When you dive into social media for golf instruction you will see countless “tips” on how to shallow the club in the downswing. Concepts such as external rotation of the trail shoulder or clearing with the lead side of your body while keeping your pelvis back. A lot of work in an attempt to get more shallow. Although shallowing the club early in transition is beneficial, doing such shouldn’t be so difficult.
This article will discuss shallowing the club but not the way you think and in a way that is often overlooked. Players would benefit more by getting their body into a position in the backswing that allows them to shallow the club naturally in transition. This is done by the direction of turn in the backswing and from an efficient Set-up position, creating what is called “Shallow Space”.
The face-on camera angle is just as important as the down-the line angle. This tells the story of how the body moves to create this shallow space mentioned. Below is an example of shallow space (picture on the left in green) created by a body that has turned around its original spine angle established at address. The body position on the right (in red) will have to work harder to shallow the club, usually resulting in a steep path.
Both positions can be effective, however the body position on the left (in green) doesn’t have to work so hard to get the club back on path. There is no “recovery” needed with the body or a forced movement of the body required to get the club back on path. The back can easily some back into an efficient impact position as well: With the body in this efficient coil position the arms have space to swing down, shallowing the club naturally with the change of direction to the downswing (picture below).
From this position, the shaft can easily be brought around into impact and the trail side of the body will be moving forward and around towards the target. This would be the natural movement as if throwing a ball. Next time you are looking to get the club in a better position and shallow early, first look at your set-up and direction of turn.
Twitter: @KKelley_golf
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