What is Hank talking about here?

I'm reading Hank Haney's "Essentials of the Swing" and getting a lot out of it. But this portion of the backswing chapter has me confused:

"I can't emphasize enough how important it is to make sure that when you swing the club back that the club passes through a point where the clubshaft is both parallel to the target line and parallel to the ground at the same time. Practice it again and again until you can do it without thinking."

Generally the illustrations are pretty good, but there isn't one for this particular point. Anyone have a clarification or better way of putting it?

OK, I'll stick my 2-cents in here. My understanding is this:

The way to find this position is to put a piece of dowel (or a club / basically anything straight) behind your ball in line with your target. Start your backswing and stop at the point the club is horizontal /parallel to the ground. If you were to have someone take the club and place it straight down on the ground, it should be parallel to the dowel you put down as your target line. They should look like two straight pieces of railway track with your club on the near side.

Clear as mud? Probably.

Hope I'm right and if so, I hope it helps.

Ignoring the previous 2 comments , which is admittedly hard to do, he means that when the shaft is pointing straight back away from you, it should also be flat, relative to the ground.

It certainly seems at odds with the 84 degree idea.

I don't have the book, but it sounds like he's talking about the takeaway. The significance of that is that it will help you get to the proper position at the top, so that the shaft is parallel to the target line. I've been studying AK's swing lately on youtube. There's one where they draw the lines to show his feet, knees, hips shoulders and eventually his shaft are all parallel to the target line. I'll have to see where he is when he hits this point of his takeaway.

Interesting topic as I'm reading through Tour Tempo and this kind of jives with the Y drill. It's helped me realize that my shoulders get a little out of whack once in a while when I don't pay attention to my setup and takeaway.

definately talking about the take away.... and wrist cock, as mentioned earlier is a key, you can also screw this up by taking the club away too far inside or outside.. look at Mike Weir's pre shot routine.. the halfway take away drill... i think he is checking this position... plus the position of the toe of the club.

Start your take away slowly and stop when your hand is about waist high. Turn your head and look at how the shaft is angled. It may point up/down or left/right. "parallel to the target line" means it shouldn't be too far left nor right. The butt end of the club should point to the target. "parallel to the ground" means it shouldn't be too far up/down. The butt end and club head should be equal distance from the ground. This insures that you are 1) not too far in/out of the plan 2) making correct amount of wrist hinge during back swing.

Think of Hogan's Pane of Glass. The bottom edge of the glass is the target line. If you take the club back on plane, when the club is parallel to the ground, it will also be parallel to the target line. If you take the club back to where it is parallel to the ground, and it is not parallel to the target line, you're off-plane. I think that's primarily what Haney's getting at there, though I haven't read the book.

On your takeaway, when the club is parallel w/the ground, stop and hold this position. There are a few things to take note of in this position.

- The clubface; the clubface should be perpendicular with the ground. That is, the toe should point straight up. This indicates that your hand action is correct in this position.
- The direction that the shaft is pointing; This is the point that Haney is making. If you were to stick a tee into the top of your grip and make a note of exactly where the tee is pointing when you reach this position, you should note that the tee points down a line just to the left of your target line. At this point in your swing, there are three target lines (assuming an initial square setup). 1) The target line of the ball. 2) Parallel to the first target line is the target line created by your feet. 3) Parallel to the first and the second target line is the target line formed by the shaft of your club. This third target line should (roughly) be exactly between the first target line and the second (slight bias toward the second target line for most people.

This is one of those positions that is likely much clearer in pictures than words. Take for example -> http://progolflesson.com/proswings.html

The above link shows some of the clearest photos that I could find via quick Google search. Note the second image in the front view sequence. The shaft is parallel to the ground and the face of the club is facing the camera (this position is sometimes referred to as the first "toe up" position). Now look at the second image in the right hip view sequence. You'll notice that this is taken at the same point in the swing as the other image (again, the first "toe up" position). From here draw 3 lines, one along the target line formed by her feet, one directly down the line of the shaft extending toward the target, and a third through the ball down the target line. You'll note that these 3 lines are parallel to one another (in the referenced sequence you may notice that she appears to be slightly inside the ideal swing plane, that is, her grip is pointing slightly to the right of the target. This may be due to the camera angle or a slight swing fault, either way, it's clear enough for this explanation).

If you look through the rest of the sequence photos you should make note of the second "toe up" position as well. Note that the same 3 lines exist and, in a perfect world, overlap exactly. Some instructors will emphasize "short swing" practice, what they are pushing in this case is from the first toe up position to the second. If you consistently hit these two positions exactly, chances are your swing is pretty sound fundamentally.

Scratch that bit about where the line should be. It looks that way in the picture that I linked to later but once I grabbed a club I noticed that this line is nearly directly above the line created by your foot alignment (assuming that you're drawing that line at the toes).

I also noticed that Haney has a very good picture of this toe up position in his book that illustrates what he's talking about perfectly. This picture is on the opposite page of the text that you quoted (sorry, I don't have the book in front of me so I can't give you the page number).