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Swing Plane Simplified - Working with steeps and shallows
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The short irons have more of a circular shape to their swing. The longer clubs have more of an elliptical shape swing. This creates different ideal swing shapes to hit the same shot. If you struggle with one end of the spectrum, this video will help you see why.
Tags: Poor Contact, Not Enough Distance, Iron, Driver, Fairway Wood, Member Question, Concept, Intermediate, Beginner
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This concept video is looking at the overall shape difference between a short iron swing and a long
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long club swing. So driver three would something like that. So I've got the trusty Hulu
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hoop out here and then I just took a pool noodle and we can imagine that the pool noodle
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is basically tangent to the path. So this will be representing the instantaneous path.
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If I'm hitting down on the ball you can see that that path of the club is not only traveling
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down it's also going a little bit out to the right and that depends on how much I'm hitting down
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as well as how much the Hulu hoop is tilted up or down. The more it's tilted down like on the
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driver that makes it go more out to the right. The opposite if I was to hit up on it like with the
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driver you can see that that path is not only going up it's going to the left. So to get a driver path
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that is pretty straight I need to swing a little bit more into out or shallow. To get an iron path
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where I'm hitting down on it to be straight I need to have a little bit more outside in.
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Now the other thing that compounds this just a little bit is the shape of the circle from the
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face on view. With the driver and the long club we're going to tend to have a little bit more of
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a look of a squished circle kind of like this. So if the ball position is right about there I'm going
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to squish it down kind of like that and swing a little bit more into out in order to get that path
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pretty close to straight. Now if this was a iron swing I'm going to hit a little bit more down on it
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and the swing shape is going to be more kind of circular and that's partly because of how we're
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powering this wing more with the upper body less with the big lower body and big kind of tour sequence
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that creates that flat spot in the width on the other side of the ball that we want for the longer
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club. So now I've got a short iron in the three wood and what you'll see is with the three wood to
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account for that I'm going to be have a little bit more of this access tilt. Now I create some of that
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just by having a wider stance at set up. It's going to help me stay a little bit more behind the
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ball and that by itself is going to get the path to swing a little bit more into out which will
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balance the fact that I'm not hitting down on it very much. Especially with the driver where I'm
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hitting up on it. With the iron I'll play the I'll be have a narrower stance which prevents me
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from creating that big tilt because I want the bottom to swing closer to where the golf ball is.
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When I get to a wedge the bottom swing is very close to where the where the golf ball is.
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So to do that I'm going to try to keep my upper body and my lower body a little bit more stacked
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on top of each other and then as a result of having my upper body and lower body stacked more on top
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of each other in order to get down to the golf ball and have a little bit four arm extension
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which is going to create more of this circular shape instead of the ellipse or kind of squished
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egg shape where it's wider on the other side of the golf ball. So the differences are with the
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short iron it's going to be a little bit more cast and slightly more outside in but that primarily
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comes from having the upper body power more of the swing and your body being more stacked.
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With the driver it's going to be a little bit flatter and wider or shallower and that's going to
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come from having a wider stance and a little bit more of that Jackson 5 or a little bit more of that
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bracing pattern. So if you struggle with one end of the spectrum either hitting the short iron or the
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long club there's a good chance that you're overall pattern and the overall shape matches better
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the other end and you want to work on how you can make simple adjustments to change the shape to fit
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the club that you're actually swing. So with the iron you'll see I can still draw the ball hitting
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down and a little bit I was slight pulled a little bit of draw staying more tall and hitting
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down. Now to get about the same amount of curve that one would have looked more like this but you
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could see with a three would that would launch that would basically roll along the ground. So now
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I'm going to play it a little bit further or further back if I made that same swing and came in steep
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and probably bought them out behind it. So now I'm going to have to get a little bit more
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lower body rotation in order to get that shallow contact. So that will look a little bit more.
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Like that and both of those that one actually went fairly straight just a touch draw the other one
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was a little bit of a pulled draw but you'll see that the overall patterns
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while the ball flight looked about the same in order to do so I had to make adjustments to the shape
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of the swing which you learned early in this video and I recommend that you practice going from
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short iron to long club and back and forth as part of your practice training to help it transfer to the
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course.
