Does swing plane really matter?

[tmf9]

I used to take lessons about a year and a half ago, and all i ever heard about was swing plane.  When I started taking lessons I was probably about a 5 handicap, and all I heard was your swing plane is too upright, you got to get it flatter) well i went from about a five handicap to a ten and actually took several months off due to frustration with the game.  When I started back playing I told myself I was not taking anymore lessons, and I was going back to what got me to where I was, pure feel.  Well I've been playing to a +.2 so far on this young golf season and if I get my touch back with my wedges I really feel like I have the potential to get to a +2 or +3 this season.  My question is does swing plane really matter that much as long as you get it to where in needs to be on the downswing? I see several different ways of getting it done on tour (rickie fowler and kuchar have really flat swing, and people like daly and phil cross the line at the top) so really how important is it.  I might be wrong but Butch Harmon is widely considered the best teacher in the world and I don't think he's a huge advocate of swing plane.  I guess im asking someone who knows a lot more about the golfswing than I to tell me what makes the swing plane on the backswing so important?

[iacas]

Key #4 in 5 Simple Keys is "Diagonal Sweetspot Path" but all of the PGA Tour players you mentioned control it. Nobody good plays golf "along the wall of a house" or "along the floor of a house." They all play rooftop to gutter, along some sort of inclined plane.

If you can orient yours in the proper direction, and it's efficient and hits the shots you want, plane becomes "less important." Though as a word of caution, plane tends to feed into path, and path is very important to good players - who are almost always working on Keys #4 and #5.

[tmf9]

I feel like I do a good job with path, I've gotten pretty good at being able to hit controlled fades, and controlled draws.  Most of my misses I feel are a result of "timing" rather than improper path, (maybe why I'm not overly concerned with plane) I guess I just feel like a lot of teacher teach players a golf swing, but don't teach how to hit golf shots. (If that makes any sense)

[PirateJim]

Sure, swing plane "matters" since you can't really swing a club without one sort of happening.  From where I'm sitting in the peanut gallery, it seems to me that based on your results as indicated by handicap index, you must have an okay swing plane.

So, what's up?  In my rather humble opinion (which I share freely because this is the Internet baby! ) there are a lot of "teaching pros" out there, some are quite good... some not so much. I suspect that some of the latter have some sort of more or less "cookie cutter" swing they try to get people into. This may well be generally successful with their run of the mill 20 handicap club member hackers they spend most of their time working with.

I don't know what prompted you to seek out lessons, but I would think that any good teacher would take a very different approach when dealing with a low handicap player than with the average hacker.  I would sort of expect that there would be a lot of discussion about what the teacher is seeing and why certain changes are being suggested and that after those conversations you wouldn't need to pose this sort of question. I would also have hoped the teacher would have seen his suggestions weren't making things better and adjusted...

[tmf9]

Originally Posted by PirateJim

Sure, swing plane "matters" since you can't really swing a club without one sort of happening.  From where I'm sitting in the peanut gallery, it seems to me that based on your results as indicated by handicap index, you must have an okay swing plane.

So, what's up?  In my rather humble opinion (which I share freely because this is the Internet baby! ) there are a lot of "teaching pros" out there, some are quite good... some not so much. I suspect that some of the latter have some sort of more or less "cookie cutter" swing they try to get people into. This may well be generally successful with their run of the mill 20 handicap club member hackers they spend most of their time working with.

I don't know what prompted you to seek out lessons, but I would think that any good teacher would take a very different approach when dealing with a low handicap player than with the average hacker.  I would sort of expect that there would be a lot of discussion about what the teacher is seeing and why certain changes are being suggested and that after those conversations you wouldn't need to pose this sort of question. I would also have hoped the teacher would have seen his suggestions weren't making things better and adjusted...

Well, I was 17 at the time and although I was a low handicapper I had very limited knowledge of the golfswing.  I have a feeling now that the pro was trying to take my swing and basically turn it into a completely different swing, instead of taking the things I did naturally and sort of improving it.  Idk the pro kept telling me how much potential I had due to my hand eye coordination and pretty good athleticism, perhaps he was trying to give me the "textbook" swing.  I was seeking out lessons because at the time when I missed, I missed BIG.  I will give the pro credit he really helped me with my weight transfer, but the process of trying to flatten my swing ruined me.

[tkahlm]

Since there is a correlation swing plane is important but I would only care to know the connection if I was either filming my swing or it is important for teachers to learn about. Like Erik said it does have to deal with key #4.