flattening out my swing

Art M

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I need some help flattening my swing. i just hit the ball too damn high and with too much spin. i had gotten away from this fault for a couple months, for the most part, with no real effort on my part just my swing changed. Currently the fault is here in full throttle. It is definitely shortening my distance with the irons noticeably.
 
I need some help flattening my swing. i just hit the ball too damn high and with too much spin. i had gotten away from this fault for a couple months, for the most part, with no real effort on my part just my swing changed. Currently the fault is here in full throttle. It is definitely shortening my distance with the irons noticeably.

Swing plane is dictated by address technique (grip-posture-alignment-ball position).
Any changes you wish to make to your swing and, or, ball flight can be made by adjusting your address position technique.
 
I went through this process about 15 years ago and have since tried to steepen my swing again. Trust me, there are pros and cons associated with a flat swing plane.

What helped me flatten things out was to feel like my right elbow stayed "attached" to my right ribs in my backswing. This instantly flattens things out, but can lead to fat shots since you'll be coming into the ball more from the inside. Takes a lot of getting used to.

I'd also suggest that hitting the ball too high or generating too much spin is likely NOT due to your swing plane.
 
I went through this process about 15 years ago and have since tried to steepen my swing again. Trust me, there are pros and cons associated with a flat swing plane.

What helped me flatten things out was to feel like my right elbow stayed "attached" to my right ribs in my backswing. This instantly flattens things out, but can lead to fat shots since you'll be coming into the ball more from the inside. Takes a lot of getting used to.

I'd also suggest that hitting the ball too high or generating too much spin is likely NOT due to your swing plane.

when i had the good couple months, that right elbow was stuck to my side and my arms were staying paired together and i was reaching full rotation. mentally i got that. physically, no matter the swing thought, the mechanics of the swing does not.
 
I went through this process about 15 years ago and have since tried to steepen my swing again. Trust me, there are pros and cons associated with a flat swing plane.

What helped me flatten things out was to feel like my right elbow stayed "attached" to my right ribs in my backswing. This instantly flattens things out, but can lead to fat shots since you'll be coming into the ball more from the inside. Takes a lot of getting used to.

I'd also suggest that hitting the ball too high or generating too much spin is likely NOT due to your swing plane.

I'm personally in the process of completely re-vamping my swing, as I've been swing way out to in, and very steeply. I agree with DG, as I can attest that my shoulders and hips were both way too open to target at address, and I had been shifting my weight and swaying to the trail side in the backswing. All these, coupled with the detachment of my trail elbow from my side caused a big, high fade, with a huge loss of power.

I have a ton of things that I'm thinking about while prepping my swing. I'm not interested in playing a round right now, just working the right positions in a slow sequence, to get used to the "New Swing". Flattening out my swing has taken a ton of effort, but has paid huge dividends so far. I'll list the majority of my thoughts on flattening my swing.

The biggest aspects that I'm thinking about are my alignment at address (feet, hips, and shoulders in "relative" line), and keeping my weight on my lead foot. I do my best to keep the majority of my weight on my lead leg throughout my swing.
In keeping my trail elbow pinned to my side in the backswing, trying to envision my lead elbow above my trail elbow, and thinking of my backswing as rotating "around my body" instead of "up and out", I've been able to very-effectively shallow my swing. Interestingly, I would have thought that all this effort on my behalf would cause a huge In-to-Out swing plane, but it has actually yielded a very straight swing path. This has been a very exciting observation for me.

FWIW, I've found some amazing results from not only use of video on my swing, but also receiving analysis from a professional. I can't advocate it enough. As I've mentioned, I'm only 2 lessons into my 10 lesson plan, and am already confident that I'll be making huge strides in my striking, and watch those strokes dissolve away.

Best of Luck,

-Bishop
 
If Matt Kuchar can do it then so can you,but It's a common misconception that hitting down makes the ball go up with more spin it's simply not true proven by trackman. Assume your hitting that ball on cement,sounds awful but bear with me for the visual. When your plane is vertical but fairly straight with say a 6 iron and your adept at making contact with the ball first then it means on average your AoA is - unless you duff it. Doing this means less loft and less spin angling downward first and more yardage from less loft. It's true that clean contact means ''PURE" spin with loft-X=speed as the equation for it. This could be the reason for normal spin maybe you have good speed with that 7 deloft to 6 make great contact and there it goes. Loft is set in stone once the ball makes contact it's gone in a microsecond the divot in that time frame is so much later that it has no relevance.

We see this because is many scenarios a player with to much speed and a +AoA with the driver gets to much spin of course he is hitting up on the ball and never the ground opposite of steep right? Your in a good situation to have the skill to avoid the blades of grass and make good ball contact maybe try a new shaft,take more club or shallow it out. If you shallow it out and have an actual zero angle of approach then it essence your allowing yourself to have a little flier in the fairway easier to do with a 5 than a gap wedge! The blades of grass get in the way in that microsecond or you add loft resulting in a floating lower spin shot. It's a good thing to have in the light rough with the ball sitting up or just a go to shot, but most people desire clean contact in the fairway for pure spin,just take an extra stick,get a stiffer shaft or swing easier that's how you control the spin. The easiest way to understand this is to imagine a 7 iron swung at 90 mph on par 3 tee'd up to where you would never hit the ground at 33 deg of loft vs a true 5 at 28 swung and the same speed. Steep has no relevance here the path is -1 for an example ok? The 7 will spin more from it's loft and high speed where the 5 will go farther and of course have less spin and control to the desired yardage. If you swing the 7 easier by a degree it will travel 5 yards less in carry,but spin less so that could be enough to get to the target,conversely if there is just a bit of wind swinging that 5 at 100 will create more spin float and and go the same distance. This is why the pro's are so good good luck.
 
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