Mike Walker - swing coach

he Stack deserves a lot of credit for his recent success, but it came with its challenges.

- Michael Weston

How did Matt's quest for extra distance come about?

I remember watching him from the side of the 11th at Augusta one year. He was playing with Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas. Matt hits this unbelievable 7-wood into 20 feet, but Brooks and Justin are hitting 6-, 7-irons. That is hard to compete with. The stats guys said that if he could maintain his accuracy but gain ‘X’ amount of yards, he’d gain ‘X’ amount of shots per round. I knew of Sasho [MacKenzie] and we ended up spending a couple of days with him. The Stack deserves a lot of credit for his recent success, but it came with its challenges.

Can you elaborate on what some of those challenges have been?

Unfortunately, he started to get some neck discomfort. I was reluctant to change Matt’s pattern, so we didn’t do that. We had to adapt, which meant he ended up making accurate technical movements while doing the speed training with different weights (heavy and light). It’s not accurate to say that all of his recent success has been attributable to The Stack. However, he is now able to compete with the game’s best in terms of Strokes Gained off the tee. He’s not the longest, but he’s much longer than he was, and he’s very accurate.