Which Swing is Better?
Neither the one plane or two plane swing
is necessarily better than the other.
There are numerous examples of world class ball
strikers that fall into both categories. But,
if you haven't already picked up a club and started
working on learning the one plane swing that Jim
Hardy talks about, then perhaps you might want
to consider the following:
1. Look at the two photos below taken of Tiger
Woods at the 2005 Buick Invitational (left) and
the 2000 British Open. There is no question that
he is moving more to a one plane swing with the
aid of Hank Haney. Understand, that no matter
what Nike tells you, you're NOT Tiger Woods. But,
you can learn some things from the best golfers
in the world. The most compelling thing to take
note of this is one of the main reasons Tiger
has said he is switching: to have more managable
misses. This is the ultimate of goal of all golfers
at every level. To be able to score with your
misses.
Tiger has mentioned that
he has always "struggled" with a very
aggressive body rotation back to the left because
it left his arms behind in the swing. This often
put him in the "stuck" position he bemoaned
so often. Tiger was taught by Butch Harmon to
make his hips wait or rotate more slowly to give
the arms more time to drop back down on plane
from their very "high above the head"
position. His other option was to swing his arms
faster so they catch up with the body. When he
successfully did this, he hit the ball superb.
But, when Tiger's body outraces his arms - when
his timing is even slightly off - he struggles
wildly. Because he is able to generate tremendous
clubhead speed in the 120+ mph range, a slight
mistiming and the ball misses right three fairways
over or duckhooks 200 yards out from the tee if
he flips his hands trying to save the shot.
Tiger mentioned in the January 2005 issue of Golf
Digest that he wanted to "own" his golf
swing and that only two other golfers in the history
of golf have ever owned their swings - Moe Norman
and Ben Hogan. For any golfer to own his swing,
he must strip out any unnecessary movements, reduce
his dependency on timing and not rely on the small
muscles of the hands and arms to control the golf
club. The one plane swing that Hogan used accomplished
exactly this.
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- One Plane vs. Two Plane Swing >>
