Shallowing Technique

General Discussion
#21

My understanding of why a shallow plane is good is that, with a shallow plane, your body is required to square the club (as opposed to your hands and wrists) and the face stays square longer before and after the hitting area, leading to straighter shots and smaller misses like small pulls and blocks.

In contrast, a steep plane cannot be squared with the body, but rather needs to be squared with a flip of the hands through the hitting area and actually a stalling of the body, which means your timing with the wrists and hands has to be perfect to hit a good shot and your misses get way bigger, like snap hooks and huge blocks.

It’s a good question though, and I look forward to what others have to say. I’m like you: I want to know why some move is better than another, and not just blindly do what others are doing without knowing why.

1 Like
#22

sorry for very very late reply.

I just was searching for discussions concerning “Shallowing” or “Shallow”
To start with, I’d like to clarify my definition of “Shallowing”, which is “to make the down swing relatively lower (or from more inside) than the takeaway”.

Here’s some reasons why I came up with this definition: I personally focus on the “inertia” at the transition. A lot of amateurs make their takeaway way from inside, from my point of view which will cause a fairly strong inertia near the “swing top” and “transition” from back(back of body) to front(front of body). At the transition this back-to-front inertia needs to be addressed, but because of our body composition (mainly wrist muscles), back-to-front inertia is way difficult to kill. That is why many amateurs come up with steep down swing.

On the contrary, as long as I conceive, most of professional golfers basically makes their takeaway though an orbit a little bit outside (in precise, their club head at the shaft parallel is slightly outside), and they make their down swing through an orbit from inside.

One clear exception is John Rahm. His takeaway is from inside. But, because his takeaway is very small, his takeaway does not have back-to-front inertia.

Ok then, based on these definitions, I think most of the professional golfers make “shallowing” at the transition or downswing.

#23

Here’s what I was taught about shallowing the club. After we get our fundamentals down, we will begin a swing. The golf swing for me is triggered by the lower body… I honestly don’t move much as the club goes back, the hips are turning, the weight is moving slightly to the right side as I am feeling like I am loading up a rubberband to spin a propellor on a model airplane. My shoulders and arms continue back as I am transferring a good amount of weight onto my right leg that acts almost as a post. The shoulders turns and follow the lower body, I’m RH, so my left knee bends in towards the ball. If you stand in front of a mirror or, even keep your hands level at your sides, as you are turning back you will notice the left hip is now wound up and below the right. As my shoulders are turning to the left and reach their apex in my swing, my lower body, particularly the left leg begins to drive into the ground and my shoulders begin to unwind etc. The shallowing for me occurs because I was taught to make certain my right elbow is attaching to the right hip. So…as part of natural forces you cannot control as your right hip was higher by a couple of inches on the back swing, on the downswing the opposite happens. If I had to describe the feeling, it’s almost like pulling on string hanging from the ceiling to flush an old fashioned toilet. The left hip is now driving upward and the right hip is now a couple inches lower and turning. That right elbow, if it’s connected to your right hip and you allow the turn and extension to happen naturally will shallow the the club just because. Do this in slow motion and you will see what I’m talking about. Keep doing it and increase the speed. Just understand the golf swing motor is your shoulders unwinding, but the transmission is the hips and legs. They sort of work opposite yet together against each other to create speed. I honestly have never worried about where the clubface is at the top of my swing if my grip fundamentals are good, my posture is good and I’m not swaying etc… I’m on a good firm base. Shallowing the club is a fancy term used to make sure the club has adjusted the swing plane. Your swing plane going back and coming down have to be on the same plane to smash a ball, but the paths are slightly different… For a real exaggeration watch Furyk… his plane is spot on! His path…well I’ll leave that for you to watch!

#24

Your approach to visualizing the shallow golf club exit sounds effective. For me, focusing on a light grip and keeping the clubhead behind my hands during the downswing has helped.