The fastest-growing demographic in golf is juniors and younger players. And the training aid market has largely ignored them. Most swing plane trainers are calibrated for adult hand heights, arm lengths, and arc widths — and when a junior golfer uses them, the angle is too steep to provide meaningful feedback for the shallower swing circle their smaller body produces.
Shawn Koch identified that gap and found the solution: the pathpal's 40-degree setting. The full drill is at pathpalgolf.com/pages/pathpal-golf-shallow-the-downswing-plane-when-chipping-drill.
Calibration is everything. A barrier that doesn't match the fault provides no corrective information at all.
The drill
Shawn Koch — Golf Digest #7 Best Teacher in Georgia (2024–25), Georgia Section PGA Teacher of the Year (2016), Golf Magazine Top 100 Teachers to Watch (2023–2024), Georgia PGA Player Development Award (2022), Georgia PGA Professional Development Award (2019), GRAA Top 100 Growth of the Game Teaching Professional, and Director of Instruction at the R.T. Jones, Jr. Instruction Center at Atlanta Athletic Club with 20+ years of elite instruction experience — uses the pathpal at 40 degrees to create an under-plane barrier that forces a shallower, cleaner wedge delivery for his junior student Jack, who tends to throw the club over the top and above plane.
Setup
- 1. Set the pathpal to 40 degrees — a shallow angle calibrated to junior swing height
- 2. Position the rod so the club must be delivered beneath it on the downswing
- 3. Over-the-top delivery contacts the rod immediately — instant, undeniable feedback
- 4. Correct shallow delivery clears the rod cleanly
The angle is the key variable. For an adult with longer arms and a higher hand path, 40 degrees may be too shallow. For a junior golfer with a smaller arc, 40 degrees is the exact calibration point that makes the feedback meaningful.
Watch the drill
Watch the full drill on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=VmVHw5w5bnc
Why it works
Training aid feedback is only useful when the barrier is calibrated to the fault. A 70-degree rod — appropriate as an under-plane gate for a tall adult — sits well above the natural swing plane of a junior golfer on a chip or pitch shot. The junior clears it on nearly every swing regardless of whether they're over the top or not, which means the aid provides no corrective information. At 40 degrees, the same junior golfer now has a barrier that sits exactly where their over-the-top delivery goes — the rod catches the fault and the correct delivery clears it.
The over-the-top fault Shawn identifies in Jack is the most common fault pattern in developing junior golfers. Without body rotation to shallow the club in transition, the arms initiate the downswing and throw the club outward and above the plane — producing steep, outside-in wedge delivery and the chunky, pull-left misses that undermine short game consistency and kill junior golfers' confidence around the greens. The 40-degree barrier makes the correct shallowing feel both achievable and immediately rewarding: when the club passes cleanly under the rod, the golfer gets direct physical confirmation that the delivery was correct.
Shawn's observation about the training aid market gap is a significant product insight for pathpal. While competitors offer fixed angles or adult-calibrated adjustability, the pathpal's 13-angle range from 20 to 90 degrees in 5-degree increments covers the full spectrum from junior swing planes to the steepest adult drill configurations. For instructors working with a mixed student roster — adult members, college players, junior academy students — the pathpal is the only tool that doesn't require a separate junior-specific aid to serve every demographic.
Who this is for
- ✓Junior golfers who chunk wedge and chip shots regularly — the over-the-top delivery is the most common cause
- ✓Parents and parents-who-coach who want a range tool specifically scaled for their junior golfer's size
- ✓Junior academy instructors who need a single training aid that adjusts to every student's height and arm length
- ✓Adult golfers with steep, over-the-top wedge deliveries — the drill works at any age, with the angle adjusted to match the individual's swing plane
- ✓Instructors at facilities like Atlanta Athletic Club who work with golfers across all ages and skill levels and need equipment that doesn't require separate junior and adult inventory
Try it
Start with the pathpal at 40 degrees for a junior golfer or 45–50 degrees for an adult with a steep wedge delivery. Make 10 rehearsal swings focused on delivering the club beneath the rod — feeling the shallower, more rotational approach. Then hit 15 chip and pitch shots from a tight lie, maintaining the under-rod delivery.
Clean contact confirms the shallower plane is working. If the rod is still being contacted regularly after 10 shots, move the angle up 5 degrees to widen the corridor before narrowing it again as the shallower delivery becomes consistent.
- 40°Junior golfers and shorter players — the starting point for most young students
- 45–50°Adults with a steep over-the-top wedge delivery
- +5°Widen the corridor if the rod is contacted frequently — then narrow again as the pattern improves
Related drills
This drill addresses the over-the-top, above-plane fault specifically in the short game. These three related drills bracket the same plane problem from different angles and skill contexts:
Swing Plane · Shawn Koch
Avoid Swinging Under Plane
The mirror correction from the same instructor — uses the pathpal at 55 degrees for golfers whose club drops too far below the plane. If one fault doesn't describe you, the other likely does.
Short Game · Pat Bernot
Steepen Your Angle of Attack
GOLFTEC National Coach of the Year Pat Bernot uses a two-rod tunnel to force a steeper, more descending approach — the complementary correction for golfers who are too shallow and producing thin, flippy contact.
Short Game · Brad Pluth
Hit Down and Through Chip Shots
PGA Master Professional Brad Pluth trains ball-first contact on chip shots by placing the pathpal rod directly behind the ball — making a shallow, scooping delivery physically impossible.
See all pathpal drills: pathpalgolf.com/pages/all-drills
About Shawn Koch
Shawn Koch
Director of Instruction · Atlanta Athletic Club, Johns Creek, GA
Shawn Koch is Golf Digest's #7 Best Teacher in Georgia (2024–25), Georgia Section PGA Teacher of the Year (2016), Golf Magazine Top 100 Teachers to Watch (2023–2024), and Director of Instruction at the R.T. Jones, Jr. Instruction Center at Atlanta Athletic Club in Johns Creek, Georgia.
@shawnkochgolf · shawnkochgolf.com · pathpal on Instagram
Frequently asked questions
Why do most training aids fail junior golfers?
Most swing plane trainers are calibrated for adult hand heights, arm lengths, and arc widths. Their lowest angle settings are still too steep to provide meaningful feedback for a junior golfer's shallower natural swing circle — so a junior clears the rod on nearly every swing regardless of whether they're over the top or not. The pathpal's 13-angle range from 20 to 90 degrees lets instructors match the barrier to the individual golfer's anatomy rather than forcing the golfer to adapt to an adult-calibrated tool.
How do I set up the pathpal for this drill?
Set the pathpal to 40 degrees and position it so the rod creates an under-plane gate the club must pass beneath on the downswing into the chip or pitch shot. For a junior golfer, 40 degrees is the starting point. For an adult with a steep wedge delivery, try 45–50 degrees. If you're contacting the rod frequently after 10 shots, widen the corridor by moving up 5 degrees, then narrow it again as the shallower delivery becomes consistent.
Why do junior golfers tend to come over the top on wedge shots?
Juniors and shorter golfers often generate the swing primarily with the arms and shoulders rather than body rotation — a natural pattern for developing golfers who haven't yet built the rotational sequencing that keeps the club on a shallower downswing plane. When the arms initiate the downswing, they throw the club outward and above the plane, producing a steep, outside-in delivery that creates glancing contact and the chunky, pull-left misses that characterize over-the-top wedge play.
Does a shallower delivery actually improve contact quality?
Yes. A shallower delivery maintains a downward angle of attack but approaches the ball on a less vertical trajectory, which allows the bounce of the wedge to interact with the turf as designed rather than driving the leading edge into it. The shallow delivery also keeps the face more square to the path at contact rather than open from the outside-in cut, which produces more consistent spin direction and distance control. Shallowing isn't just about avoiding fat shots — it's the delivery pattern that allows the wedge's design to work correctly.
Does this drill work for adult golfers too, or only juniors?
It works for both — the angle simply needs to be recalibrated. Shawn uses 40 degrees for his junior student Jack because that's the threshold where over-the-top delivery is caught for his swing height. An adult with a steep wedge delivery would typically start at 45–50 degrees. The principle is identical: set the rod at the angle where the fault gets caught and the correct delivery clears cleanly. The pathpal's 5-degree increments give enough precision to dial in the right setting for any golfer.
The only training aid that adjusts to every golfer
With 13 angles from 20 to 90 degrees, pathpal provides meaningful feedback for junior golfers, adult beginners, and elite players — all with one tool that fits in any bag.
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