I’ve been teaching golf for nearly 20 years now, and over the
years I think I’ve just about seen it all when it comes to teaching
beliefs. Of course, as soon as I say that, something new and out of
the blue will pop up. The most recent “hot” teaching trend is the
stack-and-tilt method as developed by Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett.
These two fellows have a stable of over 20 touring professionals
using their system. Basically, stack-and-tilt is a belief that the
weight should remain on the forward foot during the swing. Plummer
and Bennett believe that it makes no sense to transfer weight to the
back foot when, according to them, it is simpler to just keep it on
the forward foot during the swing.
Of course, this is not new. USGTF member Randy
Cayson, a current member of our examining team, was a proponent of
this theory over 10 years ago, calling it a “single-pivot” swing.
Remember when Moe Norman’s swing and Natural Golf
were all the rage? Devotees of Moe were adamant that his swing was
far better mechanically than the so-called “conventional” swing. I
even personally know of one proponent who got very angry with me
over a column I wrote a number of years ago that called into
question the belief that Moe’s swing was automatically the best for
everyone. The amusing thing about this fellow is that he practiced
hours on end each day for a few years, and yet, to the best of my
knowledge, never improved his game.
Bob Toski and Jim Flick strongly believe that the
hands control the golf swing, while David Leadbetter believes the
big muscles do. Jimmy Ballard teaches students to load up and fire
off the right side. Other teachers advocate left-side control.
Yet, despite all the differences of opinion on
exactly what the best way to swing a golf club is, there is one
common factor that each and every system has: a retention of the
angle between the lead arm and clubshaft until impact, when the lead
arm and shaft straighten out.
In fact, if there is any secret to the golf
swing, that is it.
This fundamental was highlighted in the book
Search for the Perfect Swing, written by Alastair Cochran and John
Stobbs back in 1968. In fact, it was the basis for the whole book.
A student of mine named Frank is a fairly good
player, regularly shooting in the low 80’s. He came to me wanting to
shoot in the mid- to high-70’s more often. Frank has a pretty
typical swing for a male golfer in that he sways his lower body on
the backswing, counterbalancing by reverse-tilting his upper body.
He had a fairly strong grip, necessitating a blocking action through
impact in order to avoid hitting a hook.
The first thing I did was neutralize his grip and
have him release the club properly. Predictably, his ball flight got
very inconsistent, but I felt this was a necessary adjustment in
order to effect permanent improvement.
The next order of business was to correct his
pivot action. Well, this proved to be a problem. No matter what I
did, he kept swaying and tilting. I consulted David Vaught, one of
our fine examiners, and he gave me some great ideas. Still, nothing
worked (sorry Dave!), as Frank’s muscle memory proved to be stronger
than anything I’ve seen in awhile.
In fact, as time went by, on videotape Frank’s
early release got even earlier. Although he retained his belief in
me as his teacher, I began questioning why all my best efforts went
for naught. After thinking about the problem for awhile, I came to
the conclusion that, no matter what, I needed to get Frank’s release
timed properly.
We all know that the release is a result of other
things done properly in the swing. But, could we bypass all the
other stuff and just go to the release? It was worth a try.
When I next saw Frank, I showed him how to lag
the club during transition, and thereby retain the angle longer. To
describe the exact way of how I did this would necessitate some
heavy reading and writing, so perhaps I’ll leave that for a future
article. In any event, I did not mention any other instruction, nor
did I want him to focus on anything else except lagging the clubhead
to start the downswing.
To make a long story short, it worked. He’s
picked up some yardage and doesn’t hit the ball all over the place
anymore on his bad shots. Although Frank is obviously still a work
in progress, at least we finally started making progress. He still
sways and reverse-tilts, but I am resigned to the fact that he
simply cannot change this.
The moral of this story is that I went to the one
fundamental that every teacher agrees on. The closer you can get
your students to this fundamental, the better.
