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This concept video is understanding steeps and shallows.

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Now, what we're talking about here is the angle of attack, or the angle that

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the club is coming into the golf ball or into the ground with.

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Now, the best analogy that I've ever heard for this is an airplane landing on a

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runway.

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If the airplane is coming in too steep, it won't be able to pull up enough and

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it'll kind of crash land.

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And if it was coming in too shallow, it would be going parallel to the runway

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and it would overshoot the runway and never land.

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So, we want the angle of attack, we want the golf club coming into the golf

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ball on a somewhat gentle angle of attack.

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Somewhere four or five, six degrees with irons, flat to even a few degrees up

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with driver.

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Where many amateurs get going either very, very steep or very, very shallow.

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Now, the only way to really measure this is with a device like Trackman or Fl

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ightscope.

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But we're going to give a general idea from looking at swing plane.

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For a long time, swing plane was thought of as the end all and be all.

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But we've realized that you can have the exact same swing plane and dependent

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on where you're making contact along this plane,

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it can change the angle of attack pretty dramatically.

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So, we're still going to use this swing plane for a good visual representation.

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But how much you're hitting down, which will be revealed by how much of a divot

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you're taking,

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can adjust where the swing plane is pointed.

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So, in general, this is not absolute, but in general, the more that I get above

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this swing plane.

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So, I've got my horse, my swing plane trainer here.

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And if a swing was on plane, then it would basically be from waist height to

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waist height roughly the same angle that the club was at impact.

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So, if we pretend that this is about the same angle from waist height to waist

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height, that would be roughly on plane.

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Now, an on plane swing will work pretty well with both an iron and a driver.

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The tricky thing is, it's very hard to be exactly on plane.

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So, what we want to figure out is where is our margin of air?

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Well, with an iron, we tend to do better if we get a little bit steep.

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And with driver, we tend to get better if we do a little shallow.

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And here's what I mean by that.

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So, if we have this swing plane trainer, all the space up here, or here's the

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line,

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all the space going this way above the swing plane trainer is going to be steep

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.

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All the space down here is going to be more shallow.

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And the way that works is, let's say I get the club out over here, which is

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above the swing plane.

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This would be a steeper angle of attack because compared to the horizontal

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distance, like that club is only a few feet from the golf ball,

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but it's also a few feet from the ground.

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So, in order to get down to the golf ball in time, it's going to be traveling

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very much vertically.

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I'll demonstrate on this one real quick so you can see what I did.

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So, you can see that's only a few feet from the golf ball and it's a few feet

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off the ground,

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so it's going to be traveling very much down steeply into the golf ball.

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Well, if I did the opposite, if I got the club way underneath like so,

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now it's only about a foot off the ground, but it's still four or five feet

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away from the golf ball.

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So, it's going to come in very, very gently.

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If I did that here, so it's a foot off the ground, but it's still four or five

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feet, it'll come in very, very gently.

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Good drivers of the golf ball will tend to get a little bit more underneath

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this plane.

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Good iron players will tend to get a little bit more above that plane.

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So, it helps you understand your swing pattern is if you are pretty solid with

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your irons,

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but have a lot of trouble with your driver, and you take your video and you see

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that you tend to be a little bit more above plane,

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well, then we need to practice these movements that get us under plane.

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And obviously, vice versa, if you're good with your driver, struggle with your

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irons.

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We have to do practice some of these movements that get us a little bit more

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over plane or steep.

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So, I hope that clears up steep and shallow.

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Now, let's talk about the common combinations that players use and why I

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describe the transition the way that I do.

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So, the transition is basically from the top of the backswing on the way down.

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What a lot of amateurs do is they will use their arms steeply.

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So, your arms working steeply would be working more straight up and now like so

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, right?

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So, they get to the top of the swing and the arms start working very steeply.

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That would cause the club to get almost vertical unless I stood up with my body

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.

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So, if I go shallow with my body, steep with my arms, now the club is coming

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down close to plane but a little bit over.

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The opposite of that would be a golfer who goes very horizontal with the arms

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or very shallow with the arms,

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but they go steep with the body.

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This is what tour pros tend to do where the body will actually get a little bit

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closer to the golf ball during transition as the arms work more shallowly

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around their body.

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I think that tends to give them a little bit better energy transfer as well as

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a bigger margin of air.

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But just understand that for a short-term fix, the closer you can get to either

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slightly steep for irons or slightly shallow for driver, the better that it's

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going to be.

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So, keep this little visual in mind as you're practicing on the range.

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I think it can help you understand steep and shallow for angle of attack.