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The functional swing plane is typically consistent from shaft parallel in the downswing to shaft parallel in the follow through for good players. This makes the two shaft parallel positions good check points to use when looking at your own swing on video. For the driver, the goal is to have the path more inside on the shaft parallel on the downswing, and slightly outside on the shaft parallel on the follow through. If you do that, then you know that you will have a shallow path through the ball, and as long as you can control the face, you will tend to hit consistent straight shots.
Tags: Not Straight Enough, Not Enough Distance, Draw vs Fade, Driver, Drill, Beginner
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The Striver video is looking at path checkpoints for the driver.
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So path checkpoints is basically looking at if I'm making some swings looking at
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shaft parallel when it's down the line and shaft parallel in the follow-through.
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Now when we're looking at specifically for the driver, we want to have compared to this
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checkpoint.
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If we'll say neutral is just inside my hands kind of like so, well because I'm going to have
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a little bit wider stance and a little bit more tilt, you can see that that is going to
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or I should say that lower body a little bit more ahead of the upper body.
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You can see that by itself moves the hands a little bit more towards the inside.
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And then if I let them swing, that would naturally move the club a little bit outside
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the hands.
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If you're checking that follow-through and you tend to see the club in line with your hands,
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then you're going to be a little bit more neutral than you're looking for for the driver.
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As I'm swinging slightly low to high, I need to have the path even more in-out in order
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to have that the club had actually moving at the target.
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So you can use the checkpoints of shaft parallel and regardless of what you're trying to do,
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you can just monitor, well where if the club is way out here, I know I'm going to be in trouble
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if it's too much in there, maybe I just haven't turned as much with the driver.
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You want to air on having it more inside than less.
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The one caveat is in order to get it more inside, a lot of golfers fall into early extension
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and that's when it becomes a major problem.
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Similarly, I want to have my arms kind of lifting a little bit or working more high in
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a way so the club will be slightly outside there.
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If I tend to get the club which is good for an iron going way low left, that's going to
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tend to cause angle of attack issues.
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So I can focus on those two ends of the spectrum and just make sure it's going slightly
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inside to slightly outside as it relates to the driver.
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To help clarify the idea of the path checkpoints, we're going to take a look at my own swing
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looking at an iron and a driver from down the line.
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Here we can see at the top of the swing.
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Overall, mostly the same you can see that there's a little bit more body turn.
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You can see that the arms are on a little flatter plane and there's a little bit less of
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the left side tilt.
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But most of the interesting stuff is going to happen on the downswing.
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The first path to checkpoint we're going to take a look at is when I get the roughly the
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shaft parallel to the ground.
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So the cameras in the same place and I set up more or less with my hands on the pretty
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much over the stick here or just on the inside of it.
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That was my goal anyway.
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That's the target line.
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So as you can see, the hands compared to the stick are relatively close.
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I mean the one over here on the left with the driver is just slightly inside the stick.
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But compared to where the hands are, you can see that with the driver there are a few
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things that are different.
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One, the club is a little bit more inside my hands.
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And I actually believe that that would be the true shaft parallel frame where you'll see
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that it's even more slightly inside my hands.
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But the club faces in a similar position.
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So it just shows that the path with the driver is coming a little bit more from a shallow
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position.
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Now as you know from the steeps and shallows, the more that you rotate your body, the
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more that that's going to tend to bring the club on a steep path.
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But if you look at the orientation of my chest and my hips, you can see that I have more
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body rotation here on the left.
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You can also see that my foot is more off the ground because I'm powering this a little
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bit more with my body.
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And unfortunately, I had a little bit of early extension.
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Now as I continue down and take it to impact, you can see that the result of those path
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checkpoints is that in the one over on the left because it was coming more from the inside,
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I've gone into a little bit more extension.
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My upper body is closer to the camera.
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It's actually a little bit behind my lower body or a fair amount behind my lower body.
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As a result, I've got more body rotation and more side bend and my trail arm or my
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right arm is a little bit more bent.
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Now as I go through, you'll see those arms extend and the club will roughly get slightly
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outside my hands as it approaches that waist height position.
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Now over on the right with the iron because my upper body is a little bit more on top
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of my lower body.
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I still have a little bit more flex.
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The club is going to be working more low and left so when it gets in that same position,
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you can see that it is working in line with my hands wherever on the right.
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It is working a little bit more outside of my hands.
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So if you're struggling with your driver, hopefully this little video and demonstration
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helps you visualize what we want to do with the driver between shaft parallel in the
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down swing and shaft parallel in the follow through but using those two checkpoints can
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unlock a lot of path problems and help you with your overall consistency.
