– All right, the great shallow debate. Should I be shallow,
should I not be shallow? Why does it matter? And what about players
like Phil Mickelson, that aren't quite as shallow? Well, first we're gonna talk
about why you wanna be shallow, and then I'm gonna talk
about a bucket drill that's gonna help you to do this. So, one thing to really realize
that a lot of people don't, is everybody shallows at
some point in the downswing. If I shallow early, and I get this club
pointing somewhere down in the general vicinity of the golf ball, now I can rotate through,
the club's already on plane, it's where it needs to be.
If I start down a little steep, and my left wrist gets
a little bit cupped, I start to pull down with my hands, my hands tend to go this way
and kinda pull the club in, that's gonna start with
this club shaft steeper, now pointing more down toward my toes. Well, I can't keep on swinging down there or I'm gonna hit my toes, I'm gonna hit a foot inside the golf ball. So everybody, even players
that start down steep, shallow the club out,
but it doesn't happen until later in the downswing. So basically, with anybody, everybody shallows the
ball or shallows the club at some point in the swing. The players that shallow
it earlier, in my opinion, have an advantage because
now they don't have to feel like they have to get the club on track. The players that shallow it later start down a little steeper. They have to get this club
back on track in the downswing. Now, that momentum of
the club kicking inside can make it really easy to block shots.
A lot of times I see
players maybe struggle with their directional control, struggle with control of their driver if they're starting
down a little bit steep. If you're blocking it to the right, if you're feeling like that
club gets stuck in behind you, this can be a great tip for you. So, that's what I would
say, everybody shallows. I would prefer a player shallow early. That way when you get the club on plane, then you can just go ahead
and rotate on through there, swing as hard as you want
to, and you don't have to make some compensations to
get the club back on track.
Let's go ahead and get started. (club swooshes and hits ball) All right, so I'm joined here with Top Speed Golf certified
instructor Quentin Patterson. He's gonna be reading some
of the FlightScope numbers. We're gonna do it the
right way in the wrong way. Let's jump right into it. So first, let me do it the wrong way. Now, when you have this bucket here, as you go to the top of the backswing, what I see players doing typically is rolling the club inside
and then rolling it on top as they start down. So imagine rolling the bucket
this way on the backswing, rolling the bucket that
way on the downswing. If you want to see what that
looks like in a golf swing, it would look something like this, dragging the club inside,
and then it starts down steep with shallow late. Let me try to do that. I'll be honest with you, I'm
not the best at steeping it up, I have quite a bit of shallow in my swing, so I struggle to get it really
steep but I'll do my best to try to get that bucket rolling in, and then on top like that,
and let's give it a whirl.
(club smacks ball) Yeah, for me, I feel like you know, once that club starts going
even a little bit this way, I completely lose control of it. Even though it didn't happen
very much in that swing< it feels to me like this
club face just disappears. I have no idea where it's at, I don't know if it's pointing
40 degrees to the right, I don't know if it's pointing
40 degrees to the left.
So what was the numbers on
that, how far did the ball go what was the swing speed,
all that on there Q? – [Quentin] So the ball
went about 160 yards total, and only about 81.7 club head speed. – Yeah, so for me, when I drug that in and then got this way, I
had to really slow down to get everything back on track. And that's a pattern that I
see with players all the time. Now, the solution to
that is on the backswing, I actually want you to feel
like your hands stay this way. So if I had this bucket, you could imagine this being level. Imagine where these handle
attachments are on the side. If I'm here, I would be my right hand
on top of my left hand.
You could even take the
bucket this way and say, "Okay, I'm gonna be pouring
water out of this bucket "as I'm going back." So don't do this motion
to start the back swing, that's gonna get it inside and it's gonna want to steepen up. I want to be here on the backswing. As I start my downswing, then I'm gonna turn the
bucket to the right, that's that shallowing move. That actually happens at
the end of the backswing and the start of the downswing, to get that club really in the slot. And then as I come on through, I can go ahead and release it. Let me show you what that would
look like with a golf club. So again, this is the bad
notion, rolling it inside, steepening it up. I want to feel like I'm
pouring the water out in the backswing, that's
gonna keep my club a little outside my hands.
And then from there, I'm
gonna let that turn back in, in the downswing. So it's a downswing move. This is where a lot of
players struggle with this, they try to shallow it
out in the backswing. It's actually a end of the backswing, beginning of the downswing move. Now, once I do this, and I get that club on plane
at the start of the downswing, now my butt end of my
club should be pointing somewhere toward this golf ball. It's okay if it's a little
inside the golf ball, it's okay if it's a little
outside the golf ball, it doesn't have to be precise. We just don't want it in here by our toes, or we're gonna have to
make big compensations. But once I get it pointed
toward that golf ball, now I can rotate through the
shot as hard as I want to and I'm gonna be able to
hit a pretty straight shot.
If my club's already
lined up to the golf ball, I can rotate on through as fast as I want and I'm gonna be able to
make pretty solid contact. So, let's go ahead and try this one out and see how the numbers change. (club smacks ball) There we go, it wasn't
even the best hit shot, maybe five feet or so left
of where I was aiming. A little bit thin, but
because everything was online, I really got away with it, that would be a shot in
the middle of the green. So, what's the numbers on that one? – [Quentin] So, about 198
yards, and 97.7 club head speed. – [Clay] So picking up what,
almost 20-something yards? – [Quentin] Yeah, almost. – And what was the swing speed? – [Quentin] 97.7. – So I was able to swing
15 miles an hour faster by shallowing that club out. So again, I want to feel
like my bucket is here. As I finished the backswing
and start the downswing, the bucket is there. You may feel like your
logo of your left hand is toward the sky, the palm of your right
hand's toward the sky. That's getting that club inside.
And then from there, again, I can go ahead now that I've got it in the
slot, I got it from the inside, I can swing as hard as I want to and I don't have to worry
about rerouting the club. Let's go ahead and try one more out. (club smacks ball) There we go, really solid on that one. Almost exact same line,
maybe five feet left of where the FlightScope's lined up. What were the numbers on that one, Q? – [Quentin] So, 200.3 yards,
and then 98.7 club head speed. – Yeah, so I'm not gonna hit it a whole lot better than that. Now, there's one piece
that's missing with this.
We talked about how to get
that club shallowed out on the backswing, how do
we square up that face now? A lot of times, what
I'll see players doing is they shallow out this
club with the bucket like we talked about,
this is turning this way, but then they keep the
bucket open the entire time. If I do that with a golf swing, that would be me shallowing out, the face is open, it stays
open the entire time. That's gonna leave you
with a shallower swing. It's gonna look better on camera, but you're going to hit that
ball a mile to the right. It's gonna be a glancing blow, it's gonna feel fairly weak. I have a great drill that
I'm gonna play a preview of here in a second, called
the tennis racket drill. And I'm gonna show you the way that the pros square up the club face to be able to show this out
and get that nice tight draw day in and day out. You don't have to worry about that ball leaking to the right anymore.
Like I said, you get it on plane, you learn to square up
the face the right way, you can turn through it
as hard as you want to and it's gonna be a nice, solid draw. I'm gonna play a preview
that video here in a second. All you need to do is go
ahead and click the card that pops up on the screen. If you don't see that card
that pops up here somewhere, don't worry about it, go down
to the description below, click the link there and you'll get instant
access to that video.
It's the perfect thing to add now that we're shallowing it out. So get the bucket down, number one. And then once you get that down, you still have a second piece. Go to the tennis racket drill and that'll bring the whole
thing in together for you, you're gonna play some fantastic golf. Let's go and get started. – Good player problems. We're gonna talk about
shallowing that club shaft out as we're starting down, as we're doing this rotating of the face that we worked on in the last video.
As we start this downswing, what you'll see with basically
all of the top players is instead of coming kind of over the top and letting the hands come
out away from their body, letting the club come
out away from their body, again, coming down steep into the ball and then having to open up, kind of flay open the
face and add loft to it; the flattening of the shaft should happen as soon as we start down. So as we start this downswing, what we want to have happening here, you can imagine that if I draw a line from the hosel of my club
up through my right elbow, that's my swing plane
line, my elbow plane.
As I go to the top of the swing, I'm gonna be slightly above
that, and as I start down, I want my hands to start to shallow out. I want the club to shallow out
inside of this elbow plane. And at the same time, I'm going to be–.