My Post to an Instruction Blog

Go here to see context of this reply.

I first noticed the chambered nautilus in the golf swing way back in the 1980's. A strobe photo appeared on a golf instruction book that I was perusing. I cannot recall the title of the book right now. If anyone out there remembers, that would be great. It wasn't until reading Robert Prechter's book, The Elliot Wave Theory that I came to piece together a golf theory based on this aesthetic constant.

I believe that when the mind is completely clear, absent of any thought (be it a thought in a larval state or a thought as a full blown conceptual butterfly) ... free of all this ... then and only then can trust persist throughout the movement ... then and only then can the ball be seen in a pristine primordial state ... then and only then will the nautilus appear in the swing. All physical manipulations are worthwhile only in the context of the trust in which the tinkering occurs. Pure shots can be had in the stack and tilt context. Pure shots can be had in the conventional swing context. Pure shots can be had in the Moe Norman context. Nearly any manner of configuration can be successful if there is absolute trust in the motion as it is expressed.

A while back I had an extraordinary experience playing a round (or should I say "playing around") with the stack and tilt method. BTW I have never read The Golfing Machine, but I believe that the idea of the Stack and Tilt is derived from this material. Subsequently, I deluded my sentient self into believing that there was something to it. But here's the thing. It was not that the method was preferable to any other. It was simply that (for some reason) I fell into a spell of trust which, in that instance, allowed a pure expression of the motion to be borne out. Application of the method itself is not the answer. Finding a sense of trust that is not dependent on method is the answer. This is a high order primary key. Method and it's distractions is like putting your thumb somewhere on the flat plane of a ringing cymbal. The cymbal continues to vibrate outside of the place where you touch it ... but everything goes dead inside of it. The tension of consciousness is just like the thumb ... deadening the possibility of the pure strike. The key is to ring the cymbal without touching it ... the question is how we become the ringing cymbal from the Centre to the periphery and from the periphery to the Centre ... thus, facilitating a reciprocation and harmonization of interacting waves ... like the seeds of a sunflower. So I believe that the golden spiral is more than just observable ... it is experiential. In other words, when you know inside that you have "pured" it and the ball is sailing straight to the pin, a strobe photo of that particular swing would reveal a nautilus property.

I shudder to see what a strobe photo would look like if it were taken during the commencement of a shank or a topped shot. If the strobe picture were taken of an inexperienced golfer, twisted into knots, attempting to strike the ball, I don't believe the nautilus strobe effect would manifest itself. I believe you would still see a spiral ... but it would be truncated or distended ...evidence of an impure expression.

The bottom line is that we as golfers cannot create the golden swing we can only surrender to it and trust that it will create itself ... if we just allow it to happen! Therein lies the paradox of the game.

Taylor Spalding

www.goldengolf.com