Over the last few years, working with Stack & Tilt (S&T) I've had periods of inconsistent results and I've never really been sure what was going on. After playing a lot of golf this last week, I think I have some new insight. When S&T hasn't been working, I have sometimes switched to V.J. Trolio's "Hogan's Missing Piece" swing (http://www.thefinalmissingpiece.com/) with mixed results.
The background for the "missing-piece" swing was that Trolio found that video images of Hogan's swing after the car accident that damaged his pelvis and his legs, showed that Hogan had altered his golf swing to compensate for the injuries. And, he went on to play some of his best tournament golf despite the career-threatening injuries. The critical key to Hogan's altered swing action was the straightening of his right leg on the backswing (see the video of V.J. above).
The straightening of the right leg is also a component of the S&T swing but it doesn't have the status of a "missing piece". However, for me it turned out to be the missing piece. Conventional golf instruction forbids straightening the right leg. I have had real trouble breaking this ingrained prohibition and it has negatively impacted my S&T swing.
What I essentially did this week, after much practice-round struggle, was to use the standard S&T action (stack-tilt-standup), but concentrated exclusively on straightening my right leg on the backswing. I got here by first realizing that I wasn't getting a very good hip turn. Concentration on the hip turn, however, produced uneven shot quality, particularly some bad pushes and over-hooks. As V. J. points out in the "missing-piece" book, straightening the right leg gets your hips into a very stable position that allows to you to swing pretty aggressively at the ball with much higher consistency (something, of course, Hogan was able to do quite well).
If you're having trouble with S&T consistency, check your right leg on the backswing--especially if you've had many years trying to master conventional golf instruction prescriptions!
The background for the "missing-piece" swing was that Trolio found that video images of Hogan's swing after the car accident that damaged his pelvis and his legs, showed that Hogan had altered his golf swing to compensate for the injuries. And, he went on to play some of his best tournament golf despite the career-threatening injuries. The critical key to Hogan's altered swing action was the straightening of his right leg on the backswing (see the video of V.J. above).
The straightening of the right leg is also a component of the S&T swing but it doesn't have the status of a "missing piece". However, for me it turned out to be the missing piece. Conventional golf instruction forbids straightening the right leg. I have had real trouble breaking this ingrained prohibition and it has negatively impacted my S&T swing.
What I essentially did this week, after much practice-round struggle, was to use the standard S&T action (stack-tilt-standup), but concentrated exclusively on straightening my right leg on the backswing. I got here by first realizing that I wasn't getting a very good hip turn. Concentration on the hip turn, however, produced uneven shot quality, particularly some bad pushes and over-hooks. As V. J. points out in the "missing-piece" book, straightening the right leg gets your hips into a very stable position that allows to you to swing pretty aggressively at the ball with much higher consistency (something, of course, Hogan was able to do quite well).
If you're having trouble with S&T consistency, check your right leg on the backswing--especially if you've had many years trying to master conventional golf instruction prescriptions!
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