Stack & Tilt: My Swing At The Top

Continuing with the GolfTec Analysis of my swing, here's me stacked up against Ernie Els (left) and the Stack & Tilt (S&T) model swing (from Six Steps to Stack & Tilt). Here's where the fun starts. First, the GolfTec analysis.

Let's look at Ernie Els (left frame) first. At the top, Ernie is very stable, loaded on his right side, left leg bent a little with left foot on the ground, his head moved back from center about one-half cap width, back leaning away from the target in the "power-V" position, left arm fully extended, ninety-degree angle between the left arm and the golf club, lots of width between the hands and the head.

My S&T swing is leaning toward the target, right leg straightening, head move six inches toward the target, good extension, good wrist hinge, but my right elbow is jammed up against my body (stuck), shoulder turn is 75 degrees (tour average is 89), hip turn is 33 degrees (tour average is 48) which is 42 degrees of X-factor (shoulder turn minus hip turn, for me 75 - 33, tour average is 41 degrees, 89 - 48).

I'm trying to turn on top of myself. Surprise: flexibility is not my problem (I have one more degree of X-factor than the tour player--isn't lack of flexibility why I started S&T?). My rotation is low because I didn't turn into the right space. My top swing position forces me to cast (an early release of the club as you'll see in later stills). In order to hit from the inside, I have to release my wrist angles (the flying wedge) early. My body is in the way for me to make an on-plane downswing.

Compared to the S&T model swing (right image), my swing is way too flat and way too tilted. But, this is where I ended up trying to do S&T from the book. A S&T instructor, I'm guessing, would have pushed my hands a little higher in the air at the top of the backswing and not had me lean as much toward the target. For whatever reason, I never got to that position by myself.

Stack & Tilt: My Backswing (cont.)

Continuing the GolfTEC analysis of my backswing, here I am going up against Tiger Woods (do I have to point out which image is me on the right). Compared to Tiger, I haven't maintained the triangle between my arms (my right arm has started to bend too early to maintain the distance between my elbows) and, as a result, my club head has gone under the swing plane line.

The ideal position, from the GolfTEC perspective, would be to (1) stay on the swing plane line as much as possible, at least during the first half of the backswing and the last half of the downswing and (2) maintain the distance between my elbows as much as possible. Stack & Tilt (S&T), on the other hand, wants the hands to move inward and the arms to stay attached to the body on the backswing. For me, performing the S&T move led me to get "stuck" on the backswing (as you'll see in future posts).

The Tiger takeaway feels very much like my old width swing where my hands moved as far away from my body as possible. What's different is that I'm in a more athletic posture and I feel more room between my hands and body. What the video also helped me to see is that I need to keep my hands and the club head on the swing plane line in addition to pushing my hands back in the width dimension. The reason for this move is to give your hands enough room (distance from the body) to swing freely.

What's somewhat interesting is that in Tiger's swing changes under Hank Haney, the hands moved further inside than under the old Butch Harmon swing. What's also interesting is that I was unable to find S&T still images to match the ones above. The S&T video, however, shows the club head and the hands going inside the swing plane line.