Taylor Spalding makes radical shift to the Stack and Tilt golf method

Oct. 5, 2009 - PRLog -- After years of writing and publicly musing on the game of golf, Taylor Spalding has made the radical shift to the Stack and Tilt method. Spalding, author of http://www.goldengolf.com, all but endorses the method. He won’t officially endorse because he says he hasn’t reviewed the Stack and Tilt DVD’s. Nor has he ever read the Golfing Machine. “After seeing the commercials on the Golf Channel, I went to the internet and read a Golf Digest article from 2007. I began playing around with the method on the driving range on a Sunday night. By Monday afternoon, after performing brilliantly in a golf scramble, I was convinced.”

Why the sudden shift? Spalding lists three reasons for his shift in thinking. 1. Ease of adoption. 2. Elimination of physical discomfort. 3. The method reduces the need to perfectly converge aesthetic states with athletic coincidences into a pure distilled moment of swing.

When asked what he meant by reason number three, he said this, “Imagine that your center of gravity is represented by a tennis ball. This ball is lodged inside your body between your navel and the base of your spine. In the conventional swing, the “ball” moves off-center as the weight shifts to the back foot in the back swing. Then, in the transition to the down swing, the weight moves back to the forward foot and the “tennis ball” then returns to its original location as you make impact. Because you are moving from “peg to peg” (leg to leg), the center of the body is making an elliptical motion. In order to get the center back to the Center, the golfer needs a convergence of aesthetic and athletic sensibilities. In the Stack and Tilt method, the virtual tennis ball at the center of the body simply rotates upon itself. Because there is no weight shift, the “ball” never vacates its original location. The body does not have to scramble to find a way back to balance.” Aren’t you just jumping on the bandwagon? “No” he responds. “For years I was trying to explain the traditional swing as a completely natural event. To approach and settle into this naturalness, the golfer must address his temperament. He is required to excise the demons of attachment, fear, greed, ego, etc. There is so much de-construction necessary before the golfer can settle in to that pure moment of “no mind.” … all this in the effort to mitigate the difference between the ellipse and the circle. The Stack and Tilt method eliminates all this rumination. The golfer does not need the tirade of metaphysics to make clean contact.”

With regards the elimination of physical discomfort, Spalding says, “In the conventional swing, the body tries to minimize the elliptical tendencies of the center. To prevent a loss of control, the golfer must use the right hip joint (for the right-handed golfer) as a brace. This repetitive motion put tremendous strain on the ball and socket of the hip. Additionally, as the vertical center is moving off-center, the spine is also twisting and moving off-center. The Stack and Tilt method eliminates both of these physical discomforts.

As for the ease of adoption, Spalding says, “I have been aware of the Golfing Machine for many years now. In the early days of the internet, I used to argue with one of Homer Kelly’s (the author) early adopters in the golf newsgroups. He thought I was trying to steal and co-opt Kelly’s idea of the flail for my own purposes. The fact was that I had never read the Golfing Machine, and based on the paranoid arrogance of that one poster, I was determined to abstain from it forever. I was sure I could effect a change in the golfing public by leading them through a philosophical inquiry. The fact that I have been working with the flail concept for years may make it easier for me to adopt the method. But I think that the general golfing public, with a few simple instructions, will find that the transition to the method is very easy.”

Taylor Spalding is the pen name of J.J. Moore. He has been posting his thoughts on golf at http://www.goldengolf.com since 1996. He also posts videos at http://www.youtube.com/goldengolf.

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Golden Barefoot Golf (goldengolf.com) was established in 1996 as a web portal for speculative golf philosophy. The site is the self publishing effort of J.J. Moore, who writes from the perspective of literary invention Taylor Spalding, a recovering goof.