The Stack and Tilt Swing, by Plummer and Bennett

[iacas]

Discuss the Stack and Tilt golf swing, popularized by Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett.

[907golfer12]

Quick question about this, what is the best place to find information on the Stack and Tilt swing, because I would like to try it out.

[$2 Nassau]

I actually saw an infomercial on S&T; over the weekend. Apparently they are now selling videos on how to learn this swing.

907golfer: http://www.golfdigest.com/instructio...ndtilt1_gd0706

[mm6840]

I actually saw an infomercial on S&T; over the weekend. Apparently they are now selling videos on how to learn this swing.

Golfdigest is not up-to-date

No other web resources (only interview with Bennet http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...deoID=37013715 ) which confirms up-to-late Golfdigest articles regards,

[907golfer12]

Thank you, I will check that out. Also tonight I am going to the local Barnes & Noble to look for a book on it.

[$2 Nassau]

I just came across this PDF file regarding S&T.; Seems like a nice little reference to have.

http://www.emeraldbaygolfclub.com/vi...ackandtilt.pdf

I think I've taken some parts of this swing and used it to my advantage. My swing is nowhere near a S&T; but I have bought into the fact that there needs to be some lateral hip movement toward the target of the downswing. I just don't understand how people say they that they do not slide their hips AT ALL during the swing. I've watched countless vids of tour players, they all have some degree of hip slide toward the target on the downswing. I dunno, maybe I'm way off, but contact, ball flight, distance and accuracy are all better when I allow for a little natural movement towards the target. How the heck can you get your weight to your front foot any other way?

[titaniummd]

I tried this swing last year but it was so different from my stances for chipping, pitching and hitting woods. It lead to inconsistency and may have been the trigger for me getting the $hank$ for 6 months.

[Tye]

I tried this swing after seeing a 2 minute piece on Charlie Wi's swing on last weeks PGA event broadcast...The first 25 balls I hit at the driving range were with the 'stack and tilt' were as good, if not better, than I've ever hit....highly compressed etc.
This swing makes the ball a stationary target....very easy to strike the ball well and it is very easy to repeat your swing ! That's the beauty of it....

Give it a try ..... it works !

[Richie3Jack]

I just came across this PDF file regarding S&T.; Seems like a nice little reference to have.

Hip slide on tour players because it's extremely difficult to just purely rotate them. But for optimal performance, the hips should just rotate and not slide. The most accurate and consistent striker of the ball is the Iron Byron and other swing machines. It's accurate because of the way it's engineered, not because it's a machine. If they designed the machine to have lateral movement, it would be nowhere as accurate.

The problem with the hip slide is twofold: 1. The more your hips slide, the less time they have to rotate properly. 2. Hip slide causes the spine angle to tilt backwards. When the spine angle tilts backwards, that naturally opens the clubface. There's a lot of things I disagree with on the stack and tilt, so I haven't gotten into studying it very much. But I'm guessing this lateral movement on the downswing was studied from watching Hogan who is really one of the last people you want to learn from. Hogan's backswing was flat, which closes the clubface at the top of the swing. Originally Hogan just rotated the hips on the downswing (which is proper) and that's why he struggled with hooks early on in his career. It wasn't until later on when Hogan started with a massive hip slide that his spine angle tilted backwards, opening up the clubface. Essentially, Hogan was countering one flaw with another flaw. That's hard to do and Hogan needed tremendous hand/eye coordination and also practiced more than anybody to groove that swing. Moe Norman was far more accurate than any stack and tilt golfer and he certainly didn't make weight shifts or a lateral movement on the downswing. Instead, Moe was perfectly on the swing plane on the downswing and perfectly maintained his spine angle which made him so accurate and consistent. 3JACK

[Tye]

All the conjecture etc. is interesting...but most golfers are interested in results and no matter where the different aspects of the Stack and Tilt came from ...it works!...and is far easier to have a repeatable swing using it than the ..so called 'modern' swing and the consistent solid/compressed contact is addictive. Flaws are simply relative to the viewers frame of reference(swing philosophy). If the swing produces good results and easily......allot of golfers are going to check it out....and that's just what's happening right now.

[Yuraway]

There is a lot more to the S&T; than the Golf Digest article. Rec'd my dvd set a few days ago. There are 4 dvd's, 1. The Stack and Tilt Swing 2. The Stack and Tilt Swing in depth 3. Analyzing your shot 4. The Short Game. I've watched the whole set twice now and I pick up something new each time. Plummer and Bennett are not in the hunt for any Academy Awards but the info is great!

[TommyD69]

I finally saw an infomercial about the stack and tilt. The sound was off, and at first I thought I was watching some kind of analysis for a golfer with the classic "reverse pivot"...

I was always told to rotate (like swinging inside a barrel), but I don't like that idea either. There has to be some kind of lateral movement when you shift your weight. Other wise, you will just reverse pivot.

It doesn't really matter in the end what your swing does or looks like, as long as you can repeat it.

That's the key

[bigoak]

I've switched to Stack and Tilt. I still am having trouble with the longer clubs but I hit the short and mid irons much much better. It's not a reverse pivot but it does move forward in the lower body. It's crazy but I have fewer "over the top" strikes when stacking.

3 years ago I went with the Moe Norman thing and ruined my whole season. My partner screamed at me to stop and go back but the only way was to winter out the season and restart the old swing in the spring.

[jcrew]

My swing is anything but stack and tilt but I do keep in mind the idea of stacking your weight over your center a little more. When I have too much lateral movement, it can often get outside my right foot and I can get stuck on my right foot and make extremely inconsistent contact. Whether or not I have a lot of lateral movement or not, when I make myself feel like I have almost no lateral movement and have stacked my weight over my center instead of shifted it towards my right foot, I hit the ball best.

[NorCalGolfer]

those DVD's are like sedatives but I like the stack and tilt method. certainly not with the driver though. i don't care what they say it just doesn't feel right to me having that steep of a downswing with a driver.

[Diggitydog]

“My name is Diggitydog and I’m a Swing Snob.” Well I used to be, but it's been over a year since I switched from my "Leadbetter" style swing to the controversial Stack and Tilt golf swing. The reason I switched was the discovery I made of hitting golf shots more consistently. I used to think there was only one proper way to swing a golf club. I was a "swing snob". I have changed my thinking. I believe there are many proper ways to swing a golf club. Many examples are on tour, Ben Curtis / Jim Furyk / Fred Couples / Colin Montgomerie / Steve Elkington / Tiger Woods....the list is as long as there are players. Many different swings and all are successful in their own way. If you are struggling with consistency using your current swing try Stack and Tilt. I did and it worked fabulously. People who complain about the swing not working or have mediocre results did not implement S&T; properly. I've hit many balls with Stack and Tilt and I've hit, without exaggeration, the purest shots of my life over the past year. I won't lie though; I've struggled at times when I am not executing the swing as I’ve learned it. I've ordered the DVD's because honestly I just want a solid reference beyond the GD article to work with when my results are not what I know they can be. I also can agree with S&T; critics when they say that Golf Digest articles show poor conventional swing positions, and I also see some of the tour players not exactly executing the swing as they’ve demonstrated / described in their articles. Those things make the swing easier to disregard for the critics but at the end of the discussion grooves meet dimples and RESULTS are all that matter.

People who are disagreeing with the theory are obviously free to do so. If you are shooting scores that you are pleased with, don't struggle with consistency then don't switch.

I've moved from being a "swing snob" to having an open mind and my golf time is so much easier as I don't have to be swinging "perfectly" to play a good round. Refute it all you want but Stack and Tilt works, even if you don't like the theory. I think of it like religion. How can more than one theory be correct? Religion is not so flexible, luckily in golf there is more than one version of “correct”. There is no swing that will give you a perfect result every time. Not possible. That’s why we play. You cannot mix the theory of Stack and Tilt with much of the current conventional swing theory. You must commit and believe in the results of the golf shots. That will be your biggest challenge if you switch. Remember this: The ball doesn't lie. A properly executed Stack and Tilt swing will produce an efficient strike on the golf ball from the lob wedge to the driver. The problem with people carving the swing up saying “it didn't work for them” is that the swings haven’t been executed properly.

Mentally I made a huge decision, at the time, to switch to a new swing that is so radical compared to what I had been taught. If you’re a computer guy it’s like switching from PC to Mac. They both get the job done, just in different ways. More people use PC's than Mac but those who use Mac's can't understand why the entire world doesn't use them. That's how I feel about Stack and Tilt. It’s not an easy decision to throw away what you’ve invested in the conventional swing. You must think of it differently. Your swing is a journey and committing to a new theory is a step in that journey. If you commit to the Stack and Tilt theory I am convinced it will be a step forward. It’s hard to listen to the critics say things like “Stack and Tilt is not a good swing it is good for 7, 8 and 9 irons.” Because those guys are supposed to know, but just because Johnny Miller and David Leadbetter don’t like the swing doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. It’s hard to listen to swing snobs ask you questions like. “Have you always done a reverse pivot?”

Believe and commit. Stack and Tilt works, and when you pump the ball down the middle, pick up the tee before the ball lands and put the driver back in the bag all day long they'll want to do a reverse pivot too!

[JaY_B]

Stack and Tilt is not a reverse pivot as your weight stays on your forward side on the down swing.

On the backswing the feeling is moving in to your left side, although in reality you are just staying very centred.

Stack and Tilt is quite big on the European Tour, on the range at the European Open (London Club, where I was working) a large number of players were working on getting more left sided on their back swing, there definitely is something good about this technique.

[Yuraway]

I finally saw an infomercial about the stack and tilt. The sound was off, and at first I thought I was watching some kind of analysis for a golfer with the classic "reverse pivot"...

I'm really lovin' this swing Tommy. Get into it a bit more and you will see it has nothing to do with reverse pivoting.