Do you consistently get "stuck" during the downswing, unable to find a clear path to the ball?
Are you plagued by frustrating blocks and violent snap hooks that cost you strokes?
Want to feel this in YOUR swing? Try a free AI-powered golf lesson → — GOATY gives you real-time voice coaching, pose tracking, and instant feedback on every rep.
Do you want to get the ball to start on your intended target line and hold it there shot after shot?
Overly aggressive and mistimed body rotation is almost always at the root of these issues — and it's exactly what you'll need to fix.
This drill can be done at the course or in the convenience of your own home without hitting balls.
In this video, we walk you through a simple but powerful drill and a critically important arm fundamental you can practice at your home or on the range to start hitting laser-straight shots on demand.
Not only will this drill help you hit the ball straighter, but you'll also pick up distance and do it with noticeably less effort.
While this content is aimed squarely at the golfer who gets trapped and stuck in the downswing, learning to get and keep the club on the correct swing plane is essential for golfers at every level.
Read on to learn exactly how to "spin the shaft" and "trace the plane line" so you can start flushing the ball with consistency — and get a free AI swing analysis to see exactly where your own downswing plane is breaking down.
This drill has two essential components working together.
First, you'll need a visual guide — something like our Tour Sticks (learn more by clicking here: Tour Sticks) placed in the ground to represent the shaft plane.
Note that the training aid is parallel to the shaft at address but slightly to the inside.
You can also use a training aid like the one demonstrated here called "The Path Pro" — either tool works equally well.
Whatever you use, it must be set up parallel to the shaft at address and positioned slightly to the inside of the ball line, as shown in the image below.
This gives the club enough room to swing freely without catching the training aid on the way through.
With your guide in place, begin making deliberate, slow-motion practice swings that incorporate the "spin the shaft" motion described in the video. Keep in mind that both hands contribute to this movement — even though the trail arm tends to get most of the coaching attention, the lead hand is equally active in the rotation.
Using your Tour Stick or training aid as a reference, you want to trace down it while actively rotating the club shaft so the club arrives at impact on the correct downswing plane.
You'll quickly notice this motion also has the powerful side effect of squaring the clubface, working hand in hand with the concepts in the video "Squaring the Club Face Early."
Executing this movement correctly delivers two major benefits:
- It trains you to deliver the club more on top of the ball rather than too far from the inside, eliminating the stuck position entirely, and
- You learn to square the club face through gradual rotation throughout the downswing — never with a last-second, compensating flip of the hands.
Master this drill and you'll be hitting the ball with minimal curvature, starting each shot precisely on your intended line for long, powerful, dead-straight shots.
Video Transcription: Trace the Plane Line
One of the recurring issues I address with my better ball strikers is the tendency to get stuck coming into impact.
I've set up a plane line here using this yellow training aid. You can see the shaft plane angle that I want the club to match coming into the ball.
In-to-out (above) & over the top (below)
What typically happens is a skilled golfer starts swinging a little too far from the inside, which means the ball will always want to start to the right of the target — unless they close the face aggressively relative to the path. The result is shots that don't start on line and carry too much curvature. That's not what we want.
My goal with every Tour-level player I coach, and really with every golfer I work with, is to get their swing path zeroed out at impact.
What that means practically is a zero-degree path through the ball — neutral, neither in-to-out nor out-to-in. Compare that to a severe in-to-out path of 20 degrees (stuck) or a classic over-the-top out-to-in path of 20 degrees (typical high handicapper). I want that number at zero.
I use a launch monitor to get precise path numbers, but you don't need that technology to get very close to a zeroed-out club path. The whole point is to have every shot start directly on your target line with minimal curvature. Dead straight, every time. That's what the RotarySwing method is built around.
Many better players get their arms trapped
I hear it regularly when I'm hitting balls. Someone watching will say, "I love how square you come into it." They can see it in the divots — perfectly aligned, club face square, path square. The ball just flies straight and true. There's no compensating, no manipulating loft or face angle to drag the ball back to the target. Just pure, on-plane contact.
One of the most effective ways to build this on-plane downswing is what I call tracing the plane line. You can use a training aid like I have here, or simply lay a spare shaft on the ground angled close to your address position — it'll be slightly more upright but close enough to be highly effective.
The key is to start understanding the relationship between arm rotation, body rotation, and how that interaction controls your club plane through the downswing.
Let me show you what the stuck pattern actually looks like first. As the player starts down, they use the body aggressively and early. The arms get trapped behind and underneath, and now the club is coming way from the inside. The only escape is a desperate flip of the hands to bring the face back to square and the ball back on line — which produces the classic push-draw, the quick hook, or the dead block. None of those are what we're after.
Pulling the left shoulder tilts the plane
There's another version of this problem visible from a face-on view: if you pull the lead shoulder hard and early from the top, the arms simply can't keep pace. The shoulder tilt drops the swing plane well underneath where it needs to be, and you're stuck before you ever reach the hitting zone.
Higher handicappers struggle with a different version of the same root issue — excessive upper body rotation early in the transition. This drill is specifically designed for the better player who's already past those fundamentals and needs to stop the stuck pattern from creeping back in. If you're still working on weight shift and body rotation basics, nail those first before adding this layer.
What you'll find is that even when you do most things correctly, it's surprisingly easy to get stuck on the way down and start colliding with the training aid. When that happens, the club shaft is no longer on plane — it should be able to trace cleanly right down that plane line all the way into impact.
Forearm rotation
The solution is forearm and arm rotation. I'll exaggerate it here so the movement is clearly visible: as I come into the downswing, the trail arm rotates this way — internally, bringing the shaft back out in front of the body and onto the plane. Watch it a few times. This — body moving, arms passive — is stuck. The arms are just going along for the ride with the body instead of working independently.
Now with the exaggerated rotation, you can see the club actually climbs out on top of the plane — too much, but you can see the direction of the movement. Dial it back to a controlled version and the club traces right through the forearm, slides right along the top of the plane line, and arrives at impact in perfect position. All I'm doing is continuing to rotate the trail arm and wrist throughout the downswing to keep the club on plane.
For this to work, the body essentially has to stand down. It cannot be spinning hard through impact. Here's why: body rotation naturally shallows the swing. When your torso spins aggressively, it drops the club to the inside — which is exactly how you produce a big hook. Instead, you want the feeling that your body stays quiet while your arm and wrist rotate to bring the club out on plane.
The best feedback tool for this is visual — set a shaft on the ground or use a training aid, and practice tracing down it in slow motion, all the way from the top into impact, all the way back to the ball.
A golfer without lag
Do your slow-motion drills with emphasis on keeping your body square and letting the arms work on their own. That's what allows the club to come out right on top of the ball — square to path, square to face — rather than getting trapped from underneath and inside.
This comes back to the core feeling: "spin the shaft." As you bring the club down and rotate the shaft, that rotation brings the club back out in front of you and restores the correct swing plane angle. It's a gradual, continuous motion — not a one-time rescue move at the bottom.
One more critical piece: don't let the trail elbow run too far in front of your hip. When the elbow gets too far ahead of the body, the club goes with it and you're stuck — again. The internal rotation of the trail arm actually pulls the elbow back behind the hip slightly, which is the correct position for an on-plane release. For golfers who've never had lag and come into impact with the arms already well ahead of the club, the priority is getting those arms to fire and catch up with body rotation. But for a skilled player already in a good position, it's easy to overcook the lag and end up stuck from the other direction.
That version looks like this: massive lag angle retained too deep into the downswing, trail elbow well ahead of the club — completely stuck. The arm has traveled too far, and the release must happen now. That rotation I keep describing is precisely what creates the release. And it needs to happen gradually — built in from the very beginning of the downswing, not crammed in at the last second.
The elbow is too far ahead of the club
The best way to ingrain the feel is exactly what we've been discussing: trace the plane line. Rotate the club down the guide, all the way into impact, watching in a mirror as the club arrives square and releases on plane. Want to see how your own swing stacks up? Try a free AI swing analysis and get objective data on your downswing plane and path angle — or check out the GOAT Drill video lesson for a structured system to build these mechanics from the ground up.
Spin the shaft on the way down. Rotate the trail arm and trail wrist through the hitting zone. Watch how it elevates the club onto plane and how the body naturally quiets down to let it happen. The club accelerates, the body slows, and the release fires on plane. Do that consistently and the push-draws and quick hooks disappear — replaced by shots that start exactly on your line and fly dead straight every time.
Watch part 2 now to see how you're moving your body in the opposite direction of the pros!
Better golfers tend to come from the inside
