I've been a single axis golfer for 8 years. I improved a lot with it but it never feels very natural. It takes a lot of work by me to keep from losing it. More work than I have time or inclination for.

This year I began learning to work the ball, and found I had an affinity for the open stance of the fade. It just felt right. But I didn't want to play a fade all the time. I noticed that some of my fade attempts just went straight, meaning a slight pull. Which is to be expected, I suppose. But those swings seemed easy to repeat, with very nice contact, divots, and ball flight. Which made me think about getting them onto the target line.

I found that instead of swinging along the toe line, I could pretty easily swing inside along the target line. And hit the ball straight at the target. I searched on "open stance" on the SA forum, and found a few folks over the years said it was easier to swing inside from an open stance than from square. "Nonsense" was the reply.

Well, I think it is easier. The reason is that from square, it's easily within your physical limits to swing either outside-in, square, or inside-out. But from an open stance, if you know you want to swing on the target line, there are physical limits which help you do so. You can't hardly take it back more inside than you want to. So you just pull it back "inside", and if your stance is open the right amount, you will be on the target line. At least that's what I'm seeing.

The other benefit I'm seeing is that it lets your lower body work as it wants to. In SA, that's another source of error. Too much lower body, and you hit a push-slice. Too little, and you hit a pull-hook. But in this open stance swing, the arms are already "trapped" or "stuck" behind you. So you hit a push/block, straight at the target. The lower body gets to do its thing, and it matches up with the setup. Also, the lower body drive helps keep the hands ahead of the clubhead. It would take some kind of crazy swing move to get the clubhead ahead of the hands with this swing. You'd almost have to fall over backwards? Or hit it dead left? Or both?

In both the swing path and the lower body activity, it is as if half of the possible errors are virtually eliminated. I'd be interested in your comments on my thinking. This is just something I've only been trying a short time. I just ordered TGSotF on Amazon. Maybe I should just do what I'm doing and not try to analyze it, lol. It's a sickness.