Architecture vs. Path: Why Tighter Golf is Not a "Swing Style"
Modern golf is filled with "swing styles" or "methods," each designed to produce a specific, repeatable path. David Leadbetter's A Swing is an excellent and popular example of this philosophy.
Tighter Golf is often compared to these models, but the comparison is fundamentally flawed. We are not a method for creating a path; we are a model for building a mechanism. Understanding this distinction is the key to understanding "alignment golf."
The "A Swing": A Corrective, Path-Centric Model
The A Swing is a corrective solution designed to solve the most common fault in amateur golf: the "over-the-top" slice. Its logic is easy to grasp:
- It prescribes a "V-Plane," where the golfer takes the club back steeply and "outside."
- From this position, the golfer is coached to "drop" or "shallow" the club onto an inside path for the downswing.
This steep-to-shallow sequence is a positional prescription—a prescribed shape intended to cure a path problem. It operates at the level of descriptive outputs, defining the what (the path) and how (the feel) the golfer should execute. Its "Prayer Grip," defined by visual cues like the number of visible knuckles, is a positional component designed to facilitate this desired path.
Tighter Golf: A Prescriptive, Geometric Model
Tighter Golf is an "alignment golf" model, which means it operates at the foundational level of prescriptive geometric inputs. We have no opinion on the path a golfer should "feel."
Instead, our entire focus is on the correct architectural assembly of the golfer's "precision mechanism" at setup.
We define the kinematic constraints and mechanical linkages required to build a stable, repeatable structure. The swing's path, in our model, is not the goal; it is the automatic, non-compensated result of this geometric architecture being set in motion.
The Core Difference: Patching a Flaw vs. Building the Blueprint
The conflict between these two philosophies is best seen in the grip.
- A positional model (like the A Swing) uses the grip as a feel-based component to help produce a desired path, often using relative visual cues.
- An alignment model (Tighter Golf) views the grip as a primary assembly procedure. It is not a "position" but a functional component designed to establish the mechanism's pivots and align the hands with absolute physical properties and non-negotiable biomechanical constraints.
The A Swing offers an effective method for correcting a faulty path. Tighter Golf provides a model to ensure that, once the mechanism is assembled, a faulty, compensated path is not geometrically possible.
They are not competing. They are simply operating on different levels: one is a patch for the software, the other is the blueprint for the hardware.