Is Your Swing on Plane, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Is Your Swing on Plane, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

So, a great golf swing will always work better if it's a good golf swing and it's on a good plane. So to help you understand plane, here's a little simple exercise I've set up. My shaft laying on the floor here is going to point to an imaginary target out in the distance; so that would be my ball to target line. I'm also going to take my driver here, but I'm not going to grip it like a driver, I'm actually going to grip it down, almost like a six iron. So I'm making the club relatively short so I've got a lot of grip that I'm not holding. And then, I'd take a set up reflective of what it would be like with a six iron and I start my back swing. And the club should sit directly on top of my hands here and then as I come back to halfway with the wrist hinge, my left hand sits in front of my chest. And now I'd like to see that the shaft angle, and particularly the butt end of the golf club, should point at my target line. And effectively, the butt end should run down the target line back into the distance this way, back down the target line this way, and ultimately point at the target this way in the distance to here.

So, there's my set up, checkpoint back, checkpoint up. Now look in the mirror to see whether the shaft angle here points down towards the butt end--sorry--the butt end here points down towards the club that I've laid on the floor. Now, if you've got a mirror behind you, you'll actually find this exercise a little bit easier. Alternatively, lift it up and check, maybe even put a tee peg in the bottom of the golf club sticking out to make that exercise look easy for you. So, gripping down just like a six iron, swing it up, check the butt end is on plane. This would be described as too flat a swing, so fanning the golf club too flat would be a problem; picking the golf club too steeply so the shaft points vertically down towards my feet, that would be too step and a problem also. So I've got checkpoint one, checkpoint two. Let's make sure the shaft is on plane, up, down, run the butt end of the golf club down my target line to a good impact position. So if you can use a mirror to work on swing plane that will really improve the consistency and accuracy of your golf shots.

 2012-04-05

So, a great golf swing will always work better if it's a good golf swing and it's on a good plane. So to help you understand plane, here's a little simple exercise I've set up. My shaft laying on the floor here is going to point to an imaginary target out in the distance; so that would be my ball to target line. I'm also going to take my driver here, but I'm not going to grip it like a driver, I'm actually going to grip it down, almost like a six iron. So I'm making the club relatively short so I've got a lot of grip that I'm not holding. And then, I'd take a set up reflective of what it would be like with a six iron and I start my back swing. And the club should sit directly on top of my hands here and then as I come back to halfway with the wrist hinge, my left hand sits in front of my chest. And now I'd like to see that the shaft angle, and particularly the butt end of the golf club, should point at my target line. And effectively, the butt end should run down the target line back into the distance this way, back down the target line this way, and ultimately point at the target this way in the distance to here.

So, there's my set up, checkpoint back, checkpoint up. Now look in the mirror to see whether the shaft angle here points down towards the butt end–sorry–the butt end here points down towards the club that I've laid on the floor. Now, if you've got a mirror behind you, you'll actually find this exercise a little bit easier. Alternatively, lift it up and check, maybe even put a tee peg in the bottom of the golf club sticking out to make that exercise look easy for you. So, gripping down just like a six iron, swing it up, check the butt end is on plane. This would be described as too flat a swing, so fanning the golf club too flat would be a problem; picking the golf club too steeply so the shaft points vertically down towards my feet, that would be too step and a problem also. So I've got checkpoint one, checkpoint two. Let's make sure the shaft is on plane, up, down, run the butt end of the golf club down my target line to a good impact position. So if you can use a mirror to work on swing plane that will really improve the consistency and accuracy of your golf shots.