New Tour Swing 3

To keep the spine over the ball, which is the goal, the player has to tilt to the left during the backswing. Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett

The New Tour Swing by Peter Morrice on the teaching of Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett (June issue) continues to generate a ton of mail. Other readers have pointed out the similarities to instruction by Hogan and Percy Boomer. David Friedman of Bedford, Mass., also sees the swing as similar to "The Lever Swing" option in Mike Adams' "The Laws of Golf" and to Jim Hardy's One-Plane swing.

Clearly both Jim Hardy and Plummer/Bennett advocate a centered, stacked swing. Hardy’s emphasis is more on the look and feel of the swing as seen from behind and down the line (shoulder tilt matching arm swing at top) and what one needs to do especially with the right elbow and pronation to keep on plane. The Plummer/Bennet focus seems to be on the straight "stackup" as seen from the front of the golfer with very appropriate focus on making the bottom of the arc hit the bottom of the ball.

One clear difference seems to be Plummer/Bennett advocating the need to straighten the right leg to get the right hip high enough as well as allowing the left shoulder to go low enough. I wonder if this is a critical necessity for all builds. I think Tiger could stay perfectly stacked without straightening his right leg and perhaps would achieve even more coil and power that way.

Friedman asks a very perceptive question about the photographs in the article.

It seems to me that the equivalent frame in the actual swing series is quite different from the posed swing on page 122, which exhibits not only the feel but the actuality of a reverse pivot. (Tilt towards target) My guess is that the picture on page 122 is a practice swing to the top to "feel" the back tilting which perhaps is needed to keep the center of the body "stacked" during an actual swing. Hardy often mentions the need to "overcook" a swing thought as part of the learning process.

The answer, David, is yes, according to managing editor Roger Schiffman who oversees instruction. That photo is posed and was exaggerated slightly to convey the feeling of that position.

—Bob Carney