Why You Need This: In this video, you'll learn how to shallow the club with gravity.

Shallowing the club in the downswing is a big deal in golf.

In the Top Speed Golf System, we call this "The Move," and it can really help you come in at a better angle and compress the ball.

I believe a good way to think about The Move is to simply let the club drop down with gravity.

First in the video, you'll get an overview of what shallowing the club is and why you need to shallow your club in the downswing.

Then you'll learn some of the physics of the downswing (in Layman's terms).

Throughout the video, you'll see clips of how pros such as Adam Scott, J.B. Holmes, Dustin Johnson, and Rory McIlroy shallow the club.

Lastly, you'll get a simple 2-step drill to help you get the correct feeling of shallowing your club in the downswing.

You'll avoid swinging with an over-the-top motion, and you'll learn how to stop casting the club.

Watch this video now to shallow your club in the downswing like the pros!

Golf Pros Featured: Adam Scott    Dustin Johnson    J.B. Holmes    Rory McIlroy    

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 7:46

Video Transcription:

All right guys, welcome back. Shallowing the club. Always a big deal in golf, how are we gong to get this club to shallow out like the pros and then come down squarely so we can really compress that golf ball.

I think a great idea to way to think of this is to shallow with gravity. In this video it’s going to help you to stop getting that casting motion, stop coming over the top and kind of chopping down into the ball.

So let’s talk about first what shallowing the club is, and then we’re going to talk a little bit of physics, we’re not going to get too complicated. I’m going to break it down really simple on how that’s actually going to happen.

When we shallow the club, what that means is as I’m coming in to the top of my backswing, that club is coming up at one angle.

Then as I come down, that club shaft or the center of mass of the club, the balancing point of the club where I would like to think of it, I’d like you to think of an easier way to visualize it, is just at the sweet spot of the club.

That needs to begin to shallow out lower, and then to come down on a nice kind of inside to square, back to the inside type of a path or a plane. So everything’s nice and consistent as we’re coming into the shot.

Now why is that important? Why would I care? In reality, all that means is that’s the angle that this club would work best through the ball to hit a nice, square shot and to have the sole of the club working nice and flush with the ground.

When you’re taking divots, do you have those perfectly shaped square divots, or does it tend to be that your toe’s digging down in the ground and the right side or the outside of your divot is a little bit deeper, kind of causing it to look angled.

Ideally we want to have that kind of dollar bill-sized perfectly square divots. Now as I shallow this club, I’m coming in to that angle, it’s going to roll right down my right forearm as I’m coming into the downswing, and then it’s going to go squarely into the ball.

Like I said, the club’s going to be nice and square, and get that good, clean divot.

If I’m steeper, I’m over the top, I’m going to tend to be when I’m steeper to cast the club. So part of shallowing the club out has also given you a big-looking angle of lag.

If you’re struggling with lag, when you’re looking from face on, if I’m doing this over the top I don’t look like I have very much lag at all.

If I take this angle and then shallow that out, now it looks like I have a ton of lag. If you watch players like Sergio Garcia, really shallow in the downswing, tons of lag, and also a great ball striker.

That’s what we’re shooting for, we’re shooting for this club to shallow out a bit in the downswing.

Now how is this actually going to happen? It really has to fight the urge of hitting with the right hand. Let’s talk about gravity for a second.

If I have gravity pulling my club down toward the center of the ground, if I just let this club drop, or let’s say I have it at an angle like this, and I just let gravity drop the club, it stays constant the entire way down.

When that club drops it gets lower, but it doesn’t shallow the shaft, doesn’t shallow the angle of the shaft.

I can let gravity shallow the club, though. If I keep my hands nice and soft, what’s actually happening here is when I’m holding this club still, gravity is pushing the club down uniformly, equally, just like we just looked at.

I am applying a force, a vertical force, to hold this club where it’s at. So if I let go of that force, my hands drop, the club drops.

I’m also applying what’s called a couple. Now this is going to get a little bit complicated here for a second, a little science-y. But don’t worry, stick with me, I’m going to make it really easy to feel in the end.

A couple just means that I have my left hand on the club, it’s working one direction, and my right hand is on the club and it’s working the other direction.

So here, for example, my right hand is pushing up on this club this way. So to test that, if I was to hold on with my left and I let go with my right hand, you’ll start to see this side of the grip falls downward.

If I was to do the same thing, my left is pushing down on the club the opposite direction. My right hand was going this way, my left hand is going the opposite direction that way.

So if you watch this side of the grip, if I let go of my left hand, that side of the grip moves up. So my left hand’s pushing down, my right hand’s pushing up, and it’s balancing each other out. It’s canceling each other it.

If you think of it kind of like a wheel, look how my left hand’s going down, my right hand’s going up. That’s the force I’m putting into there.

So this is working throughout the golf swing, these are always going in different directions depending on what I’m doing with the golf club to get the club to work the way I want to.

So again, we’re getting pretty far off the deep end here, what the heck, why do I care about this? Why would I even ever want to get that technical in the golf swing?

You don’t have to get that technical, but it is nice to know so that we can understand what we ned to do with the hands.

If I want to take my hands, and I want to let gravity push this club down a little bit, what do I have to do? I have to loosen up my right hand.

The natural tendency for players that come over the top is to take this right hand to push out on this grip really hard, and start casting that club. That causes my left wrist to bow, that causes my club to steepen up and come over the top.

That causes me to lose lag, makes my right elbow pop up like this. It gives me a chicken wing as I’m coming through contact. A lot of things that are happening later on the swing start right here in the transition.

So in the transition, if I want to shallow this club, I have to apply a little bit of upward force with my hands, and I have to relax this right hand.

This right hand is pushing this way, keeping that club from dropping down. If I relax this right wrist, watch what happens.

You’re going to see my left wrist bows a little bit. Look at the top players in the game. As they’re coming through contact, that left wrist is nice and bowed, getting some forward shaft lean.

If I let loosen up my right hand, that drops down, now my right wrist starts to bend back. That’s called wrist extension, or it starts to fold a little bit. People call it different things, but we’re creating a bigger angle there.

By letting that happen with some gravity, letting gravity just push my right hand down, I’m releasing the tension in my right hand, letting that soften up. Now that gravity’s pushing this club down.

I’m allowing that to happen with my hands by losing loosening the pressure in the grip and it’s shallowing out the club.

Now, I have a lot of lag, I’ve got forward shaft lean, I’m coming down shallow. I have this wrist angle in a good spot at impact. A lot of really good things happen there, if I can just loosen up that hand in the transition.

Let’s take that to the test now. Let’s actually make it a real drill where we can get something out of this instead of just a bunch of science-y mumbo jumbo here.

Let’s go to the top, and I want you to go to the top of your swing, and then I want you to loosen up that right wrist and let the gravity push down on the club head, push down on the face to drop it down.

I want your left wrist to bow a little bit, at least be flat. Bow would be great, that kind of sensation, and I want my right wrist to bend back a little bit as I’m letting this happen.

Now from there, I’m in a good spot to where I can just swing all the way on through to my finish.

I want you to do this in a two-step drill. Number one, we’re going to go back and we’re going to pause. Number two, we’re going to loosen up and let that club fall, and then swing on through.

I’m going back to the top of my swing, pausing. Loosen that up, and then swing on through.

For those of you that really want to muscle through there and start to cast the club, that’s going to be an awesome drill for you.

Let’s go ahead, do about 15 or 20 reps of that, just slow motion. Just pausing, letting it fall, swinging all the way on through. As you come to your finish, I want you to make sure that you come all the way on around the shot. I don’t want to do one of these where I let it fall and then I go back to address.

I want to actually pair this up with how that’s going to allow me to swing through contact. Then once I’ve done 15 or 20 of those and I’m feeling pretty good, feel like I’ve got a good rhythm with it, built up a little bit of muscle memory, if you want to call it that.

Now I can go ahead and recreate that same feeling in the golf swing. There we go, guys.

Best of luck to you. Let gravity do some work. Take that right wrist out of there. You’re going to shallow the club and compress the ball a lot more in the future.