The Shaft Plane Match Drill

Set the pathpal to the angle that matches your club's shaft angle at address — Janean recommends approximately 60 degrees for a 6-iron as a starting reference. Hold your club at address and visually match the rod to the shaft angle coming out of the club head. From there, the drill trains you to swing over the rod going back and slightly under it coming down — the over-under shallowing motion that creates an inside-out delivery. Because every club sits at a different shaft angle, the 13 angle options allow you to recalibrate for each club in your bag.

Shaft angle at address varies by club because lie angle and shaft length change across the bag. A wedge sits more upright — closer to 65–70 degrees — while a 5-iron sits flatter at around 55–60 degrees, and a driver sits flatter still. The swing plane is determined by the shaft angle at address, so training on a fixed angle for every club produces inaccurate plane feedback for most of them. Janean's drill is club-specific by design — match the angle to the club you're actually hitting, and the feedback becomes precise rather than approximate.

On the backswing, a correct plane has the club moving slightly above the address shaft angle — this is the "over" reference. On the downswing, the club drops slightly below that same plane as it shallows into the slot — this is the "under" reference. The over-under sequence is the kinematic signature of a proper shallowing motion: the club steepens slightly going back and then flattens as it transitions into the downswing. An inside takeaway that goes too far below the plane on the backswing makes the over-under transition impossible and almost always produces a steep, over-the-top downswing.

When the club rips too far inside on the takeaway, it gets below the shaft plane immediately and sits in a position from which the only efficient route to the ball is back over the top — steepening on the downswing rather than shallowing. This is the root cause of most over-the-top swings: the backswing path forces the downswing path. The pathpal rod matched to the shaft angle creates a visual reference that prevents the club from going below that plane on the takeaway, giving the downswing a fighting chance to shallow correctly.

Most shallowing drills use a fixed obstacle or a single angle — they're designed for an average shaft plane and applied universally regardless of the club being hit. Janean's approach is personalized to the specific club in your hand. By matching the pathpal to the actual shaft angle at address, the plane reference is accurate for that club's geometry rather than a generic approximation. This makes the feedback more precise and the muscle memory more transferable to on-course performance, where you're never hitting the same club twice in a row.