In the first blog, http://johngrahamgolf.com/blog/dplane/hit-an-iron-straight-d-plane/, I talked about general conditions that need to happen to actually hit a shot straight.

In this blog, I will provide the hard cold facts and numbers to help you do this.  Here is a link to a download that will help you.  http://johngrahamgolf.com/downloads.htm

Please, leave your name and email address to gain access to the download.  Here’s a little explanation of what the chart does and what it does not.  This chart is based on information that can only be collected by using a Trackman club delivery and ball flight device.  The chart determines the adjustment to the horizontal swing plane due to the angle of attack and the vertical swing plane.

For example, if a player hits down on the ball, the direction of the club head at impact is different than the direction of the club head at it’s lowpoint.  This chart determines how much that difference is depending on the angle of attack and vertical swing plane.

This chart does not tell you how to determine what your angle of attack is or what your vertical swing plane.  It will only tell you where you would need to aim left or right (left for down angles of attack and right for up angles of attack) if you made a perfectly on plane swing to hit it perfectly straight.

Please leave questions and comments and I will add this download to the D-Plane page.

Let’s go back in time and talk to some golfers that are playing golf in the 1930′s and 40′s.  Let’s ask them what makes the ball curve.  What kind of answers to you think we would hear?  No internet, no d-plane talk and no high speed video or trackman.  What would they say?

Let’s think of some advances that might give us a clue.  In the late 1800′s, there was a change starting to take place from long nosed wooden heads to smaller and thicker wooden heads.  A new kind of driver was created that has a curved shape face.  Why in the world would they put a curve in the driver face that points away from the target vs. one that was curved to point the edges toward the middle.  This curve, or bulge, would lead to clubs name as a bulger.

They had noticed that shots struck on the ends of the club put a spin on the ball.  Toe shots added hook spin and heel shots added fade spin.  This spin was enough that it would curve a ball significantly away from the target even if the face was square.  By putting a slight curve in the face, so the toe pointed right of target and the heel pointed left of target, they found that the ball would end up closer to the target.

They did this because they saw the ball would start farther right before the hook spin from a toe hit brought it back.  The ball started farther right because of the shape of the face.  Over 100 hundred years ago they figured out that the shape of the face controlled it’s initial direction.

I think most golfers of the 30′s and 40′s era would say face first.  90% of the people I asked that know nothing about golf think that the face shape would control it.  I remember arguing at my PGA Checkpoint. I noticed when trying to curve the ball around the tree that I couldn’t aim the face behind the tree. I kept hitting the tree.

Is the d-plane earth shattering? No way.  It only helps with understanding what causes what.

With irons or any shot with the ball on the ground:

According to D Plane information, in order for the ball to fly straight, the normal to the clubface(the 3d location of the where the clubface is pointing) and the club path must point at the target at the hit. It is also a requirement that the ball is hit absolutely solid(right in line with the CoG). This location is basically a point and any mistake left or right will alter the shape of the club during the hit.

I mentioned in a previous blog that I am having some research done on this topic but hopefully it confirms my thoughts and trackman’s claims.

Back to the topic. Because the ball is hit with a downward angle of attack on a crisply struck iron shot, the club is still traveling downward and outward after hitting the ball until it reaches low point. Because the club travels to the right after the hit the path of the club(relative to the ball) is inside out. The impact path is right of the low point swing path.

This Picture will help you picture this is it doesn’t make sense.

It is for this reason that you must either aim or swing a little left for the ball to actually fly straight. Even though the club is swinging left, relative to the ball the club path can now point exactly at the target.

Keeping the club constant, the more down angle you have in your strike the more to the right the clubs actual path becomes. Thus, you will have to aim more left. The amount of left you aim depends on your angle of attack and what club you are using.

There’s a relationship between the shape of the swing plane and the amount the club is moving out after the strike. As the swing plane get’s more vertical the amount of out becomes less all while the amount of down is increasing. Ferris wheel would have all down and no out.

As the swing plane get’s flatter, the amount of out is increasing while the amount of down is less. A merry-go-round would have all out and no down.

Depending on a persons impact angles, it will depend on whether or not they aim/swing more left with shorter clubs or longer clubs. If someone hit all clubs with the same angle of attack, they would have to aim/swing more left with a 3 iron vs a wedge.

If the player’s angle of attack get less by more than 1 degree from wedge to 3 iron than that player would aim/swing more left with the wedge.

Most player’s will fit into this second category where they aim/swing more left with shorter irons than longer ones.