One or two plane swing?

[Piratelady]

There's a lot out there on the PGA men and their one or two plane swings but not a lot about what the women use. I found a Michele Wie (one plane) video.  One plane has been recommended for shorter golfers. Wondering about Cassie Myers (5' 5"), Brooke Henderson (5' 4"), etc. 

Thinking about moving to a simpler one plane swing. Would appreciate any thoughts.  

[tomba51]

8 hours ago, Piratelady said:

Thinking about moving to a simpler one plane swing. Would appreciate any thoughts.  

For what it's worth, Jim Hardy came to our course a couple of years ago and did a 2 day clinic on "one plane, two plane". For each participant, he identified whether we were a one planer or a two planer. When asked about changing from one to the other, he said that in his entire career, he has only changed one player (Peter Jacobson) from a two planer to a one planer. So apparently, such a change is not something to be undertaken lightly. I got the impression that the purpose of identifying whether a player was one plane or two plane was not necessarily to change that player from one to the other, but to help the player understand better how to optimize the swing that he did have.

[Piratelady]

Thank you for that response. Very interesting. Were most players already one or mostly twos out there? 

[tomba51]

It's a small sample size, but the Jim Hardy clinic that I attended had about 20 participants, and almost all were two planers.

[chipa]

The swing plane is not so important for golfers with good mechanics because the only real plane that matters is the biometric plane, ie the relationship of the hands, arms and shaft to the upper body. This is apparent in swings with very little hip turn to start the swing, like Freddy Couples, Jim Furyk and Matthew Wolff where the club appears to take an outside path. On the contrary for golfers that turn the hips early the club will trace an inside path, like Bobby Jones. 

 

For golfers that regrip the club during the backswing the swing plane and timing is very important. Jack Nicklaus said letting the club slip in the left hand was the number one problem of most higher hc players. 

[Piratelady]

Chipa. Good advice. Working on shallowing my plane for a more consistent impact so wanted to watch pros to model. I love the swings of Cassandra Myer and Brooke Henderson. They are shorter in stature so wondering how they were taught to swing. Swings are simple and strong. Hard for me to tell from the video angles where their planes are. Some people, it is very clear, super high hands for example. But some low long takeaways look one and two plane. Maybe the hybrid some people talk about. Any opinions/help would be appreciated. 

 

Edited February 12, 2022 by Piratelady

[chipa]

7 hours ago, Piratelady said:

Chipa. Good advice. Working on shallowing my plane for a more consistent impact so wanted to watch pros to model. I love the swings of Cassandra Myer and Brooke Henderson. They are shorter in stature so wondering how they were taught to swing. Swings are simple and strong. Hard for me to tell from the video angles where their planes are. Some people, it is very clear, super high hands for example. But some low long takeaways look one and two plane. Maybe the hybrid some people talk about. Any opinions/help would be appreciated. 

 

 

I believe most of the current swing advice is for the majority of golfers(90+%) that have an over the top move and shallowing the club on the downswing has to be at the top of the list. However, better players will tell you that there should be no real downswing thoughts nor manipulations of the club. The more traditional teaching taught that if the club doesn't shallow naturally on the downswing its because there was something that happened beforehand that prevented this natural move.

 

My advice would be to focus on golf instruction that focus on the legs at setup and during the takeaway so that one can learn to "swing around" the lower body. It's no coincidence that those that have problems swallowing the club or an over the top move have no effective pressure shift in the legs. This is also why one never sees a pro do an over the top move, it is completely incompatible with a good weightshift(pressure shift).