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It is impossible to tell the exact path of the club without some sophisticated launch monitor technology, but you can get a fairly reasonable approximation by looking at ball flight. Sometimes, it's hard to believe (or feel) the swing that you are actually making so it's good to use objective feedback. The gate drills can be very useful for that, but you can also use a less obtrusive method if you set up a station like the one demonstrated in this video. You are going to check the path of the club at shaft parallel to the ground in both the downswing and the follow through. This is the time when your club should pretty much follow a plane, so you can get an idea as to how far in to out or out to in the club path is swinging by comparing the club head to the hands (or alignment sticks) at these two check points.
Playlists: Fix Your Cast, Fix Your Slice, Understand Your Swing Plane/Path, Fix Your Hook, Swing Plane Simplified - Working with steeps and shallows
Tags: Not Straight Enough, Not Enough Distance, Intermediate, Beginner
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This video is path checkpoints. So I'm going to show you a way you can use video and the
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position when the club is shaft parallel to the ground either on the downswing or in the
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follow through to help you figure out just the general tendencies of what your path
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would be. So from the face on camera view we're talking about roughly there where the shaft
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is parallel to the ground and roughly there when the shaft is almost parallel to the
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ground. So what I've done is I've put an alignment rod on the ground that I'm going to try
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to set up with my hands above and then I've got an alignment stick in a range basket.
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If you're out on the driving range of course you can stick them in the ground but I've
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got it far enough away that I'm not going to hit it. So I've got an alignment stick there
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and I've got an alignment stick here. So now if I was to set up to a golf ball with my hands
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more or less on top of this stick right here then this is going to be as long as I'm
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my camera pointed roughly through my hands. This is going to be a pretty good assessment
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for where the clubhead is compared to my hands at this waist height position. So in general
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this is not completely absolute and we'll talk about a couple exceptions but in general
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the more that my hands are inside of this line or the the clubhead is inside of this line
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when my hands are parallel the more that I'm going to be a right word path or draw or hook
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biased or potentially block if I don't square the face and the more on the follow-through
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side that the club is on the right side or outside or above the impact plane I'm also going
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to be right word path dominant or hook or block biased. The opposite would be more of a
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fade bias. So if I was to take this checkpoint right here I'm pretty much in line with the
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club. If I was to be out like so this would be more or less a left word path bias which would
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be more of slices, fades and poles. On the follow-through side if it's blocked by my body or it's
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left of where this would be in line that's also going to be a left word path bias with which
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typically will result in poles, slices and fades. If it's pretty much straight here in straight
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here I'm going to have very little curve depending on follow-through contact and little things
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with my release I'll have slight amount of curve but if I'm trying to hit a big hook typically
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going to try to get my the club well inside here to potentially well above and outside there
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if I'm trying to hit a big slice typically going to get the club well outside here and well
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inside there. Now some good players will tend to do one of each. They will tend to get slightly on the
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inside here and then because of their body pivot and the way that their upper body rotates through
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their shot they'll tend to get slightly inside there. I think it's virtually impossible
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in any type of full swing possibly in a wedge shot when any type of full swing to be
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outside here and then outside there. So that covers the different possibilities and if you're working
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on your shot shaping so if you slice the ball and you're trying to hit a draw or if you hook the
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ball and you're trying to hit a little bit of a fade these can be really good checkpoints when
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you are checking your own video or just to help you with the spatial relationship so when I said
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it's the golf ball I now have a visual like even if I feel like I'm coming inside but if I get here
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I know that I'm not so it gives you a good little spatial relationship and then you can
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hit full shots as long as you put these far enough away that you're in safety.
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Potentially you don't even need that one on the follow-through side but this can be very helpful
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for when you're working on your shot shaping.
