Shallowing the Club...What does that really mean...and should it be a priority in my golf swing? There are hundreds of videos how to do this...Here are my thoughts...
I've never really understood today's teaching of "shallowing the downswing". I worked on that for years, before using the One Plane Swing, and found it difficult and fleeting. When you add this along with today's teaching of "hitting the slot", whatever that is, my progress was frustrating at best. For me, these two concepts are very subjective and difficult to wrap my mind around, much less try to add them into my swing!
Then I found the cure!… The One Plane Swing! If I just setup for impact and keep my swing
rotating on an axis, I would stay in one plane and hit great shots! No more thinking about
shallowing or hitting the slot...or any other mechanical swing thoughts. I just let the swing go
and the results simply occur.
Here is the founder of One Plane Golfers Facebook Group, Scott Groves:
"Once I setup, all I want to do is rotate my shoulders around my axis. Everything else is just going to happen the way it should. If I turn on my axis back and through and maintain light grip pressure, I will be on plane my whole swing! I was taught early by Herman Keiser that if I stayed on plane I would be a great ball striker. He was 100% right!
Scott Groves continued:
"A lot of modern instruction talks about taking the club up, then
shallowing in the downswing. Why would anyone want to do that unless you are more
worried about hitting it long? Golfers that are accurate will also be hyper consistent and
that's how I've always played."
I agree wholeheartedly. For me...I've spent a lot of time working on staying on ONE PLANE
throughout the swing. Like Scott, I've found it by simply turning around my axis. When I do
that, I stay on plane throughout the swing, with beautiful consistent ball striking. Absolutely no thoughts of "shallowing" or "hitting some kind of slot"…and like Scott says..."Everything else is just going to happen the way it should." Here I am swinging my driver on ONE PLANE!
Once I was comfortable with swinging on one plane....my focus turned to IMPACT! Here’s one of the top One Plane Swing instructors Kirk Junge:
"It is funny, but I very rarely even have to address the backswing in my teaching. Once we work on making impact great, the backswing turns out to be a non-issue. Plus if you look at the top players in the world they all have different backswings, yet all are the same at impact."
Here are four PGA Tour players illustrating how similar they all are at impact...At impact they all have their clubshaft angle on a straight line through their trail elbow. The great OPS player, Moe Norman, would often say..."Then why don't you start there at setup?"
In one of Kirk Junge’s latest videos he makes a statement while preparing to hit an iron shot.
“I'm trying to get my rhythm here…trying to think about impact and get it right...trying to get a feel for impact and not think about the backswing...it doesn't really matter that much...I'm thinking about making impact as good as I can!”
At times, as amateurs, we all get bogged down by swing mechanics. The How To’s of the internal swing structure. The grip, posture, stance, backswing, wrist position at the top, hitting the slot, keeping the lag, keeping our head still, and having a balanced follow through. These thoughts can be the death of a golf shot if they are our focus of thought during the swing! The beauty of the One Plane Swing is that it can FREE us of these mechanical thoughts in the middle of hitting a shot. Just another reason to use the One Plane Swing!
The One Plane Swing is simple…setup for impact, then just take it back on plane, and return it on plane…I agree with Kirk!
Here I am with my One Plane Swing...Not thinking about my backswing or downswing...Not thinking about "hitting the slot"...Not thinking about "shallowing my club"...Just letting my One Plane Swing happen while thinking only about my TARGET! Video of this swing is available in the OPG Blog Page...
**For more information on the One Plane Swing the One Plane Golfer eBook is available for sale on the homepage of this site. It's a beautifully illustrated description of the One Plane Swing and how to apply it to your game.
