What Does Shallowing the Golf Club Mean?

Shallowing the golf club is a downswing move that separates great ball-strikers from the rest of us, and it might just be the one thing standing between you and consistent, powerful shots. It's the secret sauce that transforms a weak slice into a powerful draw. This article will break down exactly what shallowing means, why it’s so important, and provide you with actionable drills to help you finally master this highly sought-after move.

So, What Is Shallowing, Anyway? (And Why Does It Matter?)

Shallowing the golf club simply means getting the club shaft to lie down, or become more horizontal, as you start your downswing. Picture your backswing: the club travels up on a certain angle, or plane. A steep swing, common for amateurs, happens when the club comes down on an even steeper angle than it went up. This is the classic "over-the-top" move.

Shallowing is the opposite. It’s the transition move where the club travels down on a flatter or "shallower" plane than it went up. Imagine the club head dropping slightly behind your hands as your lower body starts to unwind. This allows the club to approach the ball from the inside, which is the holy grail for solid, powerful contact.

Why should you care? Because mastering this one move can fix a whole host of problems:

• It Eliminates the Slice: The number one cause of a slice is an over-the-top, steep downswing that cuts across the ball. Shallowing promotes an in-to-out swing path, making it much easier to hit a straight shot or a gentle draw.
• It Increases Power: A shallow swing path allows you to use your body’s rotation effectively. Instead of chopping down with your arms, you’re unwinding from the ground up, generating centrifugal force and effortless club head speed.
• It Promotes Solid Contact: When the club approaches the ball from a shallow angle, you’re more likely to hit the ball first and then the turf, creating that pure, compressed feel and a beautiful divot after the ball. Steep swings often lead to fat and thin shots.
• It Delivers Consistency: Because shallowing syncs up your body rotation with your arm swing, it creates a much more repeatable motion. You're no longer relying on last-second hand manipulations to save the shot.

The Nemesis of the Shallow Swing: The Over-the-Top Move

Before we learn how to shallow, it’s important to understand its enemy: the dreaded over-the-top move. Tens of thousands of golfers suffer from this and it’s the root cause of the power-robbing slice. It all starts in the transition from the backswing to the downswing.

What happens is this: a golfer gets to the top of their swing and their very first move is to throw their right shoulder and hands "over the top" of the swing plane and out towards the ball. The club kicks out, away from their body, and travels on a steep path from outside the target line to inside it. This path, commonly called an "out-to-in" swing, forces the clubface to cut across the golf ball at impact, imparting left-to-right sidespin (for a right-handed golfer). The result? A weak slice that peels off into the right-hand trees.

If you're a slicer, there is an overpowering urge to start the downswing with your upper body. It feels powerful, but it's disconnecting your arms from your body's a proper sequence and sending all that energy in the wrong direction. Shallowing is the antidote - it forces your lower body to lead the downswing, giving the club time and space to drop onto the correct inside path.

A Simple Step-by-Step Guide to Shallowing Your Club

Okay, enough theory. How do we actually do this? It's not about consciously thinking, "I need to shallow the club" during your swing. That will only lead to paralysis. Instead, we ingrain the feeling through drills. When the feeling becomes second nature, the move will happen automatically. Here are three simple drills to get you started.

Drill 1: The "Motorcycle" Feel

This is one of the best feeling-based drills for shallowing the club. It gives you an exaggerated sense of what the wrists and hands should be doing in the transition.

1. Take your normal setup and make a slow, deliberate backswing to the top. Pause there for a second.
2. From the top, imagine you are holding the handlebars of a motorcycle. Feel your lead wrist (left wrist for righties) bow or flex downwards, as if you were revving the engine. At the same time, feel your trail wrist (right wrist) bend back even more.
3. You will see the club head dramatically "lay off," appearing to fall behind your hands and point to the right of your target. This is the exaggerated shallowing move!
4. Now, from this shallowed position, simply rotate your body through to hit the ball. The club is already in the perfect slot to attack the ball from the inside.

Start without a ball, just making slow-motion swings. Feel the sensation of the "rev." Then, try hitting balls at 50% speed. The goal isn’t to hit it perfectly at first, but to connect the feeling of the motorcycle rev with the start of your downswing. This drill trains your wrists to work correctly and passively in the transition, allowing the club to flatten naturally.

Drill 2: The Pump Drill

This drill helps you sync up the shallowing move with your body turn and train the proper downswing sequence. It teaches you to let the lower body initiate the downswing while the arms and club drop into place.

1. Set up to a ball as you normally would.
2. Make your backswing to the top.
3. From the top, initiate a tiny downswing motion by shifting your weight and starting to turn your hips. As you do this, let your arms and the club drop down onto that shallower plane we've been talking about. Let this motion go about halfway down, then return to the top of your swing. That’s "pump" number one.
4. Repeat this two more times: Down into the slot, then back to the top. Pump two. Pump three. Feel how the club drops behind you, inside your hands.
5. On the next go, swing all the way through and hit the ball. Trust the feeling you rehearsed in those pumps.

This drill ingrains the proper sequencing. It stops you from firing the upper body first and instead trains the lower body to lead, creating the space for the club to get on plane.

Drill 3: The Wall Drill

This drill is a fantastic way to physically prevent yourself from coming over a top. It gives you immediate feedback if you make a steep move. No equipment is needed other than a wall and a club.

1. Find a wall and stand far enough away from it so that if you set up in your golf posture, your back pocket is just an inch or two away from touching it.
2. Without a ball, make a backswing. Your hands and club should have plenty of room a nobody part should be touching the wall.
3. Now, start your downswing. If you make your normal steep, over-the-top move, your hands or club will immediately smack into the wall. That’s incorrect.
4. The goal is to start your downswing by turning your hips and letting your hands and the clubshaft drop downwards, in the space between your body and the wall. Your hands should slide right down the wall line without hitting it.

If you can successfully get from the top of your swing to your impact position without hitting the wall, you are by definition shallowing the club and keeping it "on plane" - you're getting it onto that inside path. This drill forces the proper sequence and path better than almost any other feeling a coach can describe.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

As you work on this move, you might run into a few common roadblocks. Here’s what to look out for:

• Getting "Stuck": Sometimes, golfers drop the club too far behind them without turning their body. The club gets "stuck," and the only way to get to the ball is to flip your hands at it, resulting in a hook or a block. The Fix: Remember, shallowing the club and rotating the body a happen together. The Pump Drill is great for reinforcing this coordinated a motion.
• Just Using Your Arms: Shallowing isn't a hands-and-arms-only move. If you try to just manually lay the club down without any lower body action, your swing will be powerless and out of sync. The Fix: shallowing it’s the result of proper sequencing. Always feel like your weight shift and hip turn start the downswing, your arms and club are just following a passenger to that party.
• Losing Posture: A common fault is to "early extend," which means hips thrusting towards the ball and your upper body standing up through impact. This usually happens as a defense mechanism to keep from hitting the ground when you a steep swing, but it kills your power and ruins any chance of shallowing effectively. The Fix: The Wall Drill is also perfect for this. Try to keep your back pocket on or near the wall all the way through impact. This keeps you in your posture as your body rotates.

Final Thoughts

Learning to shallow the golf club is a game-changer. It is the move that allows you to deliver the club to the ball with power, purpose, and consistency. By focusing on drills that train the *feel* of the proper sequence, you can replace that destructive over-the-top habit with a beautifully efficient, inside-out swing path.

Trying a new move on your own can be confusing, which is where having a coach in your pocket can make all the difference. As you practice these drills, our app, Caddie AI, can help you lock in the change faster. You can take a video of your swing, ask it to analyze your transition, a get instant feedback on what your real swing path and what you feeling. When you get truly curious or confused and simply a need to talk something out, you can get reliable a nonjudgmental feedback 24/7 as you learn the new move so we can build a better swing built for the long term