Shallow Golf Swing

If you play golf, you must’ve heard about shallowing the club or shallow golf swings. It’s a phenomenon every golf player chases throughout their lives. Some achieve mastery over it while some fail miserably.

There’s no doubt the shallow golf swings are amazing for getting your score lower. You can hit the ball farther and do it more accurately if you manage to shallow your club.

But how do you do it? That’s what we’re going to learn in this post. We’re going to learn exactly what it is, why is it important and how you can do it.

What are Shallow Golf Swings?

By shallow golf swings, we mean shallowing the angle of attack on your golf club. The club should travel closer to the body as opposed to coming steep from the top.

You can get a clear understanding of what it is if you follow the tour pros closely. You’ll notice a peculiar movement on their end when they’re bringing their driver or long iron as hard as they can toward the ball.

The shallower you can get your club, the straighter you can expect to hit the ball. Also, it allows you generate more force on your swing. So, you may very well gather some extra yards on your drive.

Why is Shallow Golf Swings Important?

So, what’s wrong with your current swings? You’re getting pretty consistent scores, right? Well, learning the shallow swings will allow you to control your club even more to get an even lower score on the hole.

As you gain mastery over the muscle movements, you’ll notice that your shots will become more consistent. You’ll land on the fairway every time you hit your driver. Isn’t that something you would want?

It’s especially important if you have a tendency to come over the top. Over the top swings will almost always land you way more left than you intend. By shallowing your swings, you can start to hit on the inside of the golf ball for a straighter ball flight.

The final reason for you to learn how to hit shallow golf swings is that they’re easy on the body. They’re more efficient than any other swing style. You can effortlessly play for hours without tiring yourself.

Now that you know what do we mean by shallow swings and why they are important, let’s find out what might be causing you to not shallow your swings.

Commons Reasons Behind Steep Swings

The fact that you’re reading this post is enough evidence that you’re suffering from swing issues. And we want to encourage you and thank you for admitting to where you’re going wrong.

For steep golf shots, there might be plenty of reasons. From player to player, the reason varies a lot. But we’ve gathered some of the most commons reasons for you to come down steep.

You Cup Your Lead Wrist

The improper movement of the wrists is one of the primary culprits behind steep swings. As you get to the top of the backswing, your lead wrist should be perfectly parallel to your forearms. The trail wrist would be bent backward to compensate for the backswing.

If you notice that your lead wrist is not straight, you can’t even begin on the drills to shallow your swing. Rather, you first need to get the basics right about what is considered a good backswing.

If you have the backswing perfectly nailed, it’s time to focus on your downswing.

When you bring the club down slowly, you’ll notice that you’re cupping your lead wrist. We’re quite certain of it because we’ve seen hundreds of players doing this without even realizing it.

By cupping, you mean bending the wrist upward as you bring the club down. The ideal case should be the opposite.

Your wrists should bow to the front instead of cupping. When your lead bows, you’ll notice that your club shaft angle is already shallowing. It will also ensure that your club face is square to the target when you impact the ball.

Your Lower Body Moves with the Upper Body

There’s nothing to be ashamed of about it because it’s the natural human reaction. Both the upper section and lower section of your body will always want to move together.

However, as a golfer, you need to change it. You need to be able to isolate your upper body and lower body movement.

In a shallow golf swing, your body will be open to the target. The more open you can get it, the shallower your swing will become. And to achieve the rotation of your hips, you need to transfer your body weight at the right time.

If you’re facing trouble with isolating the movement for your upper and lower body, don’t worry. You’ll find a helpful drill that we’ve designed near the end of this post. The drill is designed to improve the flexibility of your lower body as well as your hips.

So, the bottom line of this point is, you may be moving your whole body together or keeping it closed to the target. If you don’t open your body, you’ll hit the ball way too much to the right, or worse, shank if you try to shallow the swing.

Your Trail Elbow is at Fault

If you have the opportunity, record yourself at the course or at the driving range. Set up the camera directly behind you.

Now, deliberately try to come steep with your swing. Notice what your right arm is doing. Chances are, you’ll see that your right elbow is coming over the club and your lead elbow as you come down to hit the ball.

That’s the problem right there. The more you let your right arm steer away from your body, the harder it will be for you to shallow your swing.

Your trail elbow needs to remain below your lead elbow as well as the club if you want the perfectly shallow swing.

You Start Your Downswing with Upper Body

It’s a pretty common mistake by the majority of amateur golfers. It’s a natural instinct to want to hit the ball as hard as you can using your shoulders.

But doing so disrupts the natural flow of the swing. More importantly, you lose a lot of strength when you use your shoulders and arms first.

Rather, you need to initiate your downswing with your legs. You need to shift your weight to the lead foot at the top of the backswing. It will allow your hips to move forward. Moving your hips out of the way is a crucial point to make way for the club to swing closer to your body.

By now, you must’ve gotten a precise idea about what you might be doing wrong. So, we can move forward to the things that you can actively do to improve your swing quality as well as shallow the angle.

How to Shallow Your Golf Swing

So, let’s get to exactly what you should be doing while at the golf course. We’re going to look at the things you need to fix in terms of your posture. Then, we’ll get to the drills you can practice at the driving range or at home.

Do the Weight Transfer Gracefully

Continuing from where you left off in terms of the things you may be doing wrong. You need to transfer the weight of your body to your front foot before you start to bring the club down. You should be pushed against the ground forcefully.

You’ll feel that there is a lateral movement from right to left which will also push your hips toward the target. As you push the hips, it will become easier for you to bend the shoulders in the opposite direction and change the pane that your golf club travels.

Keep the Trail Elbow Close

Your trail elbow or the right should always be too close to your ribcage, throughout the swing. You need to keep it below the golf club if you really want to shallow your golf swing. Players who don’t have the full range of motion on their elbows will find it difficult at first.

If you’re one of them, then you should focus more on your fitness and flexibility. You need mastery over the entire range of motion your body can offer. It will, of course, vary from player to player. But you need to get as flexible as possible.

Keep the Posture

When the elbow positions and wrist angles don’t remain true to what they should have been, many players tend to compensate for it by standing up. Believe it or not, it’s one of the worst mistakes you can make.

When you straighten your legs and stand up, you can never get your club face to square up with the target. Moreover, your trail elbow will get farther from your body because you won’t be bending your shoulders at all.

All of it will result in a catastrophic failure. If you want to avoid it, make sure that you keep your knees bent and your upper body pushed forward throughout the swing.

Open Your Body Up

As we’ve already mentioned before, you should open your body more to the target if you really want your swing to shallow. As you reach halfway through your downswing, rotate your lower body toward the target and let your upper body follow.

It will ensure that the swing path and the club face angle are where they should be. If you notice your ball flying to the left or the right, it means you’ve not stayed true to your posture.

Drills to Practice for Shallow Golf Swings

We’ve covered all the major problems golf players face while shallowing their swing and how you remedy these if you’re a sufferer. If you cannot find your problem listed here, you should definitely seek out a PGA instruction to fine-tune your swing.

Now, let’s look at some of the helpful drills you should practice. Not all of them are entirely dedicated to shallow golf swings. Rather, some of them are designed to make you a better player. And better players automatically hit the clubs shallow.

The Body Isolation Drill

Remember we said that you should isolate your upper body and lower body movements to truly dial in the swing you want? Well, this is the drill you need to practice. All you need is an alignment stick or one of your clubs.

Stand in your regular golf posture. Knees bent, hip pushed forward.
Grab the club or the alignment stick and hold it across your chest by crossing your arms and touching your shoulders.
Now, practicing rotating your lower body without moving your upper body. Focus on moving the body from the waist below.
Do the same with your upper body. Keep your lower body still and move your upper body.

The Exaggerated Drill

In this drill, we’ll exaggerate the things you should be doing. As you need to shallow your club, you are going to shallow your club almost to a point that it becomes parallel to the ground behind your body.

Stand in your regular posture and get the club to the top of the swing.
Bring it down in a way that the club is parallel to the ground.
Stop at the mid of the downswing. It will feel very weird. And that’s what you want. When you forcefully shallow your swing more than necessary, your natural swing will come to the right angle.
You need to feel the club at different positions and different angles and keep hitting the ball until you hit dead straight.

The Water Bottle Drill

When you want to put things at stake, this is the best drill you can perform. You need a half-full water bottle that you’re going to attach to your short iron or your pitching wedge.

Get into position with the makeshift club.
Perform the backswing and transfer the weight.
If your weight transfer is at fault, the water bottle will hit you in the head. That’s what we meant when we said that you are going to put something at stake.
You need to transfer your body weight in a way that the bottle doesn’t hit you. The flow should feel natural and the club should come down from inside of your body.
Until you master this drill, keep practicing slowly. Or else, you stand the risk of injuring yourself on the head.

The Wall Drill

As you’re going to need a wall for this drill, it’s better if you practice it at home. Or, you may use the net at your local driving range. But it won’t be as effective.

Start about 6-10 inches in front of a wall.
On your backswing, the club shouldn’t touch the wall at all. If it does, you need to fix your backswing before you can work on your downswing.
When initiating the downswing, you need to make contact with the wall and drag the club face across the wall for about halfway through the swing. As the club is dragging along the wall, it means you’re coming down with a shallow angle. I
The moment you lose contact, it means you’re too steep.

This is a great deal and it’s undoubtedly one of the most effective in making your golf swings shallower.

Final Words

Shallow golf swings are every golf players’ dream. But not everyone gets to achieve it. Only the ones conscious enough and brave enough to acknowledge their mistakes get to the top of the ladder.

So, if you’ve been struggling with shallowing your swings, do the things we’ve discussed in this post. We sure hope that your swings will improve in no time.