Find your swing plane article

Public Forum—Concepts in Advanced Ball Striking
1

Did anyone happen to see the latest Golf Magazine at newstands with Ben Hogan and his plane-of-glass image on the cover? With that image on the front, it is hard to not pick up and see what’s up.

The article relating to that cover story is written by a Mike Adams (top-100 teacher) and is an interesting thought. He says that rather than trying to swing on a certain plane perceived to be “best” (whether flat or whatever) that each individual will have an optimal plane based on their forearm/upper arm lengths and ratio.

He gives a simple test to determine your ideal plane. Standing and with relaxed shoulders, place right elbow to ribcage side then make a hitchhiker thumb and folder arm up so thumb goes to shoulder. Keep elbow at your side in same spot while folding your arm. The level where your thumb points to determines your arm geometry and determines your fate of an ideal plane. Slightly below the top of shoulder and you are “Flat”. Level with top of shoulder is “mid” and above shoulder is “upright”.

He goes on to explain how Hogan had long upper arms yet short forearms and determines that Hogan was optimally on a flat plane. He also shows a few PGA pro’s who have changed their planes and struggled as their arms didn’t fit their newly desired plane.

I have super long arm actually. Being 6’1", Ping once measured my wrist-floor as someone more like 5’11. My thumb points about 1/2" above my shoulder in that test.

Thoughts?

2

I seen that too…found it very interesting.

I was a mid plane…but i have short forearms too…wondering why i wasnt flat plane?

Weird altogether. Easy way to get your article in a Mag though.

3

Body type may have an effect on how flat or upright one could effectively work toward, but I don’t buy the idea that body type should determine swing plane. For those of us here that have worked hard on our modules and have seen the benefit of flat lie angles when done correctly, I think it is clear that this is a superior way to do things from a consistency perspective. Even if the article suggested someone use more upright gear, I dont think that means they couldn’t play flat equipment. Maybe they wouldn’t play equipment as flat as others could play, but I see no good reason to ever want to work toward being more upright if you’re willing to do the work to develop an action that will support flatter equipment in a pivot-driven hitting type of way.