Avoid swinging under plane

Set the pathpal to 55 degrees and position it so the rod sits above the downswing plane — creating an over-plane barrier the club must stay beneath on the way down. The drill cue is to get the club outside the hands on the downswing, working on top of the plane line rather than dropping below it. When the hands work out and the club drops underneath, the club passes below the 55-degree rod without contacting it — but the ball flight reveals the fault. The correct delivery keeps the club working outside the hands and on or just above the 55-degree reference, producing the outward path that Shawn is training toward. Unlike barriers that catch the wrong move with a collision, this drill's 55-degree rod confirms the correct move when the club stays on the correct side of it.

"Hands out, club under" describes a specific downswing sequencing fault where the hand path moves laterally away from the body (out toward the ball) while the club simultaneously drops below the correct plane line. The two movements happen together because when the hands drive outward without the club following, the clubhead lags below the hands' path and the shaft angle becomes too shallow relative to where it should be at that point in the downswing. This produces a delivery where the club is stuck under the plane — trapped — with the face often open, leading to blocks right and snap hooks as the golfer compensates by releasing aggressively to square the face before impact. The hand path and club path diverge when they should be moving in concert.

"Club outside the hands" describes the ideal spatial relationship in the downswing where the clubhead tracks on or slightly above the hands' path rather than dropping below it. When the club is outside the hands, the shaft maintains its plane angle from the top of the backswing through the delivery, producing an in-to-out or on-path club delivery at impact. When the club drops inside or below the hands — the "stuck under" fault — the shaft angle shallows beyond the correct plane and the only way to return to impact is through a compensatory flip or block. Shawn's 55-degree reference gives a physical position in space for the "club outside hands" target — the rod is the plane line, and the club should work on top of it.

Shawn's Junior Chipping Drill uses the pathpal at 40 degrees as an above-ball-flight barrier that catches an over-the-top delivery — designed for golfers who are too steep and above the plane. The Avoid Under Plane Drill uses the pathpal at 55 degrees as a plane reference the club must stay on top of — designed for golfers whose club drops too far below the plane in transition. The fault populations are opposite: the 40-degree drill serves juniors and steep attackers who throw the club over and above, the 55-degree drill serves golfers whose natural pattern is to drop the club excessively and get stuck under. Shawn notes explicitly that both groups can benefit from both drills by simply changing their relationship to the rod — work under it if you're over the top, work on top of it if you're under the plane.

Most instructor testimonial videos demonstrate a drill for a student fault. Shawn Koch's Avoid Under Plane Drill is a drill Shawn uses for his own swing — he explicitly identifies the "hands out, club under" pattern as his personal tendency and presents the 55-degree pathpal setup as his own practice tool. This self-referential framing carries significantly more credibility than a demonstration-only video because it shows that a Golf Digest top-ranked instructor, Georgia PGA Teacher of the Year, and Director of Instruction at Atlanta Athletic Club uses the pathpal for his personal practice rather than just recommending it to students. It also communicates that swing faults are universal — even elite instructors have patterns they actively work to correct — which makes the drill more relatable and approachable for recreational golfers.