Golf Swing Plane For A Consistent Swing
Every golfer has a golf swing plane as unique as their golf swing. It is influenced by your height, the length of your arms, legs and torso. This all has an impact when matched with the golf club angle at address, alignment of the club face and where you place the ball. It also depends on your desire for accuracy and consistency.
The golf swing plane is created by the arc of the club swinging through the planes for the backswing and downswing as though you drew a line from your left shoulder to the ball and imagined the axis of rotation around the spine.
Consider that there are 5 stages in a golf swing. Starting with your address to the ball, takeaway into your backswing, the top or transition, into the downswing, ball impact and follow through to the target.
Several factors will determine whether you are playing a two-plane or one-plane swing. Most importantly is how far or close you are to the ball. The closer you stand to the ball the steeper or more upright you are. A lot of golfers stand too close to the ball and have a more upright swing plane.
A steep golf swing plane creates a two swing golf plane and the unfortunate potential for lateral and horizontal movement. Put simply it is all in the set up. If it is not set up right then the unfolding of a golf swing sequence will be out of order.
Bottomline, a steep golf swing leads to losing control at the top of the backswing, it is easy to overplay or overswing with your arms and hands, break your wrists and create the need to compensate to stay on line in the downswing. Creating a second plane down through the ball and into the follow through. This variation cannot lead to consistent gownswing and impact leading to hitting the ball all over the place more often. Left and right.
If your swing plane is too steep you will produce pulls and slices. By being too close to the ball, you have no choice but to have a steep swing and your movement into the downswing has to compensate to a different golf swing plane for the downswing. This often leads to over extending in the golf swing which invariably leads to back injury. Rotating off axis and balance shifts your centre of gravity higher up the spine. Hence more pressure on the middle of your back. Back injury is the number injury in golfers.
A flatter swing where the golfer tends to swing around the body is referred as the one-plane swing taught by Jim Hardy, or the single plane swing used by Moe Norman from Canada. The further away from the ball you are the flatter your swing.
A flatter golf swing plane rotating around the body creates less movement in less body parts. Less can go wrong by virtue of body parts not moving when they shouldn’t. Swinging from shoulder to shoulder tends to suit the average golfer with physical and muscular limitations. It also helps a golfer to get more accuracy, hitting straighter without compromising too much distance.
Nearly every golfer overextends in the backswing losing control of their hands and the golf club. By the way this is how a lot of golfers get wrist injuries, especially as the out of control club head moves through ball impact missing the sweet spot. Ouch!
Moe Norman was credited as the consistently longest and straightest hitter in the history of the game. He simply said, reduce the moving parts. The variables for risk.
A flatter golf swing plane will give you more accuracy and consistency, but check it out for yourself. Are you too close to the ball?