Green Grass Golf Shop

Hello, friends, Welcome into the first episode here of our first series that desperately needs a new name, Swing Tip Busters.  Someone please help with the name.  So my goal here with this series is to take the most common tips that I see on all the social media apps that are only able to give a fraction of the information that I think is actually needed and just expand and give a little more context to those tips.  Now, the idea behind this series is that most of the tips, especially the ones I see lately, start at the top of the backswing.  The disconnect is that not a lot of those short form videos actually tell you how to get there properly and not get stuck immediately with much too shallow of a takeaway, where I actually see most of my students ending up starting their takeaway.

That actually takes me really nicely into our topic for today, and that’s the obsession with shallowing your swing plane.  Now, first and foremost, as some of you might be wondering, what actually does that mean, and why do I want to…be…that?  Well, first, when we talk about shallow, where I want you to think about that is right here at impact. as it relates to the club’s angle of what we call the down the line position looking from behind the golfer toward the target.  Now, this would be shallow with the grip closer to the ground at impact, this would be steep with the club in a more vertical position.  The more shallow we are at impact, typically that means the better position we were on our downswing and the more shallow we were able to get, putting a lot less unnecessary back and side spin on the ball, which would cause the ball to go further offline, turn more, hang in the air, ultimately with the chance to land very far away from our target if everything isn’t perfectly timed.  The margin for error when you’re steep, is razor thin.  The more shallow we can get, the wider margin for error we can create for ourselves, the more space we can get to hit good golf shots, and the easier the game can be.  Golf is hard enough, we want to make it as easy as possible with what we can control.  Be sure to stay tuned to the end for by far my favorite drill to help you feel and really drill in that proper shoulder turn into your muscle memory.  Let’s dive in!

Okay, so I’m going to try to make this as quick as I can here.  If you haven’t watched our video breaking down the whole setup, please go check that out. It’s much, much more detailed being 12 minutes long.  I actually started writing that script that turned into my setup video as this script here that turned into a 3000-word dissertation on how to set up properly, so I just made that its own video. So I’m going to try to condense this quite a bit, maybe even add a few more advanced checks and tips for once you’re comfortable with that setup.  If you need more details, it’s all in our perfect setup video. It’s also on our channel.  I’ll always start my grip down by my side here, where that club naturally wants to hold the hand on top.  I’m going to glue that in that spot there, that hand will never do anything but slightly change pressure as I move the club around, pick it up and set it down, but I’m always making sure that hand stays put. Another thing I want to make sure that I do is I’m going to turn my club and make sure that it’s square up in the air, where it’s easier to see where those grooves are pointing, straight up and down.  I’m not going to worry about what it looks like at address because for most it should look much more open than you’re used to. Now I’ll face my bottom hand towards my target, line up my forearms and my shoulders to that alignment rod here. That’s going to be very important to keep me in position to make it easy as possible to make this first move that we need to make here, having our shoulders lined up with that alignment aid. That should line up the forearms, and then we have the feet lined up with that as well. Let those arms hang straight down, nice and relaxed, loose grip to really be able to keep the club moving. I’ll do a quick posture check as I got my knees inside the edge of my toes. I can see my entire leg as I look down. My chest pointing down on a line just outside the golf ball. My weight is over the balls of my feet, between my toes and my arches, I’m ready to go.

Now, let’s get to the secrets, the most important key to getting shallow that nobody is talking about comes down to what we love about golf and how little sense it makes.  The same way you have to hit down on the ball to make it go up, the same way swinging left makes the ball go right, that’s the same way your shoulders and your backswing have to get steep in order for the downswing and impact position to get more shallow.  I can say that again, the steeper that your backswing is and your shoulders at the takeaway, the more shallow you can get on the downswing.  And that is really the main secret that I think a lot of the influencers and the golf pros that only have 60 seconds to have their swing tips are missing.  You can’t make the moves that they’re demonstrating if you don’t make a proper takeaway and get yourself in a position to make those moves first. That is the biggest disconnect that I see when someone can’t see your swing or maybe hasn’t done a lot of in-person instruction, that they’re missing the most important part of the instruction process. Most of the amateurs, most of the beginner golfers and students that I’ve given lessons to in the past have never been in a position to make those movements in their life.  Because the takeaway that I see most often something a lot more like this: where I see the club and the shoulders start super flat underneath the swing plane, spine angle is lost, the top of the backswing looks like they’re standing straight up with a club over their heads, with the golfer in no position to get more shallow.  The golf club wants to move where there is the most space, DO NOT EVER FORGET THAT.  When you take the club away in this position, all of the space is created over the top, that move that every golfer wants to eliminate from their swing is damn near impossible from this position here. Think about Matt Wolfe.  If you don’t know his swing, it’s no joke, just a big swing drill that turned into a nice long swing drill golf swing.  Now when teaching, one of the things that we look for and we try to make happen in the takeaway is that the hands stay inside the club head as it gets to the parallel (club parallel with the ground) position here.  “Hands in, club out,” is something you’ll hear from a lot of golf professionals.  That’s in order to get the club more steep in the takeaway.  The reason Matt is able to make that transition move where he makes the club literally look like it teleports itself through the fabric of time and space from lightning rod position down to the most shallow you’ve ever seen in your life is because that’s where all the space is, that is the only place where the space is.  It’s the only place for the club to go on the transition is as flat as the body will allow it to go.  That’s the principle that we’re going to be working off of today, is trying to make as much space as we can for that club to move where we want it to move.  Or simply put, if you want to get shallow, you have to get steep first.  Let me tell you what I mean by that.

Now there are a couple different ways you can think about this, and you may want to try all of them to see which feels best for you, but they’re all trying to do the same thing with your swing.  These will all turn your shoulders on the proper plane and make it as easy it can be to get as shallow as you can.  The one way you can think about this is to think about the forearms, specifically keeping your trailing arm, the one away from your target, on top of your leading one for as long as you can to start your swing.  Now, this actually does a couple things, this one’s my favorite because it tends to subconsciously stretch those arms out nice and straight.  That’s another thing that we’re trying to do in the backswing to make it easier to be nice and shallow, helping create width in addition to turning the shoulders in the proper plane. Width is also where a lot of club head speed comes from. Now, from here, we can use a lot of those drills that we see on social media that can help us feel more shallow in the swing motion.  One thing we can do is take our club here, grip down, toe of the club towards you, grip it in your hands between your thumb and forefinger with them pointed away from your body, and wrap it around my elbow here away from my target.  From there, I’m just going to pull that club down towards the golf ball and around toward my back pocket around my waist.  That does a couple things, it keeps that elbow nice and tight and in front of your body, or as we call it in the business, pardon the jargon here: The Good Stuff.  Now I said there are a couple different ways to think about this because we all use different muscles in our day-to-day lives.  We all have a different feel, a different understanding of how our body works.  Some of us feel certain muscles the way they engage better than others.  Some of us are more connected with the right side of our body than the left or vice versa. Some of us are more connected with the hands or fingers than we are with the forearms or the shoulders, everyone is different.  So another way you can think about this instead of the forearms to make the same exact moves, is to think about that right palm, the trailing hand.  Keep that pointed at the ground for as long as you can, and then away from the target as you get the club in the air.  Thinking about keeping the right hand on top throughout the takeaway, that would do the same thing.  I’ve done a lot of talk about the trail shoulder and how we want that in the air, but another way to get that in the air is to think about your other shoulder and getting that one down, as low as you can under your chin, that raises the trail shoulder as well.  No matter how your body translates, this all does the same thing, turns the shoulders more steep and the club more vertical.  When the shoulders don’t get steep, the spine angle that you started with its setup is lost, and creating a more shallow angle of attack on the downswing becomes incredibly difficult.  When at the top of your backswing, you’re at this position here standing straight up and down, it becomes very, very hard to do all the other things that you need for the club to get in a more shallow position.  The shoulders have to be steep at the impact position, and in order to do that, they have to mirror that on the takeaway.  If your shoulders are flat during the takeaway and they’re flat at impact, that creates a very, very steep angle with that club.  Your body is always going to want to mirror that motion that you made at the takeaway.  If you want something to happen with your body in the downswing, it makes it a whole hell of a lot easier if you mirror that action with your takeaway first.

But now on to the best part, and that’s the drill that you can do to make sure you’re getting the proper feeling of the shoulders and the body moving like they should, and how that fits into your body’s natural moves.  Now something I’ll hammer home in a lot of my videos is how hard it is to feel what your body is actually doing throughout the swing.  How important it is to have something you can do to make sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your body is getting the right feel of the motions that your body needs to make throughout the swing. One way you can do this is with this drill here. First, I’ll take my iron, the longer the better, I just have an eight iron in the video there. You can also use an alignment rod if you have them available. I’m going to tuck it back between the bend in my elbows and behind my back, and I like to put the grip towards my target for this first part of the drill here so I can make it easier during the second part of the drill here.  Now, all I’m going to do is turn my shoulders and try to point that grip right down at the golf ball.  It’s something you can add to your warm-up routine, something I do on the golf course to stretch, and I can promise you that from here, as the best say, you can do all the moves that you’re seeing on social media that really do help to get more shallow.  Very importantly, if this is hard for you, if you can’t make that big of a shoulder motion, this drill and stretch can be done very easily for a minute or two twice a day.  Every day just trying to improve that range of motion, make this a more natural movement, and working out those improper mechanics that for whatever reason have worked themselves into your muscle memory over the years of struggling with the golf swing, to work these proper ones in much quicker.   You need a drill, something that can help you drill those proper mechanics into your muscle memory and get the improper ones out.

Thanks so much for watching (and reading!) everyone.  If this video helps, please be sure to leave a like, subscribe and follow for all of our latest videos and swing tips. check out the golf live link in our channel description to book your free swing analysis see if virtual lessons are right for you.  Because remember, nobody who cannot see your swing can tell you what will work best for it. Check out the Green Grass Golf Blog over on greengrassgolfshop.com for even more tips and to help you play your best. By far most importantly, don’t keep us a secret, leave a comment for the algorithm, and share with your friends to help us help more golfers.

Thanks again all. We’ll see you on the course!