Shallowing

One of the debates going on in the golf instruction world has to do with how we visualize or picture shallowing the club. Do we want to try and lay the club down as much as possible? Or is that not necessary to play good golf? What has worked/not worked for everyone out there? Let me know below!

I just can't manage the upper body pivot to shallow the shaft (Tech #1). This causes my right shoulder to go out toward the ball too soon and I then swing outside in. Instead, I have to feel that the arms go out and drop first (Tech #2) and then I rotate to get neutral path.

An intent i sometimes use is to get my hands away from my trail shoulder as fast as possible, I.e., by straightening the right arm.

Another instructor suggested 1m+ viewers saw his video that suggested you should take the club to the top and then literally get the feeling of shallowing by letting go and dropping the club on the ground behind you as you start down.

CR

I think we should begin by distinguishing among a set of different but related issues: what gets flattened? How best to flatten? What is the purpose of flattening? The general view as to the first and third questions is that the answer is that the purpose is to improve ball striking and that what gets flattened is the shaft. it lays down. So now the questions are: why would flattening the shaft in transition improve ball striking, which presumably requires improving impact: so the question really is why does flattening the shaft improve impact?

The answer is that on its own, flattening does not improve impact. So flattening was be matched with other movements or it must encourage or cause other movements that in fact improve impact. One familiar view is that laying the shaft down (some) encourages body rotation through the downswing which in turn lowers face closure rate and increases reliability of strike in several ways. But... flattening by simply letting gravity work on the club head to tip it down and thus behind the golfer in transition, opens the face relative to the arc; and an open club face invites a stall and a handsy release that is likely to increase the closure rate.

On its own, there are virtues to having the hands/arms in front of the body and the club behind and to the inside of the hands because from that position, if the face is slowly closing to become squarer to the arc as it approaches impact, the golfer can drive the bulk of the downswing through rotation, securing consistent low point and face control with relatively slower rates of clubface closure. Two obvious points then: the point of shallowing the shaft in transition is that it sets in motion a set of sequential movements that in principle lead to better ball striking. that's the first point. the second is that this can only work if the clubface is approaches the delivery position relatively square to the arc. That means that on its own shallowing is not enough to set this sequence into motion. that is one easy way of understanding the value of what Tyler calls the motorcycle move and why the motorcycle move and club shallowing moves work together to set the desired sequence in motion.

The second question from the beginning remains. Is there a preferable way of shallowing or laying the shaft down?
The two approaches that are discussed in the original post are not in fact two different ways of shallowing the shaft. They are both shallowing moves, but the first one discussed (the passive, leave the arms in the structure in which they are in at the top of the backswing and rotate) in fact aims to flatten the shaft; the second does (active, ulner deviation) does not in fact flatten the shaft, though it is a shallowing move with regard to the overall downswing. It shallows the swing plane but not by flattening or shallowing the path. In fact, it is possible, and for many instructors, GG and DD and also a fellow named Larry Cheung from Toronto among others to put both moves together. In fact all three recommend flattening the shaft in early transition by rotation, then immediately thereafter ulnar deviating (down not out) and then rotating through impact.

All allude to what Tyler refers to as the motorcycle drill under one or another description of it, but none emphasizes it as Tyler does. In contrast Tyler's conception of transition does not involve beginning with lower body rotation but with the kind of two inch move of the lower and sternum centers two inches forward (in the manner Mac O'Grady, for one, recommends, and which has been both a keystone of the MORAD method and deeply misunderstood by the world of Stack and Tilters). So, if I understand Tyler's view correctly, he is noncommittal as to how to flatten the shaft. You can do it either the passive way endorsed by GG) or through arm rotation (as endorsed say by Bradley Hughes). But what Tyler does recommend strongly is a move in transition and continuing into impact of 'twisting the shaft' to square up the face; he also favors ulnar deviation early at a point just about at the delivery position, perhaps helpfully seen as at the beginning of the wipe move..

So to get to the initial video, only the first move shallows or flattens the shaft. It is distinguishable from other ways of doing so in that it is passive, The shaft can be flattened actively by forearm rotation. But the point of flattening is that it is essential to an overall pattern or set of related patterns that improve ball striking by putting trunk rotation at the center of creating impact. Think of at least the following two as alternative patterns that begin with shaft shallowing or flattening to set up the moves that follow;
Pattern 1: Shallow passively by starting downswing with rotation, twist face square; ulnar deviate, continue rotating to p6.5 then push and jump to move the divot forward. GG
Pattern 2. Shallow actively by rotating forearms and shifting centers forward to inside of left heel, motorcycle/twist face square, as club approaches last parallel, ulner deviate, continue rotation and either wipe (extend arms diagonally) or just rotate.

Given the number of movements in each sequence, it is easy to imagine different ways of organizing the component movements.
Personally, I find that I am most comfortable with a variation of the second pattern. As an old GMachine guy who has worked a bit with Mac, I believe in moving the centers forward, while shallowing (my shallowing or flattening of the plane is nowhere near the extent you see in Matt Wolf or even more conventional of GG students). I don't think I ever get under the plane. My goal is to keep the hands behind the sternum, the head behind and inside the hands until hands are in front of trail leg. So shallowing is there only to ensure the club is not tipping out too soon to the target line. I also can accomplish this position only if I am attentive to actively lowering my arms, i.e. getting my left arm separated from my chest. As I approach this position I am rotating, ulner deviating and extending my arms. Variations of this is what I try to teach my clients depending on how willing to work they are, how athletic they are and how willing they are to put up with shitty shots until it takes hold.

In my view shallowing is not a magic move; it is a way of insuring that the clubhead is inside the hands which are themselves behind the sternum when its time to ulnar deviate and add arm extension to rotation. And if you flatten the shaft you have to add a move to compensate for opening the face.
Finally, to get back to the original question: in my honest and humble opinion, the ulnar deviation move is a shallowing move but it does not shallow the shaft. to my mind the shaft is shallowed only when the butt end of it points farther beyond place on the ground that it did prior to the top of the backswing; typically it will point to some degree outside the ball or target line.]
I hope this is helpful but I worry that it's not. In any case please excuse my rambling.

I appreciated your post, good food for thought there!

In my first post, I was trying to say what Jules C said above. However, my keyboard won't allow me to type that many words. :)

Thinking about this a bit more, I'm not clear on what the debate really is. To me, shallowing is a blend of the motions demonstrated - can't just rotate and leave the arms up and can't just pull the arms down.

Great discussion going on, I wanted to add a small addition about context. When does shallowing happen and for about how long? Perhaps that will help your idea of how to apply shallowing to your own swing :)

Hi Tyler,

Could you please elaborate a bit on what you mean by how the shallowing generates torque that allows the squaring of the club face? Is this because it takes care of part of the wrist bowing (the other part due to rotation as the wrists chase the arms around?)

Joel

Thanks Tyler--
It is very common for something that is an insightful intervention to get blown up and take on more importance than was originally intended. In the field of Ethics (in Philosophy) philosophers pointed out 60 years ago that when we make moral judgments we not only make a claim that we believe is true (as a matter of fact), but we are also expressing an emotion or feeling; we are endorsing or condemning or some such thing. Within ten years, people were arguing that the only thing we are doing when we make moral judgments is 'express emotions' We are not making any claim that could be true or false.
Same thing with McKenzie's important work about shallowing. His point, as you make clear, is that dropping the center of mass of a club below the hand path helps 'passively' square up the club at impact. Here we are less than five years later and a whole school of teaching golf is built -- in fact it's an industry -- in which there are only two important moves in transition through the downswing, lay down the club and rotate. And then the rest of the swing is built up around these ideas: e.g. keep the lead arm pinched against the chest until it flung off by rotating chest; keep the trail elbow behind the trail hip. deepen the backswing with the hands ending up beyond the trail shoulder. By my lights, all three of those pieces that are built up around the two core ideas -- shallow and rotate -- are demonstrably problematic and I would never teach such a swing to anyone. It's not long term sustainable for someone who is not gumby and able to practice six hours a day (and who is likely ot have to find another sport to play after about ten years. You can play virtually any pattern as long as the pieces fit together and you can execute the pattern consistently, but it is bizarre to build a pattern entirely around the magic of shallowing. Zach Allen calls it the Magic Move; Martin Chuck is making a fortune on the PlaneMate. Not being critical; just saying it's always troubling when an insight that tells a part of the story that others hadnt seen before gets blown up into being the be all and end all

Joel, check out this video on the topic - https://golfsmartacademy.com/golf-instruction/connecting-arm-shallowing-supination/

The "passive torque" is enhanced supination when you apply normal force to the club.

Passive torque simplified

jake--
well done!!!
you are obviously at a pro shop
Where, may I ask?
Jules

Joseph C
I am having some difficulty understanding your point. No one is saying that these are separate moves that are done one after the other. In fact just the opposite. During the transition you both begin to twist the shaft as the arms hands and club are moving in the inevitable journey to the ball (hopefully). Ulner deviation is going to happen one way or another and to one degree or another. The only question is whether you hold it off or let it happen. If anything it is contrary to the flow of a golf swing to hold it off. If your body rotates and you don't make an effort to keep your hands and club up, they will come down and as they do just let your wrists ulner deviate. It will take place earlier than you think it should, but not so. Because you are rotating it will show up on video around the delivery position. Most importantly, if one does only what you attribute to Pete Cowen, that won't get the club head to the ball will it and it won't control the face will it, Presumably you will still have to ulner deviate and find a movement that squares the club face; and that is either going to be some form of applying a force to the shaft around the shaft in the form of a twisting or through a rotation of the forearms. Whatever pattern you have it is going to involve a number of body movements. That is unavoidable. A pattern is a puzzle putting the pieces together. Pointing out the speed at which the downswing occurs is a reminder that you cant do all these moves in response to a thought for each one that gets each one going. It's why one develops the swing in parts and at what i call awareness speed. The goal of course is to engrain the moves so they happen without thinking about each of them and with a flow; A pet peave of mine is that the alleged dichotomy between learning motions and putting a swing together on the one hand and 'zen' golfing by just finding your inner swing is a red herring. Much of it is based on big misunderstandings of the 'findings' of both cognitive and neuro science.

Tyler....can you please add the videos to this thread. Thx