the teachers this method.
There is no qualification you can get to say you are knowledgeable enough to teach this method.
So, I've decided to learn as much as I can about it so if someone comes to me for a S&T lesson, I wont just laugh and send him away as was mentioned in a previous post.

Im going down to the range later and will try it.
 
I think the stack part (staying centred) is of more use to the club golfer, and gives a more consistent strike with irons, but the tilt part (taking the club inside using the tilt, then the downswing with the hips coming up and under) is the secret for the better player.

The simplified version (just staying centred) for the average player is not really that different from trying hard not to sway, but misses the point, if you ask me. It is not surprising that Plummer and Bennett would say that you can take bits and pieces, otherwise they would not sell too many books.
 
CrapHacker,

As Ethan points out it is slightly more complex than I make it look with my beautifully balanced and flowing swing :)
(Yes that WAS a peachy 4 iron, 8 iron birdie on the 5th!)
Even now I am taking pretty heavy divots through the ball because I don't spring up through the shot enough, or slide my hips left enough through the shot.

You talk about conventional and "the best of both" but who exactly would start teaching you the best of both? or my neighbour? or his friends?

That's right... no one.

Conventional is what a PGA pro is going to teach you. They won't get you to pick the club up like Furyk, or swing as flat as Matt Kuchar, you're going to get the bog standard swing. None of them will say..
"Hey Clive, get stacked over your left side then as you swing get your weight on your right foot...it's the best of both".


So, I'm not sure what posting Hogan, Byron or Zack Johnson brings to the table... none of them are stack and tilt.
In fact Zack Johnson was chopping one out of the rough! I'd expect him to practically fall on the ball from that lie! :)
 
I'll beg to differ that the legend BH is using S&T. It looks perfectly like a 3/4 traditional swing to me!
 
CrapHacker,

As Ethan points out it is slightly more complex than I make it look with my beautifully balanced and flowing swing :)
(es that WAS a peachy 4 iron, 8 iron birdie on the 5th!)
Even now I am taking pretty heavy divots through the ball because I don't spring up through the shot enough, or slide my hips left enough through the shot.

You talk about conventional and "the best of both" but who exactly would start teaching you the best of both? or my neighbour? or his friends?

That's right... no one.

Conventional is what a PGA pro is going to teach you. They won't get you to pick the club up like Furyk, or swing as flat as Matt Kuchar, you're going to get the bog standard swing. None of them will say..
"Hey Clive, get stacked over your left side then as you swing get your weight on your right foot...it's the best of both".


So, I'm not sure what posting Hogan, Byron or Zack Johnson brings to the table... none of them are stack and tilt.
In fact Zack Johnson was chopping one out of the rough! I'd expect him to practically fall on the ball from that lie! :)
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Yes :)

Or do I mean

No :(

What I mean is that I'm not in a place to S&T. But I do see the advantage of not swaying to the right on the backswing.

What we were doing imo was a slightly squiffy conventional, with bits of S&T, which might or might not be conventional as well.

But then, I don't really give a monkeys about the theory, if it helps me relax, keeps too many thoughts out of my head, and gets the ball moving in the right direction.

In the long run, I think my game will be improved by maintaining the lag better, rather than worrying about whether I move my left hip back, or do I turn my right hip forward.

And I think most golfers are capable of finding a compromise that will have the best of both that suits them.

I goes back to educating teaching pros so they have as much knowledge as possible, that they can use to help their individual students.

Go Bob
 
Thing is, it isn't that Hogan hit S&T, or Bobby Jones, or any one else. Do they exhibit S&T tendancies, maybe. Why? Because Plummer and Bennett looked at previous successful golfers, and cherry picked the aspects that made their swings work, that were not necessarily standard stuff as conventionally taught. What they have gleaned from this, is bundled together as S&T. It is a compilation of the best bits of all sorts of swings.
 
No, it doesn't hurt your back, that is a myth put about by people who know zip about it. Ditto for people who say no top pro does it.
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Well heres a bit of ZIP. Two of the extremely promising juniors at my club who are being coached in all aspects of golf by the top scottish pros and coaches had been using the Stack & Tilt method. Both have found it to be causing lower back problems and have since ceased the S&T method.
Yes the S&T method cam be good for many but not everyone.
In that respect you cannot make a statement like the one in your quote above without backing it up with concrete evidence. So in other words your attitude to anyone who criticises S&T is no different than those that you mention in the above quote. :D ;)
 
No, it doesn't hurt your back, that is a myth put about by people who know zip about it. Ditto for people who say no top pro does it.
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Well heres a bit of ZIP. Two of the extremely promising juniors at my club who are being coached in all aspects of golf by the top scottish pros and coaches had been using the Stack & Tilt method. Both have found it to be causing lower back problems and have since ceased the S&T method.
Yes the S&T method cam be good for many but not everyone.
In that respect you cannot make a statement like the one in your quote above without backing it up with concrete evidence. So in other words your attitude to anyone who criticises S&T is no different than those that you mention in the above quote. :D ;)
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If you actually look at all good young Scottish (although I am English I have no knowledge of such down south) players nowadays, the ALL swing it the same.....because they have all been taught that way...

Personally I would prefer fine tuning natural ability rather than making the best of someone with little talent...
 
[quote
Personally I would prefer fine tuning natural ability rather than making the best of someone with little talent...

[/QUOTE]

Well said!!!!!!!
 
No, it doesn't hurt your back, that is a myth put about by people who know zip about it. Ditto for people who say no top pro does it.
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Well heres a bit of ZIP. Two of the extremely promising juniors at my club who are being coached in all aspects of golf by the top scottish pros and coaches had been using the Stack & Tilt method. Both have found it to be causing lower back problems and have since ceased the S&T method.
Yes the S&T method cam be good for many but not everyone.
In that respect you cannot make a statement like the one in your quote above without backing it up with concrete evidence.
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As I don't know the facts about those juniors I can only give my opinion taken from my own experiences and observations.

When I started with stack and tilt my back was a little sore, but it was a muscular thing, I was using muscles that had probably never been used before.. ever! and I'm proper hitting hard, using those new muscles as hard as I can swing a club.. harder than I ever did before on the old muscles,... no wonder they ached at first, I was breaking them in :)

Now my back feels better than ever, really strong in fact.
I can't say how long those juniors you referred to were actually using stack and tilt or indeed how strong their muscles were....

I once did 100 situps and couldn't walk for 3 days! Totally seized up :D

The argument against stack and tilt is whether or not it would cause long term damage, either tissue or bone, there is nothing to say that it will do any worse than the 1000's of people who already have bad backs from the conventional swing.... as far as I know.

::Added::
Mike Weir (Masters winner) states that he had been suffering from back pain BEFORE going to stack and tilt, and keeping his spine more centered "made a huge difference" for him.
 
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