12PB
You wrote-: "Not sure how that drill encourages the base of the neck to be still but whatever . . . ."
I don't think that you understand why he proposes that drill.
I think that many beginner golfers tend to reverse pivot. One cause is a tendency to "fixedly" keep the head still while swaying the pelvis right-laterally (as demonstrated by Brady Riggs). That causes the upper torso to sway to the left in order to keep in balance. All these lower and upper torso motions are lateral swaying motions without any rotary component.
What both BM and BR are saying is that one needs to rotate the pelvis during the backswing. I believe that the natural result will be the production of a reverse K position - as previously described. Therefore, a golfer must have the distinct feeling that his upper torso is slanted to the right. BM was presumably promoting that exaggerated drill so that a beginner golfer would get the "feel" of how the upper torso slant-rotates to the right when the pelvis rotates 45 degrees back. That doesn't mean that a golfer should have that amount of right slant-rotation of the upper torso in his "real swing". I think that it is better to minimise the slant-rotation of the upper torso so that it doesn't move the head back more than 1-3". I believe that any unnecessary movement of the head or upper swing center is a disadvantage because it means that the golfer has to move back again in the downswing.
It is possible to keep the head back and not move it forward to where it was at address and still hit the ball well. Tiger Woods does that - see next image.
Note that his head moved down-and-back in the downswing. I think that it doesn't affect his swing because his upper swing center (blue dot) remains in the "correct" position.
I am not at all promoting any unnecessary movement of the head. My favorite swings are of golfers who keep their head stationary despite acquiring a reverse-K position at the end of the backswing.
Here are two examples.
1) Mike Finney. (requires Applet to view).
http://homepage.mac.com/brianmanzell...ver05front.mov
2) Anthony Kim
The first video shows that he gets a lot of rightwards slant-rotation of his upper torso by the end of the backswing. Also, one can learn a lot about spine movements by watching that second view. Note how his mid-upper thoracic spine gets torqued by his large shoulder turn and how its verticalizes his mid-upper thoracic spine, and therefore allows him to keep his head stationary. That is optimum from my perspective. He doesn't allow his head to move as far rightwards as BM.
Jeff.
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