Why You Need This: In this video, you get a perfect backswing plane drill.

This drill is especially helpful to stop your club from coming across the line at the top of your swing.

When you do this, it requires a ton of compensations to reroute your club for a decent impact position.

A lot of golfers struggle with this and it can seem that no matter what you try, you just can’t fix it.

In this video, you’ll discover two moves to focus on in order to help you stop coming across the line at the top of your swing.

First, place an alignment stick lined up at your target.

As you start your backswing, make sure the club is close to parallel with the alignment stick.

This will help you stop from taking your club back way too inside, which can cause you to let your momentum take the club across the line at the top of your swing.

Next, concentrate on keeping your right elbow down at the top of your swing.

Keeping your elbow under control will help keep your club from crossing the line.

Watch this video now for a few great drills that’ll help you stay on plane!

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 4:24

Video Transcription:

Hi guys, and welcome back. I recently got a question from a member named Stan that was asking about his club being across the line at the top of the swing.

What I mean by this is the club is actually pointing to the right as he gets to the top of the swing, and he felt like he tried everything, just couldn’t get that to be fixed. I think a lot of people struggle with this, and that’s a real problem because we’re having to reroute that in the downswing.

He tried everything, he just can’t seem to get it pointing on plane. Well in this video, I’m going to talk about two things that are really going to help with this.

First off, let’s talk about why we don’t want to have this pointing to the right. If we can imagine as we set up to this ball, we have a swing plane line that’s coming from the hosel of our club up through the bottom of our elbow if we’re looking from down the line.

That’s basically where we want the club to be traveling as we’re coming through contact and into the release to be able to get that nice, consistent ball flight, and that well-compressed shot.

If at the top of the swing, now we’re all of a sudden, we’re going to the right, or a lot of times what I’ll see is people going inside and then to the right. Well now we’re way off this plane, and we’re going to have to drop that back down.

Sometimes it drops a little too far, and we get the club underneath. Sometimes it doesn’t drop far enough, and we’re coming in too steep. We’re constantly searching to get it just right and causes some problems.

Two things that I usually see where this is happening, I’ve put an alignment stick down here on the ground, it’s going to be toward my target in the distance. As I set up to this alignment stick, I want to make sure that my club is going back as parallel with this when it’s about parallel with the ground.

As I’m going back in my takeaway, usually when someone’s coming across the line at the top, they tend to drag the club inside and then it continues up to go to the right.

If I do my takeaway, what I should see is this club being parallel with this stick on the ground as my club is parallel with the ground.

Now I’m in a good swing plane and I can continue up that al the way into a good swing plane at he top.

I want to check this and do about 100 repetitions at first, making sure that I’m hitting that line. I want to check with the camera from down the line, that way I’m sure that I’m doing the right motions.

Now if you check on the camera, and you just keep on going to the inside like this, what I would focus on is keeping the hands inside and the club head working out. So you’re going to feel like this, where the club is well outside the hands and notice how the right wrist is much flatter.

I’m dragging the club inside, my right wrist is bending. Now I’m keeping that right wrist flat and the club head is outside.

Now when you feel like this on camera, and you check it, it’s actually probably going to be pretty straight for you guys that really struggle getting it in there. That’s really going to help you out for the chronic people that really get the club inside.

Now from there as I go to the top, I have to make sure that my forearms and my elbow work in the right way. So a lot of times when someone’s club is to the right, what I’ll see is that elbow flying out away from the body.

You can see how that gets my club to the right. So this is probably pretty common for those people that are struggling with this. Watch what happens when I tuck my elbow in, now my club’s going to be much more on plane.

What I want to have is I want my elbow to be pointing down to the ground as I rotate back. Also, another way to feel this which is a little bit easier, is if you put your hands together like you’re clapping.

I’m going to imagine that swing plane line here again. As I go to the top, my hands need to rotate until my palms are kind of parallel with that swing plane line. Looks something like this.

If I’m going across the line my hands are going to be more like this where they’re not in line with that. I’ve got to rotate just like I’m turning a steering wheel to the right, I’ve got to rotate those hands, and then as I’m coming through I rotate them the other way to go ahead and release that shot.

That’s really going to help you to get that feeling. So get 100 repetitions in doing that same thing. So 100 reps takeaway, and then 100 reps as I go to the top. I’m going t feel that my elbow’s down, and my hands are rotating to get this club on plane.

Once I’ve done those 100 reps, I’m going to go ahead and take it out to the course, 100 reps of each of them. I’m going to take it out to the course and I’m going to try to put together a nice full swing where I’m swinging on plane back and through. Let’s go ahead and give it a shot.

All right, dead straight toward the flag. Didn’t move an inch, hopefully I was pretty well on plane. Go ahead and work hard guys, good luck, and I’ll see you all soon.