Pete Finch – PGA Teaching Pro
If you've been around the game for any length of time, you will have heard the term 'swing path'. But not many people actually understand what it refers to. Swing path is the path that the club head takes through the point of impact. But it's a lot more complex than that once you start looking into the detail, because swing path is interlinked with plane, it is interlinked with angle of attack, and it is interlinked with club face angle. Swing path on its own will – a good swing path on its own will simply not produce good shots. Other factors have to be there at the same time.
Now, first of all, if you're looking to work on your swing path, you need to understand what your swing path is. Now generally speaking, you can have around three swing paths. Let's keep it simple. You can have a few more than that, but let's keep it simple. So, first of all, a swing path which many people will associate with their games is an outer wind swing path. So a path which travels from outside the target line moves across the ball, and then travels very quickly to the left of the target line. Now that is a path which is traveling from out to in. So it's out over the target line, and then inside the target line. The second one that you can have is an in-to-out swing path. Now an in-to-in – in-to-out swing path travels inside the target line to outside the target line. Now as our first path is associated with a slice and a fade, this swing path is associated with a hook and a draw. The last swing path that you can have is a straight swing path, which is by far the hardest to do. Even the very best professional golfers in the world generally will not have a neutral swing path. They will swing slightly out to in, or slightly in to out. A straight swing path shows that the club is traveling in a position where as you enter the point of impact, that club head is traveling very straight along the target line. And that is one of the hardest things to do. And it is one of the things that most people practice. So that is a very quick explanation of what swing paths are. Now, we're going to move onto how that affects the ball and affects the golf swing, and hopefully give you a bit of better understanding of how you can improve your game. 2016-10-05If you've been around the game for any length of time, you will have heard the term 'swing path'. But not many people actually understand what it refers to. Swing path is the path that the club head takes through the point of impact. But it's a lot more complex than that once you start looking into the detail, because swing path is interlinked with plane, it is interlinked with angle of attack, and it is interlinked with club face angle. Swing path on its own will – a good swing path on its own will simply not produce good shots. Other factors have to be there at the same time.
Now, first of all, if you're looking to work on your swing path, you need to understand what your swing path is. Now generally speaking, you can have around three swing paths. Let's keep it simple. You can have a few more than that, but let's keep it simple. So, first of all, a swing path which many people will associate with their games is an outer wind swing path. So a path which travels from outside the target line moves across the ball, and then travels very quickly to the left of the target line. Now that is a path which is traveling from out to in. So it's out over the target line, and then inside the target line.
The second one that you can have is an in-to-out swing path. Now an in-to-in – in-to-out swing path travels inside the target line to outside the target line. Now as our first path is associated with a slice and a fade, this swing path is associated with a hook and a draw.
The last swing path that you can have is a straight swing path, which is by far the hardest to do. Even the very best professional golfers in the world generally will not have a neutral swing path. They will swing slightly out to in, or slightly in to out. A straight swing path shows that the club is traveling in a position where as you enter the point of impact, that club head is traveling very straight along the target line. And that is one of the hardest things to do. And it is one of the things that most people practice.
So that is a very quick explanation of what swing paths are. Now, we're going to move onto how that affects the ball and affects the golf swing, and hopefully give you a bit of better understanding of how you can improve your game.
