“Casting” is a swing fault that occurs when the player throws the clubhead down toward the ball from the top of the backswing. This generally results in one of two effects: First, the player may hit the ground well behind the ball, resulting in a “fat” shot. Or second, subconsciously realizing that they’re going to strike the ground, the golfer pulls up, resulting in a “thin” shot.  Either way, the golfer is losing power and distance.

The PGA of America site has an article with tips on curing the “casting” swing fault.

When your ball is is deep rough around the green, the secret to escaping is to have your club make contact with as little grass as possible. That means you need to set up for a steep downswing.

With sand wedge in hand, set up with the ball further back in your stance than normal. Open the clubface and aim to the right of the target. Shift about 60% of your weight on your leading leg. Flex your knees to keep the weight low. Holding onto the grip more tightly than usual, take the club up steeply, cocking the wrists early.

All of this will promote the steep downswing you need to keep the grass from grabbing the face and hosel.

It’s likely that you will need only about a 3/4 swing to get the job done. Hit down sharply and hard. Keep a tight grip to prevent the grass from grabbing the hosel and closing the club face.

The steep, sharply hit downswing will make the ball pop out with some spin, fly high and land softly on the green.

The thing you most want to avoid is bringing the club in low or flat. When it hits the grass, this will cause you to top the ball and send it flying across the green to the deep rough on the other side.

I was surprised to learn that Mike Weir has joined Aaron Baddeley as a disciple of the “stack and tilt” method that’s been working its way through the golf magazines.

The central idea of Plummer and Bennett’s teaching is, well, that the golfer shouldn’t move his or her centre, thereby staying “stacked” over the ball and even tilted toward the target. Weir said in a telephone conference call last Monday that there’s no weight transfer to the back foot during the swing. The swing, he said, takes place in a tight circle, which should generate less room for error and more power and efficiency.

“As you stand there, the club’s on an incline, and you swing the club on an incline, looking down,” Bennett said last spring, a binder full of photos of top golfers from the past 100 years at various positions opened in front of him on a table. “It’s really moving on a circle. If you maintain a central axis, and move the club in a circle, the first thing is that the club hits the circle in the same spot every time.”

Therein, he said, lies the consistency of the strike. Move the centre of the circle, anywhere, and trouble ensues. Weir couldn’t prevent himself from what he called “drifting” off the ball, which he’s now managed to limit.

Its an interesting theory, and creators Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett say that they’ve got the photos to prove that it’s the method used by every great ball striker.

But I don’t believe it. If Jack Nicklaus, Sam Snead,  Ben Hogan and others really were using the stack and tilt, I’d think that at least one of them would have realized it and written about it. And I think that particularly true about Nicklaus, who I think was as aware of his own swing as anyone who ever played.

The BBC has a nice animated lesson on how to get your ball out of the dreaded plugged lie. The key is a steep line of attack and to remember to accelerate through the shot

Here’s some good golf advice: When in doubt, club up. The odds of an amateur hitting the perfect shot that takes your eight iron 150 yards are pretty slim.

During last weekend’s Wachovia, I caught a side by side swing comparison of Tiger and Vijay. When I saw it, the sequence immediately stuck me as a perfect example of Jim Hardy’s One Plane and Two Plane swing concepts. Tiger is the one planer, keeping his lower half still, while winding his upper body in a huge arc. Vijay stands in the two planer’s inverted K, and twists his hips to keep up with his shoulders. Tiger finishes standing straight; Vijay ends in a “C”.

In his book, Hardy takes pains to emphasize that both swing types are perfectly legitimate (although he does favor the one plane slightly), and that great champions have used both methods.

You can see the differences when you watch the video below:

The online version of Golf Tips Magazine has some good advice on improving your putting: focusing on a spot just ahead of your ball, rather than on the ball itself. This helps keep you from pulling up through your stroke.