Why Titleist?

As a teaching professional I am not sought out by equipment companies offering me six figure endorsement deals. However, I do have the opportunity to receive equipment for my personal use as well as balls, gloves, shirts and hats and a nice big staff bag that makes me look like a tour player. If I play well in local Club Professional tournaments or if I win awards such as Teacher of the Year I am eligible for small monetary bonuses. These perks are about the same with each company so at the end of the day I am choosing to play a brand that I think is the best for my game and is also the best for the clients that I am working with on a daily basis. I am a Titleist Staff Member so I often ask myself the question "Why Titleist?".

Recently, I was surfing the web and came across some equipment counts provided by Darrell Survey. Darrell Survey is on the first tee at every PGA, LPGA, Champions Tour, Nationwide Tour and European Tour event. They count the type of equipment that each player is carrying that week and provide the results to the manufacturers and the general public. There are also counts done at every USGA event and at most major Club Professional events such as the National Club Professional Championship. I was amazed at how many players are trusting their game to Titleist. More importantly Titleist is leading the counts in events such as the US Amateur where no one is payed to play a certain brand, they are playing it because they believe it is the best.

After reading all of the results I believe that I once again I answered the question "Why Titleist?" and the answer is because the best players are trusting their livelihood on Titleist equipment and so will I. Below is a sampling of some of the results of equipment counts from 2007.

Titleist Golf Balls 158 Worldwide Wins
Nearest Competitor 25 Worldwide Wins

2007 US Amateur
Drivers 45%(1st)
Fairway Metals 46%(1st)
Irons 48%(1st)

2007 US Junior
Drivers 53%(1st)
Fairway Metals 47%(1st)
Irons 45%(1st)

2007 NCAA Champ.
Drivers 46%(1st)
Fairway Metals 47%(1st)
Irons 49%(1st)

2007 PGA Professional Championship
Drivers 49%(1st)
Fairway Metals 41%(1st)
Irons 48%(1st)

2007 YTD PGA Tour
Drivers 24%(2nd)
Fairways 16% (3rd)
Irons 22%(1st)
Wedges 43%(1st)
Putters 35%(1st)

So next time you are considering new equipment I strongly advise you to find a PGA Professional who can properly fit you for equipment and consider what the best players in the world are playing, it may just work for you to.

Stack and Tilt; Whats the Buzz About?

Over the past couple of months the big talk on the driving range is whether or not the “new tour swing”, Stack and Tilt is good for you or not. I feel that anything and everything involving the golf swing has been tried and analyzed millions of times and there is nothing new to the way the golf club should be swung. Each and every one of us has a slightly different way of interpreting the swing and of conveying our interpretations, but I feel that there is only one point in the golf swing that is important and that no one can argue about and that is impact.

If you watch any tour player hit an iron shot, their weight is moving on to the forward foot, the hips are slightly open to target, and the hands are slightly ahead of the club head. This position provides the best contact and that is not debatable. This position changes slightly with fairway woods and the driver primarily because we change ball position by moving it forward in our stance in order to promote an upward angle of attack. If we were to play the ball in the same place as our irons or further back we would never get the ball airborne. This brings us to the subject of Stack and Tilt.

The most important thing to remember about Stack and Tilt is that we have all learnt about it from a magazine, and the magazines goal is to sell as many copies as possible. So, writing an article that talked about the “new tour swing” that was not dramatically different than what we know and understand would not be very successful. If the article showed actual pictures of Aaron Baddely’s swing as opposed to posed pictures we would all see that he really is not doing anything dramatically different from norm.

The Stack and Tilt concept is to have majority of your weight on the forward foot with a straight back knee at the top of the backswing. This promotes the forward hip to be considerably lower. I am all for limited lateral movement in the lower body, but we have to remember that if we are going to rotate our upper body and get the club and hands over our right shoulder we are going to have moved our weight towards our back foot, since the club, hands and arms all have weight. Also, to encourage majority of our weight to finish on the forward foot we should have room to move in that direction. If we were to have majority of our weight on the front foot at the top of our swing in order to make solid contact we would have to add significant curve in the back (the old reverse C) in order to get the ball airborne, especially with long irons, fairways woods and the driver. Not only does this put extreme pressure on the lower back but it also forces our energy to be transferred away from the ball as opposed to through the ball. This is similar to asking a sprinter to setup in the starting block with no weight on the rear foot. They would have no leverage to push off. Same in the golf swing, if our weight is on the forward foot we have no ability to push off and transfer our weight through the ball.

At the end of the day, I feel that if you are trying to improve your iron play and produce more consistent contact then the concepts of Stack and Tilt are good, however you will have to produce a different swing in order to get the longer clubs airborne.

Keywords: Stack and Tilt, Aaron Baddely