The Baseline & Plane Drill

Separate the pathpal into its two halves. Set the rear half to 70 degrees for the backswing plane reference and the front half to 75 degrees for the follow-through plane reference. Thread an alignment rod through the base channel to create the straight-line baseline — the orange line that serves as the constant pointing reference throughout the swing. Once set, the two angled rods and the baseline together define the complete three-dimensional plane track the club should travel in from takeaway through finish.

The rule is simple: one end of the club — either the sweet spot or the butt end — must always point at the orange baseline, except at the two moments when the club is parallel to the ground. On the takeaway, the sweet spot points at the orange line as the club moves back. As the club climbs past parallel and the wrists hinge, the butt end points back at the orange line. After impact during extension, the sweet spot returns to pointing at the line. At the two parallel positions — halfway back and halfway through — the pathpal's padded rods indicate that the club is on the correct plane angle rather than the pointing rule. This gives the golfer a checkpoint at every stage of the swing.

The drill primarily corrects a laid-off club position at the top combined with a bowed lead wrist — the fault pattern David identifies in his student before and after. When the club is laid off (pointing left of target at the top), the face is closed and the plane has broken down from its correct arc. The pointing rule prevents this by requiring the butt end to track back to the orange line during the climb — which keeps the club on the correct plane angle and maintains a flat rather than bowed lead wrist. David's before-and-after comparison shows the correction clearly: from a bowed, closed, laid-off position to a flat wrist, organized, on-plane top position that produces a ball flight that came right down the line.

David specifically recommends practicing the drill with the club held upside down — grip end toward the ball — as an introductory feel exercise. With the club inverted, the butt end and sweet spot swap roles, making it easier to feel and see the pointing relationship to the baseline without the weight and momentum of the clubhead creating compensating movements. The upside-down version also slows the drill down naturally, allowing the golfer to feel the three-dimensional plane awareness at a pace where it can register and consolidate before adding the complexity of a normal club orientation and ball striking.

David is one of only 16 Lynn Blake Certified Master Instructors worldwide — a methodology focused on a geometrically precise, shaft-plane-based approach to the swing that emphasizes exact club positions relative to defined reference lines throughout the swing arc. The "Rule of Pointing" is directly consistent with Lynn Blake's plane-based instruction framework, which uses the shaft's relationship to the target line and body as the organizing principle for swing mechanics. The pathpal baseline and dual-angle plane rods translate that geometric framework into a physical, tangible drill that makes the abstract plane concepts immediately visible and feedbackable for any student.