Swing up or around the plane?

[GrahamD]

Hi my friend told my that he got a lesson lately and he said his coach told he was to flat and that swinging around your body is a common misconception in golf, he said you need to bring the club straight up. Whats your thoughts?

[iacas]

Hi my friend told my that he got a lesson lately and he said his coach told he was to flat and that swinging around your body is a common misconception in golf, he said you need to bring the club straight up. Whats your thoughts?

Simple. The plane is not perpendicular to the ground, so in no way do you just bring the club straight up.

[Zeph]

Bringing the club straight up is bad advice, as it means you have to drop the club and loop it inside to get the preferred swing plane.

Whipping the club inside is of course not wanted either. If you can take it back and keep it on plane right from the start, you make things a lot easier for yourself. Instead of taking it back too far out, and having to drop it inside, take it back on the proper plane, and keep it on a slightly altered plane for the downswing.

Ryan moore has a pretty steep club plane on the backswing, and you see the big loop he has to do on the top to get the club in the right place.



Compare that to the swing of Mike Bennett, who gets the club deeper right from the start. The club and hands are already in the right place on the backswing, no big loop-de-loop needed to get it re-routed inside.



You can of course swing whichever way you want, but I don't think anyone will disagree that the swing of Mike Bennett is easier to copy than that of Ryan Moore.

What you feel and what is really going on will also often be different. If you ask someone who has never seen their own swing on video to explain the plane of their swing, most will not get it right. The club shouldn't do a whole lot on the backswing. The right wrist bend and left wrist cock, but it could feel like you're not doing a whole lot at all with the wrists. Getting the swing on video and seeing for yourself how it looks will go a long way.

If a player whip the club inside, perhaps the feeling of taking it straight up could work, but in reality, you don't want the club moving straight up. Using a mirror can also help a lot. The backswing is slow and easy to look at. Stand with a mirror behind you, down the target line. Make some slow backswings where you turn and watch the positions of the club. Note that your point of view will affect how it looks. If set up properly, you can get the right angle.

[Harmonious]

Hi my friend told my that he got a lesson lately and he said his coach told he was to flat and that swinging around your body is a common misconception in golf, he said you need to bring the club straight up. Whats your thoughts?

Each person's swing is unique (Ryan Moore is just one example). Your friend's teacher may have been trying to correct a flaw in your friend's swing by overexaggerating a feeling, such as take the club straight up. Maybe your friend heard him wrong, too. There are as many ways to swing a club successfully as there are good players. What may be suggested to someone else may not work for you, and certainly shouldn't be accepted as "gospel" for everyone. I'm a big fan of Jim Hardy's teachings, and he clearly notes there are two equally successful swing types: one-plane and two-plane. Ryan Moore is certainly a two-planer, Matt Kuchar would be a good example of a one-planer. Both are very good ball strikers.

[iacas]

Each person's swing is unique (Ryan Moore is just one example). Your friend's teacher may have been trying to correct a flaw in your friend's swing by overexaggerating a feeling, such as take the club straight up. Maybe your friend heard him wrong, too. There are as many ways to swing a club successfully as there are good players. What may be suggested to someone else may not work for you, and certainly shouldn't be accepted as "gospel" for everyone. I'm a big fan of Jim Hardy's teachings, and he clearly notes there are two equally successful swing types: one-plane and two-plane. Ryan Moore is certainly a two-planer, Matt Kuchar would be a good example of a one-planer. Both are very good ball strikers.

IIRC, those aren't exactly Jim Hardy's definitions of one or two plane. Tiger's really close to a one-plane swing, Matt Kuchar is almost closer to a two-planer than a one-planer (! - though he's toned it down lately), etc.

His definitions, again IIRC, are whether the arm plane matches the shoulder plane at the top. It has nothing to do with whether you take the club back on a different plane than the one on which you swing down. I agree that his teacher may have been trying to get him to do something exaggerated, but I doubt it, and I doubt it based on the number of pros I've heard or seen give the advice to take the club back along the target line and to get the most "width." This leads to people getting well above the plane (even if you're an upright two-planer). This, in the average player, results in the hands never gaining the depth they need... and with their hands too far out, the average player doesn't even have a chance to hit the ball from the inside. As a general rule I tend to be against adding loops in the swing, and unless (small odds of this) the pro WAS compensating for an extremely low/flat plane, taking the club and hands UP and not getting much depth is going to lead to problems.

[GrahamD]

My friends swing was very matt kuchar like, very flat and appeared very shut, he said the pro was trying to get his hands above his left shoulder at the top of backswing, he said swinging more upright will encourage a more toe pointing down posistion at the top, he told him to watch most of the good ball strikers on tv like mcilroy,tiger,phil they all have toe pointing down at the top of the backswing

[iacas]

My friends swing was very matt kuchar like, very flat and appeared very shut, he said the pro was trying to get his hands above his left shoulder at the top of backswing, he said swinging more upright will encourage a more toe pointing down posistion at the top, he told him to watch most of the good ball strikers on tv like mcilroy,tiger,phil they all have toe pointing down at the top of the backswing

That'd be great, except they don't. And they're good players but they may not be the best ballstrikers, too.

Without any real idea what your friend was doing or what the pro was trying to tell him, it's speculation, so I'll bow out on that note.

[Harmonious]

Boy, I don't know about that toe pointed down thing. Seems to me that it is more related to the grip than anything else. Take a look at Dustin Johnson. He has a very upright backswing, yet at the top his club is extremely closed. Those that have neutral grips, like Tiger, Rory and 90% of the tour pros, have the clubface at the top parallel to their swing plane. It doesn't point straight down.

You could swing on an extremely flat plane, and if you "cupped" your left wrist, the club would point down somewhat. I wouldn't advise it, though, unless your name was Hogan. He did it to keep from hooking.

[injury]

His definitions, again IIRC, are whether the arm plane matches the shoulder plane at the top. It has nothing to do with whether you take the club back on a different plane than the one on which you swing down.

Ya that's the gist. Haven't read his book but saw the Dvds couple of months ago, and I've learned that some of the movies leave out some technical stuff covered in the books. In the movie 2 Plane was body more upright turning horizontally and arms lifting vetically then returning by coordinating timing of the body and the arms with what I believe he called a karate chop move of arms dropping. 1 plane was more bent over at about 45 degree hands, shoulders, arms etc starting and returning maintaining their respective planes more of a rotary style type of move and more body controlled.

The vid of Ryan looks like a hybrid. Setup his back is in a 1 plane posture, arms setup like a 2 plane. Takeaway looks 2 plane, then after the loop he does at the top everything from there to impact looks like he was doing 1 plane. I had an instructor that spent a lot of time having me look at the toe in the top of the backswing. He was working towards having me do some hand adjustments in the the transition to fix it to what he thought was ideal. He moved away, but I'm fidning I'm having more consistant results with fixing the wrist issue in the initial takeaway and the grip that was causing that toe at the top to be wide open. If I get everything going back correctly from the start coming back down is almost automatic.