Sand Trap Instruction Concepts - What's Changed in the Past Few Years?

[drmevo]

I’ve been mostly away from the site for a few years since I really got into fishing. This year I want to play more golf and get back into it a bit. When I first joined the site, it was (seemingly) all about Stack and Tilt. That fell out of favor, as I recall. Later, there were the 5 Simple Keys. I remember reading a lot about weight forward, feet flared out, deep hands, and probably a lot more I’m not thinking of right now. 
I’m curious - has much changed in the past few years? Have there been any interesting discoveries or changes to what was thought to be best practice? Concepts that have been abandoned over time? I’m not looking for advice or swing thoughts, I was really just wondering what the general current thinking is. Thanks! 

[woodzie264]

1 hour ago, drmevo said:

I’ve been mostly away from the site for a few years since I really got into fishing. This year I want to play more golf and get back into it a bit. When I first joined the site, it was (seemingly) all about Stack and Tilt. That fell out of favor, as I recall. Later, there were the 5 Simple Keys. I remember reading a lot about weight forward, feet flared out, deep hands, and probably a lot more I’m not thinking of right now. 
I’m curious - has much changed in the past few years? Have there been any interesting discoveries or changes to what was thought to be best practice? Concepts that have been abandoned over time? I’m not looking for advice or swing thoughts, I was really just wondering what the general current thinking is. Thanks! 

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[iacas]

Ignoring what I would say about your version of history (😉), I would say not much has changed noticeably but there’s been growth and new knowledge all the time.

[colin007]

I mean, I kinda get what he's saying...when was the last time Charlie Wi was mentioned? Lol

[drmevo]

1 hour ago, colin007 said:

I mean, I kinda get what he's saying...when was the last time Charlie Wi was mentioned? Lol

Am I crazy? Stack and tilt was all the rage around here back then (2010-ish)! I have the book to prove it. 😂

[dennyjones]

My old instructor around 2010,  told me to stay away from this Stack and Tilt site.   He said they'd send me down a dark path!  I'm learning and evolving so that is positive.  

 

[iacas]

1 hour ago, drmevo said:

Am I crazy? Stack and tilt was all the rage around here back then (2010-ish)! I have the book to prove it. 😂

We didn’t ever teach S&T like everyone else. Or like how it’s still taught.

S&T is still a good swing done way we taught it.

[boogielicious]

11 hours ago, drmevo said:

Am I crazy? Stack and tilt was all the rage around here back then (2010-ish)! I have the book to prove it. 😂

I went to a clinic that @iacas and Dave Wedzik held back then. They did not teach S&T per se and I had the S&T Book and video. They taught what became The 5 Simple Keys. A good S&T swing can have the 5SK. But S&T morphed into a very specific swing method.

[drmevo]

12 hours ago, iacas said:

We didn’t ever teach S&T like everyone else. Or like how it’s still taught.

S&T is still a good swing done way we taught it.

I don't doubt that, certainly not trying to knock S&T or the site, I just remember it being brought up and recommended a lot is all. 🙂  Perhaps it was a blip in the overall history of the site, but it was prevalent when I joined. 

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

I went to a clinic that @iacas and Dave Wedzik held back then. They did not teach S&T per se and I had the S&T Book and video. They taught what became The 5 Simple Keys. A good S&T swing can have the 5SK. But S&T morphed into a very specific swing method.

Makes sense. I remember it was often said that many (all?) good golfers used pieces of S&T without have a specifically "S&T swing." 5SK made more sense to me, in that rather than calling something good golfers are already doing part of a new specific swing theory, it identifies those things and explains why they're important. 

[ncates00]

27 minutes ago, drmevo said:

I don't doubt that, certainly not trying to knock S&T or the site, I just remember it being brought up and recommended a lot is all. 🙂  Perhaps it was a blip in the overall history of the site, but it was prevalent when I joined. 

Makes sense. I remember it was often said that many (all?) good golfers used pieces of S&T without have a specifically "S&T swing." 5SK made more sense to me, in that rather than calling something good golfers are already doing part of a new specific swing theory, it identifies those things and explains why they're important. 

I had a golfing machine instructor for a while out at Scott Hamilton’s academy out at Cartersville. I played pretty well for a while, but it got way too technical. Since then, I’ve gone back to a more free-flowing, move off the ball, vertical plane, less technical swing and have fared much better. 

[mchepp]

3 hours ago, drmevo said:

I don't doubt that, certainly not trying to knock S&T or the site, I just remember it being brought up and recommended a lot is all. 🙂  Perhaps it was a blip in the overall history of the site, but it was prevalent when I joined. 

Makes sense. I remember it was often said that many (all?) good golfers used pieces of S&T without have a specifically "S&T swing." 5SK made more sense to me, in that rather than calling something good golfers are already doing part of a new specific swing theory, it identifies those things and explains why they're important. 

I do remember for a period of time, this forum, and many others were discussing S&T. I believe that @iacas like most smart instructors studied it, found the good pieces and continued to evolve what he teaches. Most smart people do this.

I also feel that S&T was so popular on the forums because the hype at the time was very strong, but there was really only the Golf Digest article telling people about the "new" swing on the PGA Tour. With so little information we all went to forums to find out more. Then the schools started, then the book, and it has more or less reached a steady state now. I still see a few good instructors taking the good pieces and improving students. And to be fair it wasn't only Wi, Baddeley was another talked about.

Personally, I think Erik's ability to absorb information like this, take the good pieces and then help the rest of us is what makes this place so great. He can sniff out a waste of time incredibly fast.

[ncates00]

28 minutes ago, mchepp said:

good pieces

What are the good pieces of S&T that isn’t in any other method? I can’t think of any. And to me, the things that make S&T are not great for many people. Keeping my head still and my weight forward the whole swing had me hitting low draws very consistently but lacked distance and my game suffered. 

[drmevo]

5 minutes ago, ncates00 said:

What are the good pieces of S&T that isn’t in any other method? I can’t think of any. And to me, the things that make S&T are not great for many people. Keeping my head still and my weight forward the whole swing had me hitting low draws very consistently but lacked distance and my game suffered. 

I could be wrong but I don't think keeping your head "still" was part of S&T, or any reasonable golf swing instruction. It's obviously gotta move/turn/tilt to some degree, it just shouldn't be moving laterally a whole lot. 

[ncates00]

3 minutes ago, drmevo said:

it just shouldn't be moving laterally a whole lot. 

Hard to move laterally off the ball (which I think is a good move) without moving your head a bit. 

[mchepp]

1 hour ago, ncates00 said:

What are the good pieces of S&T that isn’t in any other method? I can’t think of any. And to me, the things that make S&T are not great for many people.

I think S&T was the first to say a few things that most instruction did not. They were the first (that I saw anyways) to change what we think of as fundamentals. Forever before everyone considered fundamentals to be grip, stance, grip pressure, etc and they were the first to say no, there isn't a strong commonality among good players. They were the first to refer to extension and flexion so that we were discussing human movement properly. Another was, popular instruction for my childhood was keeping the flex in your trail knee. They showed that was nonsense and I think that has been adopted almost universally now.

You could argue that most of this was Mac's material, but they were the first to be discussing it openly. Sure you could argue that all of this was already known, but they did question things that popular instruction of the time considered fact. And there were a number of things they were right about.

1 hour ago, ncates00 said:

Keeping my head still and my weight forward the whole swing had me hitting low draws very consistently but lacked distance and my game suffered. 

Did you work on things specifically recommended by a S&T instructor ideally in person? Hard to know why it didn't work for you, but I saw many students at S&T camps hit very long towering golf shots.

[ncates00]

8 minutes ago, mchepp said:

Did you work on things specifically recommended by a S&T instructor ideally in person? Hard to know why it didn't work for you, but I saw many students at S&T camps hit very long towering golf shots.

Yeah I took lessons in Cartersville with the Scott Hamilton academy. I shot consistently in the low 80s but never broke 80 with this method. Keeping still and weight left tends to slow down speed and lower dynamic loft and loft angle. It was pretty consistent, and I struck it pretty well, but once I got into longer clubs, I felt like I left a lot on the table in terms of speed and distance. 
 

My old tendencies were to be flat and inside on the backswing and then save it by jumping a lot. So the S&T stuff helped a lot for a while. Eventually, I got inside again, and he started using noodles to make me feel over the top. Problem is: I actually started coming way over the top. That ruined my golf swing, and I never went back. I bought a foresight simulator and went on my own and rebuilt my swing to be more free flowing, to move off the ball laterally more, and have a more vertical swing plane. Playing the best golf I’ve ever played. 

[mchepp]

14 minutes ago, ncates00 said:

Playing the best golf I’ve ever played. 

This is what it is all about right here!

[iacas]

2 hours ago, ncates00 said:

What are the good pieces of S&T that isn’t in any other method? I can’t think of any.

Oh boy.

They said a number of things that went against what a lot of people were commonly taught. Their ten or twelve words hadn't ever really been put together like that.

I think the "hands in" pair of words may have ultimately caused more problems than it solved, as did "weight forward" (this is one piece we NEVER really taught like they did/do)…

2 hours ago, ncates00 said:

Keeping my head still and my weight forward the whole swing had me hitting low draws very consistently but lacked distance and my game suffered. 

I'd suggest you weren't necessarily doing it "correctly."

2 hours ago, ncates00 said:

Hard to move laterally off the ball (which I think is a good move) without moving your head a bit. 

PGA Tour players move their heads backward less than an inch from setup to the top of the backswing.

That's years old and only ever had one video.

Post your video. See what people think.

58 minutes ago, mchepp said:

I think S&T was the first to say a few things that most instruction did not.

There you go.

58 minutes ago, mchepp said:

They were the first to refer to extension and flexion so that we were discussing human movement properly.

Not quite true, and they overstated how much the spine tilted and extended quite a bit.

45 minutes ago, ncates00 said:

Keeping still and weight left

I'd say you weren't doing it "right" if you were doing those things.

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Look, to the "S&T love" that people seem to think we have here:

Everyone involved in the latter topic can attest to the fact that it had been about a year in the making. We were "in" early on S&T, and "out" much sooner than many/most. We did more to show what was "bad" about S&T than arguably anyone else, too.