CHANGE YOUR SWING PATTERN: STICK SHIFT
For chronic slicers, shallowing the plane of the downswing is a tough assignment. But this exercise offers a simple and effective way to feel and train the move you need to make. DO NOT hit balls or swing through; this is a start-ofdownswing exercise only.
1. Start the exercise by taking your grip and standing upright, the club vertical in front of you as shown. Cradle a club or, even better, an alignment stick in your crooked elbows. It’s possible to do this yourself, but it’s a lot easier to ask a friend to put it there. Make sure your elbows are at an even height, and that the stick is horizontal.
2. From here, turn slowly and carefully to find a top-of-the-backswing position. As you do this, focus on keeping the stick nice and level. It might take a couple of goes to put this move into practice, but you’ll soon get it.
3. The key move now is to shift forwards and unwind while getting the stick to tilt backwards – in other words, the end behind you moving downwards and the end in front moving upwards. You will note how much shallower your downswing feels when you can create this backward tilt… and how much easier it feels to attack the ball from an inside path. This move is far easier to perform at slower speeds, so train the feeling in slow motion at first… and build speed gradually.
4. To square this exercise off, this is what happens with the old, steep, outside-the-line downswing move. The stick tilts dramatically forwards, almost certainly falling from your elbows. Just keep an eye on the front end of the stick; and as you rehearse your downswing move, make sure it’s moving up, not down.