Single plane swing

[Zambo]

Zambo you have two versions of single plane. Moe is more like a single plane the club more of less never leaves the back swing plane, Meaning its on the in the same plane on the downswing.. A different version means that there are two separate planes but they are both parallel to each other. Which one were you trying to do. I'd kill myself trying moe's version. And its ugly.

See I'm not really sure here. What I was doing was probably a mixture of some stuff since I was just fiddling around with it. I changed my right hand grip to be more underneath the club and the grip in the middle of my hand rather than my fingers. I stood farther from the ball and raised my hands so the plane of the club at address was more at my shoulder blades rather than at my below my belly button. Like Moe, I left the clubhead about a foot behind the ball and slightly inside the target line before starting the swing. The backswing and downswing were about as much on the same plane as I could make them. After impact, I let the club continue down the target line and finished with the club out in front of my chest rather than wrapped around the back of my head. And yes, a big part of reluctance to try this is that it looks ugly. But I had results that weren't easily disputed. The ball went very straight.

 

[neteng]

Yeah ... using Bryson as the example for single swing plane through me off the direction you was trying to go.

I never really got to caught up with staying in plane when I was working hard on my swing. I did however work on getting to points in my swing in good positions. My coach had me do a lot of drills that he called over exaggerations so that I could 'feel' wrong on the extreme side of right then slowly back it down into the correct position. That might not make sense and its really hard to explain but the biggest point to the work was being able to 'feel' the correct position and the wrong positions that were right before and right past the correct position.

But ... opinions on yours, mine and other peoples swing aside ... the most important thing to do before working hard on your swing is to get your clubs professionally fitted and adjusted. Lie/Lofts factory specs are =/-2.5* ... and believe me ... OEMs will use all 2.5* in either direction to put clubs on the shelf for sale. Getting your lies and lofts precisely corrected will do wonders to getting the ball to go where you are intending it to go. Its hard to work on your swing when your clubs are working against you. And dont neglect the shafts ... they too have factory allowances for stiffness and you want your shafts to all act right with the clubhead they are swinging.

Once you got your clubs straight ... then get really serious about dialing in your swing thoughts.

 

[Zambo]

Its probably time for more clubfitting. I've always considered it a bit of chicken v. egg though. I don't know how you get a good clubfitting if you don't have a repeatable swing that's fairly dialed in. Yet, its hard to create such a swing if your clubs aren't the correct fit. I got a new set of Cleveland irons a few months back when I started playing again. I worked with the guy in the shop and we tried different club heads, shafts etc before deciding on the set that was working best for me at the time. It would be interesting to go back and see, now that I've got a ton of swings under my belt, if these clubs are still a good fit. And then see from club to club if they are in reasonable shape.

 

[gator1946]

You guys live in a different world. When I started the new thing was that you could get a stop action sequence of your swing. Very few people had that technology but our golf team did. I started with a set of stiff shaft Maccregor MTs. HIt them for years. Never adjusted anything. They had a sweet spot the size of a pea. So If you were off you knew it. Probably part of the reason I was a really good iron player. When video came in I was amazed. I looked like a pro on 90% of my swings. It was the other 10% that was the problem. Golf Pros and their theories were all over the place. So I knew the ins and outs of every theory in existence. I can tell you how to do it. But I can't do it. If I had all the tools you guys have now I could have been a contenda. :)

The old school in me says the swing comes first. If you have any feel for where the club head is you'll do OK.

I hear you bouncing around all these theories. As a 73 year old I have only one piece of advice. When I played I had a huge shoulder turn and hit the ball as far as the future Tour pros I who I got to play with, Murphy, Melnyk, and Armstrong. I was almost but not quite good enough to make the team. BUT I wish I had approached the game differently. Supposedly golf is a game you can play forever. If you are all about power and, like a lot of the guys today, forget about swing rhythm you will not be playing well or playing at all when you hit 70. You will break your back. At 73 I have a pathetic swing speed of 95. I can hit that number once, then I go home and recover for two weeks.

 

[Zambo]

Haha 1946 I hear you. Sucks getting old. But I play lots of golf with guys who are retired and quite a few of them put up some good scores even though they can barely hit it 200 yards off the tee. Being long is a blessing but its also a curse. Its nice hitting 9s and PWs into greens instead of 5 and 6 irons, but if you aren't accurate you get shots go into hazards and OB that would just be a missed fairway for a shorter hitter.

 

[Zambo]

Well tomorrow should be interesting. Final group is Wolff and DeChambeau. There might not be two swings on tour that are more different than these two

 

[gator1946]

Haha 1946 I hear you. Sucks getting old. But I play lots of golf with guys who are retired and quite a few of them put up some good scores even though they can barely hit it 200 yards off the tee. Being long is a blessing but its also a curse. Its nice hitting 9s and PWs into greens instead of 5 and 6 irons, but if you aren't accurate you get shots go into hazards and OB that would just be a missed fairway for a shorter hitter.

You must be very patient. What do they do with a 420 yard par 4. Give up?

 

[Zambo]

You must be very patient. What do they do with a 420 yard par 4. Give up?

No, they play from the whites or the gold tees. I think the game is hard enough for most guys without hitting from the back tees if you don't have the distance.

 

[Zambo]

So is young phenom Wolff going to win in his 4th start? Or is DeChambeau going to notch his 7th top level win in a battle of unconventional swings?

 

[Zambo]

BDC eagles 18 to go up by one over Wolff. Wolff about to hit his approach on the easy par 5. Here we go

 

[Zambo]

Wow! Wolff rolls in a bomb from off the green for an eagle and the win! Holy crap

 

[gator1946]

Holy sh.t. What an end to a tournament. So much for the single plane swing. Golf coaches are in mega scramble mode. :)

 

[neteng]

If its chicken before egg thing ... then having clubs that fit your swing is the first thing you should do. It sounds like you are to the point where will be playing golf for the rest of your life so getting the clubs fitted and spec'd (not the same as fitted .. this is making sure your lies, lofts and shaft characteristics are exactly what they should be) is the best investment you can make at this point versus anything else. Fitting will tell you what the specs should be and the fitter then will make the clubs spec'd to what the fitting revealed. It is the best investment you can make.

What a great ending to that tourney.

 

[5-Star Finger]

Any golfers here ever experiment with the single plane swing like Bryson DeChambeau uses?

Insanely disappointed this turned out to be a golf thread. Thought it might be some harrowing pilot story - or about secret room on a plane that only pilots and flight attendants know about where all mores and norms are abandoned over international waters.

Nope.
Golf.
Thanks.

 

[MidwestChomp]

I lost interest once Payne Stewart died. Someone needs to bring back that wardrobe.

 

[Zambo]

I lost interest once Payne Stewart died. Someone needs to bring back that wardrobe.

Well Bryson's got the hat at least.

 

[bayou gator]

Zambo, like you, I once dabbled in the attempt at a single plane swing. I have played golf since I was 9 years old, coached the high-school golf team when I was teacher many years ago, and currently have a 7 handicap (my best ever was a 2, in my early 30's). Though I am not one for fads (or even the biggest Tiger fan), I decided to give the single plane swing a try when Tiger really started producing consistent wins with it. I have always hit a natural slight draw, and found that I needed to weaken my grip significantly with the single plane. I also realized that my club's heels were dragging a little too deeply, so I had the lie angles adjusted on my irons. Once I did that, I started crushing the ball. I thought I was going to stick with it, until I noticed a few things. First, my short game (the strongest part of my game) really started to suffer for whatever reason. I'm extremely accurate with any wedge in my hand, and can scramble around the greens better than most. However, I felt like I lost my touch, and it suffered. It was probably more mental than anything else, but, so is the rest of the game. Secondly, like you mentioned earlier, the right side of my ribcage struggled with the change. I was literally ripping it apart and suffered an abdominal injury. I had to put the sticks down for a couple of months due to a torn muscle on my ribcage. When I was finally healed up, I felt a twinge of pain every time I tried to swing. I got the idea in my head to swing my old swing, and felt no pain at all. At that point, I stayed with my old swing and never looked back.

My advice is this: if you have a consistent full swing that feels good, and produces solid results... keep it. Instead of changing it, focus on improving your short game and putting. Those two aspects of the game are much more critical to reducing your score, and improving your overall competitive play.

Just my .02

 

[Zambo]

Zambo, like you, I once dabbled in the attempt at a single plane swing. I have played golf since I was 9 years old, coached the high-school golf team when I was teacher many years ago, and currently have a 7 handicap (my best ever was a 2, in my early 30's). Though I am not one for fads (or even the biggest Tiger fan), I decided to give the single plane swing a try when Tiger really started producing consistent wins with it. I have always hit a natural slight draw, and found that I needed to weaken my grip significantly with the single plane. I also realized that my club's heels were dragging a little too deeply, so I had the lie angles adjusted on my irons. Once I did that, I started crushing the ball. I thought I was going to stick with it, until I noticed a few things. First, my short game (the strongest part of my game) really started to suffer for whatever reason. I'm extremely accurate with any wedge in my hand, and can scramble around the greens better than most. However, I felt like I lost my touch, and it suffered. It was probably more mental than anything else, but, so is the rest of the game. Secondly, like you mentioned earlier, the right side of my ribcage struggled with the change. I was literally ripping it apart and suffered an abdominal injury. I had to put the sticks down for a couple of months due to a torn muscle on my ribcage. When I was finally healed up, I felt a twinge of pain every time I tried to swing. I got the idea in my head to swing my old swing, and felt no pain at all. At that point, I stayed with my old swing and never looked back.

My advice is this: if you have a consistent full swing that feels good, and produces solid results... keep it. Instead of changing it, focus on improving your short game and putting. Those two aspects of the game are much more critical to reducing your score, and improving your overall competitive play.

Just my .02

Great post Bayou.

FWIW I only tried it the one time until I got the rib thing. But during that time I practiced the short game with hands high address and it actually produced some pretty good results. My short game and putting are actually pretty good anyway. Like you said...that is where you start putting much less strokes on the card and its the first thing to go out the window when you put the sticks down for a while.

I don't know if this makes sense when I describe it but the way I control my putt distance is by using a consistent tempo but varying the length of the swing. Long putt, long swing. I try to do the same around the greens with the wedges, but had trouble making consistent contact when varying the swing length. So I went more to a system where you use different clubs to chip the ball different distances. Some call it the rule of 12 or other variants. (12-9=3...so a 9 iron will roll 3 times the distance you hit it, etc). But with the single plane or hands high method I was able to get more consistent contact on chips and just vary the swing length to hit it shorter or farther. Bryson is a master of this. I'm not sure the lie angle of my wedges is really set for this though. I feel like I'm occasionally digging the toe resulting in a miss to the right.

I was able to hit some easy full swings today with my normal swing. If I try to do the new thing though it still hurts like crazy. I think its from rolling the shoulders forward to extend the arms....it stretches the back muscles too much. I'll probably just go back to my normal swing but maybe just raise my hands at address more than in the past so the down plane is closer to the plane at address and see if that does anything. Anyway, I always enjoy the challenge of this game I think if I was seriously going to try to switch to the single plane I'd seek out an instructor who has experience teaching this way.

 

[bayou gator]

Great post Bayou.

FWIW I only tried it the one time until I got the rib thing. But during that time I practiced the short game with hands high address and it actually produced some pretty good results. My short game and putting are actually pretty good anyway. Like you said...that is where you start putting much less strokes on the card and its the first thing to go out the window when you put the sticks down for a while.

I don't know if this makes sense when I describe it but the way I control my putt distance is by using a consistent tempo but varying the length of the swing. Long putt, long swing. I try to do the same around the greens with the wedges, but had trouble making consistent contact when varying the swing length. So I went more to a system where you use different clubs to chip the ball different distances. Some call it the rule of 12 or other variants. (12-9=3...so a 9 iron will roll 3 times the distance you hit it, etc). But with the single plane or hands high method I was able to get more consistent contact on chips and just vary the swing length to hit it shorter or farther. Bryson is a master of this. I'm not sure the lie angle of my wedges is really set for this though. I feel like I'm occasionally digging the toe resulting in a miss to the right.

I was able to hit some easy full swings today with my normal swing. If I try to do the new thing though it still hurts like crazy. I think its from rolling the shoulders forward to extend the arms....it stretches the back muscles too much. I'll probably just go back to my normal swing but maybe just raise my hands at address more than in the past so the down plane is closer to the plane at address and see if that does anything. Anyway, I always enjoy the challenge of this game I think if I was seriously going to try to switch to the single plane I'd seek out an instructor who has experience teaching this way.

Zambo, you make a great case for why golf is such an amazing game, and why there really is no correct single way to play the game. I'm just like you in that I always try to keep the exact same putting stroke, and only vary the length of the backswing depending upon the distance of the putt. However, I have a great friend who is a true scratch golfer, and his putting stroke is all hands and wrists. When you just consider the club, his putter is doing exactly what ours does, but it is totally controlled by the hitch in his wrists. I don't know of anyone who would teach putting this way today, but that is how many of golf's greats putted in the 1950s and 60s. It damn sure works for him! Even when playing at my best, I have never been able to beat him.

And when it comes to chipping, I am all about feel. I'll use whatever club I think is best to produce the roll, spin, bite, flight, etc. that I feel is necessary for the shot. I believe that knowledge just comes from years of playing, and spending many, many evenings after work tooling around the practice green. But I know others who have a very specific and prescribed way to play around the greens.

With golf, it truly is a sport of going with what's best for you. Sure, there are some fundamentals that everyone has to figure out how to master before they can really begin to "play" the game. But after that point, the only thing that truly matters is practicing enough to make your game consistent and reliable. When that happens, it can be a helluva lotta fun!

 

[GatorBart]

I lost interest once Payne Stewart died. Someone needs to bring back that wardrobe.

I too miss Payne. That 1999 US Open win was pretty special. I thought he was going to kiss Lefty afterwards.


I give you Rickie Fowler (he wore this in respect for Payne during the 2014 US Open).