Golf Swing Plane - What Is It (Video) - by Pete Styles
Golf Swing Plane - What Is It (Video) - by Pete Styles

I think quite often golf instructors and golf analysts on the TV can be guilty of using terminology and expressions that we understand, but maybe the average club golfer doesn’t necessarily fully understand and here is one of them for you, it’s the swing plane. You probably heard a lot about it, you might understand what a swing plane is, but if you don’t understand what a swing plane is and how it can affect your or shots in your game, hopefully this little next miniseries of videos is really going to help you get a handle on what the swing plane is.

Now, the difficulty with swing plane is nobody can quite agree exactly what it is, where it should be and it is kind of contentious issue and also with different sized golfers and different golf clubs the swing plane can change, so it’s not exactly a fixed position, it can move around and change a little bit, but this is my best sort of explanation and understanding of what a swing plane is. I’ll set up to you from this way around. Swing plane is always viewed from down the line. Swing plane is going to be the angle in the position that the club is swung on from the down the line view. Now, some would argue that the swing plane is the shaft angle here extended around behind me and some would argue that the swing plane is the position from the golf ball to the left shoulder and carrying on upward, so it would be more up here. So if you could imagine that we join those two lines together, so we had one line that came out the bottom of me and around here and the other line came from the ball to my shoulder to up there, I would consider that window there, that window is an acceptable window to swing the club into, that’s an acceptable swing plane. Now, if we don’t swing exactly on the correct swing plane we turn steeper and flatter as those two variables, so some of it swinging slightly above the swing plane would be swinging steeper and some of it swinging below the swing plane we would term slightly flatter and there are variables within that as well. Now, the other consideration is that the two different ends of your bag, the short clubs and the long clubs are going to have different swing planes simply because with the driver I’m stood further away from the golf ball, so now the line between the golf ball and my shoulder is actually much flatter angle and much flatter plane and if I take a wedge I stand nearer, the line between the golf ball and my shoulder now is a lot steeper, so my swing plane with the wedge is much steeper. Now, as a golfer you don’t want to get too riled up into this because actually the difference of the swing plane is not something I really consider during my swing with that club. I don’t think a wedge and think I must swing steeper. I don’t take a drive and think I must swing flatter because my set up will do that. If I get nearer to the ball I’ll be more up, as I get further away from the ball I’ll be more around. So don’t get too sort of wound up about swing planes and swing positions unless your swing plane is a fault and these next series of videos are really going to help you identify those faults. 2016-04-22

I think quite often golf instructors and golf analysts on the TV can be guilty of using terminology and expressions that we understand, but maybe the average club golfer doesn’t necessarily fully understand and here is one of them for you, it’s the swing plane. You probably heard a lot about it, you might understand what a swing plane is, but if you don’t understand what a swing plane is and how it can affect your or shots in your game, hopefully this little next miniseries of videos is really going to help you get a handle on what the swing plane is.

Now, the difficulty with swing plane is nobody can quite agree exactly what it is, where it should be and it is kind of contentious issue and also with different sized golfers and different golf clubs the swing plane can change, so it’s not exactly a fixed position, it can move around and change a little bit, but this is my best sort of explanation and understanding of what a swing plane is.

I’ll set up to you from this way around. Swing plane is always viewed from down the line. Swing plane is going to be the angle in the position that the club is swung on from the down the line view. Now, some would argue that the swing plane is the shaft angle here extended around behind me and some would argue that the swing plane is the position from the golf ball to the left shoulder and carrying on upward, so it would be more up here.

So if you could imagine that we join those two lines together, so we had one line that came out the bottom of me and around here and the other line came from the ball to my shoulder to up there, I would consider that window there, that window is an acceptable window to swing the club into, that’s an acceptable swing plane.

Now, if we don’t swing exactly on the correct swing plane we turn steeper and flatter as those two variables, so some of it swinging slightly above the swing plane would be swinging steeper and some of it swinging below the swing plane we would term slightly flatter and there are variables within that as well.

Now, the other consideration is that the two different ends of your bag, the short clubs and the long clubs are going to have different swing planes simply because with the driver I’m stood further away from the golf ball, so now the line between the golf ball and my shoulder is actually much flatter angle and much flatter plane and if I take a wedge I stand nearer, the line between the golf ball and my shoulder now is a lot steeper, so my swing plane with the wedge is much steeper.

Now, as a golfer you don’t want to get too riled up into this because actually the difference of the swing plane is not something I really consider during my swing with that club. I don’t think a wedge and think I must swing steeper. I don’t take a drive and think I must swing flatter because my set up will do that. If I get nearer to the ball I’ll be more up, as I get further away from the ball I’ll be more around.

So don’t get too sort of wound up about swing planes and swing positions unless your swing plane is a fault and these next series of videos are really going to help you identify those faults.