Stop Coming Under the Plane in Golf
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Coming into impact under plane kills your consistency, often resulting in blocked shots, thin shots, or even hooks. So, it's time to stop coming under the swing plane in golf and get back control of your golf ball! In this video, I’ll show you what swinging under plane looks like (so you can analyze it yourself), what causes it, and how to fix it.
- Swing Plane Determined by "Elbow Plane"
- If Club Drop Flatter Than Elbow Plane You Are Under Plane
- Also Called Shaft Tipping
- Rotate Forearms Counter Clockwise to Steepen Plane
Hi guys, I'm Rotary Swing Instructor Clay Ballard and this is part two of the Getting Stuck series.
Now, in part one, we talked about your relationship of your torso and your arms to getting stuck, and that's really what getting stuck is.
Now, the second thing that's going to lead to block shots to the right or people saying that you're getting stuck is the club being under plane.
Now as I'm coming down and I'm hitting a golf shot, my club has to be on plane.
That means that the lie angle that's on my club is going to be sitting flush on the ground at impact.
So this is something that we all must do to hit the ball properly and consistently.
Now if I get under plane, That means that this club is coming in underneath this plane in the downswing.
And it's going to tend to lead to shots that I keep on swinging out to the right or that I block out to the right.
Even if I square up my path, my club is never releasing properly and they're going to be thin shots.
They're going to be shots that are blocked to the right.
So if we're looking at this from face on, it's going to be this club is too flat, It's under plane.
And my typical miss is going to be either to swing out to the right and block the shot, or it's going to be to kind of try to square it up at the last second and maybe just hit the shot thin.
I can also get some snap hooks if I really try to release it.
Hard to get rid of that blocked feeling that I feel like I'm going to have.
So let's go ahead and look at the correct and incorrect motions on camera so we know what to look for.
Okay, so let's take another look at Tiger Woods here.
What I've done is I've drawn what's called the elbow plane on his swing, and I've done the same thing for my swing just a second ago.
So you take a line, Draw it up from the hosel through the back of the elbow there, and this is going to give you a rough idea, just a general guideline for when you're swinging on plane in the golf swing.
So as he comes down to impact, He's going to need to be pretty close to that line or his club is not going to be working in through the shot correctly.
His lie angle is not going to be correct.
And his club is going to be swinging to the left or the right if he gets underneath or over top of this.
So he does a very good job of that here.
His camera is also moving around a little bit.
So it's not going to be perfect, and you shouldn't worry about getting this perfectly on line, but you do want to be pretty close.
So as he starts his downswing, he does a very good job on the backswing of getting parallel to this line and on plane.
As he starts his downswing, we're going to see he's pretty much perfectly on this line.
So this would be perfectly on plane.
Now when you're under plane, that means that your club is tilted back below this line.
This is most typically seen in golfers that kind of hang back on the right side.
They get the club underneath the plane and then through impact, they're swinging through the ball over here to the right.
So their club path is moving too far to the right.
And you're going to struggle with blocks to the right, and you're going to struggle with hooks.
If your club gets below this plane, you're going to struggle with blocks and hooks.
If your club is on this plane, Now we can go ahead and release properly without fear of hooking the ball.
And we can go ahead and release properly without fear of blocking it to the right.
That's exactly what we're going to see Tiger doing here as he's coming down through impact.
We can see this club's tracing down on plane, basically parallel to this line at impact.
And then as he comes through, he's right back on this line again.
If he was swinging out to the right or getting stuck, it would be underneath this line.
So it would look like this.
And then as he came through impact, His club may even be a little too steep because he had to raise up on the arms to get it back on there.
And then as he came through, The club would be tilted back the other way because he had to release it very aggressively to get a decent shot through impact.
So here, much less manipulation.
He's staying parallel to this line the entire time, which helps him to keep from hitting blocks or hooks or any of that kind of stuff.
On the right, you're going to see I do the opposite.
This is a typical, I was thinking about hanging back and really flicking that club out to the right, which is what it feels very powerful.
You can get some good speed from this, but it's getting underneath of this line.
This is what's called under plane, often referred to as getting stuck.
And then as you're coming through impact, now look at my club.
It's moving to the right through impact.
Very easy to block this coming through there.
And then as I'm coming through, my hands are very high as I'm coming through there and swinging out to the right.
So not something that you're looking for.
So go ahead and draw the elbow plane when you're taping your swing.
Check that.
Make sure it looks like you're swinging on plane.
If you're struggling hitting blocks to the right, I would almost guarantee that you're under plane.
Okay.
So for those of you that are members, we've already analyzed that you're under plane.
You've taken a video, you see that your club has dropped below this elbow plane in the downswing.
It's time to fix it now.
So the drill that you're going to work on is the trace the plane line video, the trace the plane line drill, and that is in the downswing section.
So what we'll notice here with Tiger is not only are his hands on this, but his club is on this as I've mentioned, but let's pay attention to my hands in the same position.
So it's all about how your body and how your hands and arms are working.
So my hands are in a pretty good position as far as relationship to this plane line.
If my hands were out here, well then that would be an issue.
I'd need to get my hands on this plane line.
But in the example here, my hands are on this plane line, so I'm not going to have to worry about the path my hands are taking in the downswing.
You may.
You're going to want to look at that video first to check.
But it's mostly the angle of my wrist as they're rotating.
So if we look at Tiger's knuckles on his left hand, we can see that the knuckles are basically tracing that plane line also.
So that means that his hands and arms are working in that fashion.
Or the knuckles, his second set of knuckles here, the same idea.
So everything is running parallel to that.
Well, my knuckles are turned a little bit more clockwise.
So now we can see the knuckles on my hand are facing over here.
And I'm allowing this club to drop in by allowing my hands to rotate clockwise in the downswing.
So in order to fix that, I'm going to need to feel like my hands are rotating counterclockwise.
So for me, It's going to feel like my wrists are rotating this way as I'm swinging down.
And that's going to greatly steepen the shaft, or have the feeling of steepening the shaft.
So if you're used to laying it off this way, you're going to feel very steep as you're rotating your wrist counterclockwise to get this on plane.
You'll need to check that on video to be sure.
So this is the time you're going to want to watch the trace the plane line video.
He's going to set up kind of a tool there that's going to help you to get the correct feeling and the correct idea.
And then you're going to want to rotate your wrist properly to get that club tracing down.
So good luck to you guys.
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