Kind of a Poll - Read the First Post - What's the "Tilt" in Stack and "Tilt"?

Just want to run a little experiment.

I'm going to ask a question. Please think about your answer, then immediately click the "Post Reply" button up above and post your answer. Do not look at anyone else's answer first (it may taint yours) and do not change your answer after you post it.

You're of course free to look at everyone else's answer after you post. Please do not do so beforehand, and please do not change your answer.

This is a golf forum, so I please be honest. And since this question deals with your understanding of something, there's no right or wrong answer. I mean, there is a right and wrong answer to the question, and I may give the "right" answer at the end, but I'm just curious to see what people think, not whether people are actually right or wrong.

There are no prizes for getting the answer right. Post what you think.

Here's the question:
To the best of your ability, how would you describe what "tilt" in "Stack and Tilt" means?






























I'm adding some white space so even the second post is hidden. Again, click the "Post Reply" button at the top and share your thoughts. I'll give it a few days to accumulate the answers.

I'll let this go on for a few more responses and then I'll post the results. Do me a favor: PM your friends on the forum with the link to this thread and tell them to participate.

The link would be: http://thesandtrap.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30653 .

OK, now it's time for my response.

And I'm going to admit right away that I had one answer when I started this thread, but now the answer is slightly more complicated after I looked into it.

I'll start with "stack," which wasn't in the question, but which is important to understand. You're "stacked" when your upper center (roughly the top of your sternum) and your lower center (between your belt buckle and tailbone) are aligned vertically. Stack and Tilt, for example, eschews having a lot of "lean" to the golfer's right (away from the target) in favor of a much more vertical spine at address (when viewed from face on - you still bend from the hips about the same).

Now, the tilt, so far as I can tell, is two things. I've asked Andy and Mike to clarify this for me, because though I know how it "works" in practice, it's been written up differently several times.

Part 2 of the Golf Digest article contains the image to the left as well as this description:

[color=Dark Green]The correct sensation going back is a continuous tilting toward the target. As we said earlier, your forward tilt toward the ball at address moves to your right as you swing back. You have to tilt about 30 degrees left to get your spine vertical at the top. This tilting creates tremendous torque in the body.[/color]

That single paragraph describes the two different kinds of "tilts" found in a "Stack and Tilt" golf swing... but in my opinion, does a really poor job of defining the primary one.

For example (right), here's the amount of tilt they'd like to see towards the target at the top of the backswing.

Notice that it's nowhere near 30 degrees. The sensation may be that it's quite a bit, but the actual tilt is minimal. I measured - it's about 3°. That 3° is important, because if it was 0 your head would have moved to the right (or, like Hogan, your tailbone might have actually slid to the left).

Here's something you can try for yourself to get into a pretty good Stack and Tilt backswing position. First, stand with your hands on a pretend grip as if you were at address position, then:

1) Straighten your back. Keep your knees flexed but lose whatever spine angle you had so that your spine is, for the most part, vertical.
2) Lean to the left (like you see in the picture to the left above). Keep your hands on the pretend club's grip, though.
3) Rotate 90 degrees or so like you would on a backswing.

Voilà! The S&T; backswing position.

If you want the follow-through position, "side tilt" to the right instead of to the left and rotate the other direction. Step #1 is the same - you still stand up.

Now, here's what the Stack and Tilt position looks like at the top, and from two angles. On the left it's tough to see, but the spine is fairly vertical towards the tailbone area, then (from this view) curves to the left that 30° they were talking about. In the right image, you'll see that you're not actually leaning towards the target if you measure your left hip up your back, but your spine tilts slightly left because your hips have turned only 45° while your shoulders have turned 90 or so (draw an imaginary line from his tailbone to the base of his neck in this image - it'll be close to that 3°).



So, my final answer is this... the "tilt" in "Stack and Tilt" means two things.

The first is, indeed, a small bit of tilt towards the target that will have the sensation of being quite a bit more than it is in reality (and part of that is because we've all been "getting our head behind the ball" and "maintaining our spine angle" for so long). Personally, I never cared for this version of "tilt" because I think "stack" covers it - the teeny target-ward tilt simply keeps your centers "stacked."

I think the second, however, is the more important one. It's the literal tilting to the left side (which, when rotated 90°, points towards the golf ball) that couples with the spinal extension or "standing up" to keep the golfer's head steady and to maintain the golfer's inclination to the ground.

So, if you said "tilting towards the target" you get a bronze star. If you said tilting towards the ball or "left" you earn a silver star. If you said both - which I might not have even said because of everything I just typed - you earn a gold star.