Nee Chi

I'm reading the Stack & Tilt book at the moment, and have come across a bit I don't understand. In the "First pieces" section it says: "...these areas are the biggest differentiators between good players and bad. Here they are: 1. Weight forward. 2. Left shoulder down 3. Hands in 4. Back leg straight 5. Arms straight 6. Butt under torso " I've read the whole "Hands in" section and I'm still not very clear as to what it means. Thinking the words "hands in" while at the range yesterday, I was ending up with the club in a ninja pose at the height of my backswing, with both elbows bent and close to my body at the farthest extreme instead of a straight left arm. I know it's not right but I can't work out why from the paragraph in the book. Can anyone clarify this for me?

Your mom used it on me last week and I can honestly say that it isn't overrated, it's great. I plan to pay her 10 dollar fee for that service every time I pass the corner she pulls tricks on. I can't believe so many people are feeding the troll As they say, you can take the golfer out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the golfer

Well, i just got back, and I'm over the moon with day 1 of stack and tilt... Went into this new course hoping for double-par (as usual) and managed a 128, a whole 12 shots beneath double-par! MUCH fewer drivers off the tee spannered off to the right, and my irons were very consistent. All in all I'm feeling great about S&T; and can't wait to get stuck into the book properly and improve further.

I decided to bite the bullet and buy the S & T book last night after I left here... Kindle version. Finger crossed, here's to the end of being a rubbish golfer. So excited about today... couldn't sleep last night. I was like a kid at Christmas. Beautiful day for it too, by the look of it. Hopefully it'll stay this way.

Well, I'm at the course tomorrow, a "nice" one that a few of us are visiting with groupons. I get a chance to hit the driving range first, so I'm going to give Stack & Tilt a try, (from what I've managed to glean from the youtube videos anyway). Can't wait. I'll let you know how I get on. It looks pretty evil on a couple of holes... large ponds to play over etc., so if I get round in less than double-par I'll be happy. :-) Then again, maybe everything will suddenly click on the range and I'll be able to hit straight for a change.

Thanks for your help everyone, much appreciated. Incidentally, does anyone have a link to a recommended "absolute beginner's step-by-step golf swing guide 101" video? I've scoured youtube, but mostly keep coming across videos that say "buy our special gloves and then follow these instructions for a perfect grip" or the like, so I was wondering if there's a "this guy is the best online video-teacher for the absolute basics" that someone could point me towards. I watched all the stack-and-tilt / golf evolution vids in their 80-something vid playlist, but many of them are just slowed down vids of the star golf "supermen" that I shouldn't be trying to emulate.

Hi, and thanks for the reply. Yeah, I really would like to get proper lessons, and I'm trying to talk a couple of friends into it so that I can get a lift there. Money's only half the problem, and if I could actually easily get to a course with a pro, it's something I'd definitely do, but to do so on my own would involve half an hour each way in a taxi, costing probably around 4 times as much as the lesson itself. I'll take my video camera along the next time I go to a range or a course and take it from there, I guess. Thanks for your help, much appreciated.

Hi all, first time poster, just signed up today because I was wondering if anyone here might be able to help me sort out the major problem in my swing. I know the obvious answer is "get lessons from a pro" but I'm relatively poor and have no transport of my own, and I don't fancy an hour each way on a bus with my golf clubs to get to the nearest course with a pro, so I'm kinda stuck with watching youtube vids and trying to describe my problem in forums for the time being. I started playing golf when I was about 14-15 years old, but was always struggling with it and pretty much stopped playing when I was about 17 and didn't touch a club again until 6 months ago. I'm now 37, and have suddenly completely fallen in love with the game again, but I have a serious problem with my swing that I need to sort out if I'm going to start getting anywhere near reducing my handicap below the maximum, and I think this has happened because I'm 6 inches taller now than when I played as a youth. Essentially, 95% of my tee shots leave the tee 5-10 degrees to the right of where they should, and then proceed to curl wildly to the right, meaning that when I'm playing on a hole that is anything other than a convenient right-hand dogleg, my "2nd shot" is a drop. It's not just te driver either, nor is it isolated to tee shots. Hybrid off the fairway does the same thing, and it happens with long irons too, though it's less noticable with wedges and the 1 or 2 shortest irons. At first I was trying to compensate for it because it is so consistent. I experimented with closing the club face, closing my stance (a friend's advice, that seems slightly counterintuitive to me, but I tried it anyway), and I even began aiming 30 degrees left of where I wanted to the ball to go, just to end up somewhere near the fairway, but clearly this isn't the right way to sort out what is obviously a major problem with my game. I tried concentrating on different aspects of a shot - changing grips (4 different ones), trying to concentrate on foot position, how much my hips are turning, which arm I'm doing most of the work with during the swing (I was using my right arm a bit too much at first, apparently), wrist action, elbow positions, left arm straightness at peak of backswing, keeping my head down, not looking up too early, weight distribution through the swing... but nothing was helping. And so I watching the golf on TV last week, paying attention to the pros' swings, and noticed their arm positions at setup seem to be pointing vertically downwards, whereas I think mine are usually at more of an angle with the vertical, so that if I were viewed from behind, there's a straight line through my arms and down the club shaft that would make a triangle with ground and the vertical down from my shoulders. I think what is happening is that because of this incorrect angle, at impact the face of the club is slicing through the ball in the way a table-tennis player might try to curl the ball, rather than the club face hitting on a straight plane through the ball. So, having spotted that I'm doing this, I've tried on the range to correct it, but does anyone have any exercises or advice for how to best retrain myself to swing properly? A couple of friends have started playing recently for the first time, but have been getting lessons, and they're already beating me regularly... and one of them even has slightly deformed arms that he can't straighten past an elbow angle of about 30 degrees from straight. I desperately need to sort this out, so I would be incredibly grateful for any help. Thanks in advance.