Golfers often assume that elite instructors have solved their own swings. Shawn Koch — Golf Digest #7 Best Teacher in Georgia, Georgia PGA Teacher of the Year, and Director of Instruction at Atlanta Athletic Club — is refreshingly direct about his own pattern: hands work out, club drops under. And the drill he uses to correct it is the same tool he recommends to his students.
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), 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 — sets the pathpal to 55 degrees as a personal practice reference for keeping the club on top of the plane line through transition and delivery. See the full drill page here.
The setup:
- pathpal set to 55 degrees — a mid-range angle representing the correct downswing plane reference
- Club must work outside the hands and on or above the 55-degree rod on the downswing
- Hands-out, club-under delivery drops the club below the rod — the fault is visible even without collision
- Correct delivery: club tracks outside the hands and on top of the plane line through the hitting zone
- For over-the-top golfers: use the same rod as an under-plane gate — work beneath it rather than on top
The reversibility is the drill's most distinctive feature. The same 55-degree rod corrects both fault directions depending on the golfer's relationship to it.
Watch the drill
Shawn demonstrates both the fault and the fix in the video below. Watch on YouTube or play it directly here:
Why it works
Most anti-over-the-top instruction provides a direction — "get the club more inside, drop it in the slot" — without providing a limit. The 55-degree rod is the limit. It says: shallow to here, not past here.
The "hands out, club under" fault is one of the most common patterns in golfers who have worked hard to shallow their swing but overcorrected — the club drops so far below the plane that the shallow delivery becomes a stuck delivery. The golfer worked to stop coming over the top, successfully dropped the club in transition, but kept dropping until the club was below the correct plane rather than on it. The result is a delivery that's stuck behind the body with an open face, producing the right-side blocks and compensatory release hooks that characterize the under-plane pattern.
Shawn's 55-degree reference gives the under-plane golfer something they rarely have: a physical location in space where the correct plane lives. The club on top of the rod is correct. The club beneath it is stuck.
The reversibility Shawn highlights is a genuine instructional asset. The same physical setup serves two opposite fault populations by changing only the golfer's task — work on top of the rod for under-plane stuck golfers, work beneath it for over-the-top steep golfers. One setup. Two corrections. No resetting the angle.
Who this is for
- ✓Golfers who shallowed their swing to fix a slice and now hit right-side blocks and release hooks
- ✓Players who have been told their hands work out too far and have struggled to find where the correct plane actually is
- ✓Golfers with an in-to-out path that produces exaggerated hooks and an inability to control the curve
- ✓Steep, over-the-top players who need the same rod used as an over-plane gate — working under it rather than on top
Try it
Set the pathpal at 55 degrees and make 10 rehearsal swings focused on keeping the club outside the hands and on top of the rod. The feedback is spatial rather than collision-based — you're training a path relationship rather than catching a miss. After 10 clean rehearsal swings, hit 15 iron shots and observe the ball flight: a reduction in right-side blocks and a more neutral draw confirms the club is tracking on the correct plane. If you're using TrackMan or FlightScope, compare the club path number before and after — most golfers with the hands-out, club-under fault will see a measurable shift toward a more neutral in-to-out path within a single session.
For the full setup details, visit the Avoid Swinging Under Plane Drill page on pathpal.
- Set pathpal to 55 degrees — identify your fault first: stuck under (work on top) or over the top (work beneath)
- 10 rehearsal swings — no ball, focus entirely on the club's relationship to the rod at the halfway-down position
- 15 iron shots — observe ball flight for right-side blocks reducing or pull-draw pattern emerging
- 5 shots without the pathpal — if using TrackMan, compare club path numbers before and after
Related drills
The 55-degree plane reference sits within a broader set of swing plane drills on pathpal. These three address the same zone of the swing from different angles — each a natural companion to Shawn's reversible setup.
"Up It, Under It" Swing Plane Drill — Eric Barlow
Eric Barlow sets the pathpal at the shaft angle at address and cues "up it going back, under it coming down" — training the backswing-to-downswing plane shift that shallowing requires. Where Shawn's drill defines the limit of how far to shallow, Eric's drill trains the transition move itself. Use Eric's drill to build the pattern, Shawn's to calibrate the depth.
"Inside Path" Corrector Drill — Eric Barlow
Eric's companion drill sets the pathpal just above the address shaft angle to catch hands that rise through impact on an excessively flat, inside approach. It addresses the same "stuck under" fault from the impact end rather than the transition end — ideal for golfers who have already built Shawn's plane reference and need to confirm the hands are staying down through the hitting zone.
Vertical Backswing Drill — Shawn Koch
Shawn's paired drill for the backswing uses the pathpal at 90 degrees as a portable wall to prevent the inside rip that sets up the under-plane delivery. Where this drill corrects the downswing plane, the Vertical Backswing Drill corrects the takeaway that causes it. Work the takeaway first, then come back to the 55-degree reference for the delivery.
About Shawn Koch
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. He holds the Georgia PGA Player Development Award (2022) and Professional Development Award (2019) and has over 20 years of elite instruction experience.
Visit Shawn's website: shawnkochgolf.com · Follow pathpal on Instagram
Frequently asked questions
What does "hands out, club under" mean as a swing fault?
"Hands out, club under" describes a downswing sequencing fault where the hand path moves laterally away from the body while the club simultaneously drops below the correct plane line. The two movements happen together because when the hands drive outward, the clubhead lags below the hands' path and the shaft angle becomes too shallow. This produces a stuck delivery — the club trapped behind the body with an open face — leading to blocks right and snap hooks as the golfer compensates to square the face before impact.
Why is 55 degrees the reference angle for this drill?
55 degrees sits in the mid-range of downswing plane angles for iron shots — steep enough to represent a legitimate on-plane delivery, shallow enough to allow some natural shallowing from the backswing plane. It's the angle Shawn uses as his own personal reference because it reflects the correct plane for his delivery pattern. The specific angle matters less than having a consistent physical reference: the rod defines where "correct" lives so the golfer's body has something to track to rather than guessing.
How can the same rod fix both over-the-top and under-plane faults?
The rod defines the correct plane. An over-the-top golfer approaches above the rod — so the task is to work the club beneath it on the downswing, which trains shallowing. An under-plane golfer approaches below the rod — so the task is to work the club on top of it, which trains staying on the correct plane and not over-shallowing. Same physical setup, same 55-degree angle, completely opposite instruction cue. The rod is the reference point; the golfer's fault determines which side of it to work from.
Will this drill help if I'm hitting a lot of blocks and hook misses?
Yes — the block-hook two-way miss is the signature ball flight of the under-plane, stuck pattern. The block happens when the face is open to the excessively in-to-out path; the hook happens when the golfer compensates by releasing aggressively to close the face before impact. Both misses come from the same root cause. Getting the club back on the correct plane with Shawn's 55-degree reference removes the stuck delivery that forces both compensations.
One tool. Two plane faults. Instant feedback on both.
The pathpal is an integrated, all-in-one training system used by Top 100 teachers and Tour-level instructors to build correct swing plane habits with immediate physical feedback — indoors or out.
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