The Single Plane Swing: 6 Iron

Data: Club: 6 Iron, Distance: 175 yards, Speed 89mph, ball speed 121mph.

Let me walk you through the feelings of my golf swing:

Address: I feel slightly open (yes open not closed) with my torso, where my club feels left-sided (pointing to the lead side of my body). I feel tilted away from the target with my upper body but not too tilted. My legs are straight but not locked. My weight is stable and 50/50 between my feet. My body feels engaged and ready to move where my lead arm is more engaged than the trailing arm. My trail arm feels relaxed and ready to relax and fold into the backswing.

First Move: I believe the first move in the backswing is critically important to the swing because it sets the pace of the swing. The first move is where everything moves together at the same pace. I feel this starting at my lead shoulder and arm.

I feel that as everything moves into the backswing I am bracing the rotation of my body against the trial knee.

Move to the Top: As the club moves into the backswing the trail arm folds. The folding of the trailing arm feels like an upward movement of the hands and club. The backswing feels like two moves, the first move IN and the second move UP.

When the club reaches the top of the backswing, I feel braced into my trail leg inside my foot. My lower body feels slightly rotated and solid. My shoulders are turned but not overturned.

Transition into the lead knee: The first move into the downswing feels as though my hips are moving my weight into my lead knee toward my rotated foot big toe. It doesn’t bend much but rather stops firmly into a braced position.

Into the Lead Knee: Once I move into the lead knee, I feel as though the lead knee doesn’t move. It feels like I have “stepped” into the lead knee stopping solidly and firmly. But even though the lead knee has stopped, the hips continue to rotate but because the lead knee has stayed solid, I can only really move the right side of my pelvis.

My lead knee feels solid and engaged, almost as though I have stepped into my shoe and stopped my shoe from sliding across the floor.

By creating a stable lead knee brace, my lead hip becomes limited in its movement. Not the right side of my hips can rotate.

From this point is where most of my speed is produced due to a very important sequence of events. The lead knee is stable and the hips and torso are rotating together, I am rotating as much as I can. What happens next is critical.

 

 

Trail Foot on the Ground through the hitting area: As I feel like I am rotating as much as I can with my lead knee flexed, my trail foot remains on the ground. By doing so, my hips are limited in their movement. Creating this limitation, the torso can continue to rotate fully creating rotational speed for my arms to release their power.

I feel the trailing arm extend fully as the torso rotates. This allows the club to rotate back to the plane on the release. Even though it looks like the club rolls, I don’t feel this as a rolling of the hands but rather an extension of the trailing arm as the body rotates.

Notice in the picture how the trial arm and club extend. When the lead knee braces and as the trail foot remains on the ground, I can feel my hips and torso rotate as my trail arm extends from its bent (downswing) position. This feels like I am skipping a rock. Notice how the trailing arm goes from a bent position to a straight position – as the body rotates.

Club Face is related to the lead hand: When I study video of my swing, this is where I often check the clubface position to make sure I am on track. The club face and the lead hand should be parallel at this point. If the face angle was open or closed to my lead hand at this point, I would realize that I have an issue with my lead hand (grip) position.

This makes my case for video analysis. Feeling the club face position, among other quickly moving parts, is impossible to feel during the swing.

Release and Finish: My weight has moved into my flexed lead leg as I rotate to a complete release and finish. I can feel the trailing arm fully release as I also feel my chest rotates to the target. Once my hands have reached shoulder height, and my chest is to the target, the motion is complete. I simply stand up on my lead leg.

Thank you for reading my blog and I hope you enjoyed my swing analysis.

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