Different club, different swing

Golfers are often told to 'use the same swing for every club'. I believe this is poor advice and will lead to wild ball flight.

If one considers the angle of the shaft at set-up, the longest club (driver) is on a much flatter plane than that of the shortest club (sand wedge). Therefore, the club must be swung in a way so that the plane of the shaft is maintained throughout the back swing and follow through.

So, if the golfer takes a driver and tries to use the same swing as they do for their sand wedge, they will be taking the club back and delivering it through on too steep of a plane. This will lead to a gigantic slice, and I think it's one of the main reasons that people struggle with the driver and the less lofted clubs.

The reverse is true. If the golfer takes the sand wedge and attempts to use the same swing that they use for their driver, it will be on too flat of a plane and they are likely to pull the ball left.

To expand on this, the initial move away from the ball with a sand wedge entails basically bringing the club head straight up and back in front of the body. Whereas, the first move with the driver is to bring the club head back very low to the ground for a foot or so and then on a wide arc around and behind the body. Even if the golfer is a 'two plane' swinger, the driver is brought back on a much flatter, wider plane than the sand wedge.

This is one of the reasons why ball position for the more lofted clubs should be played further back in the golfers stance (towards the back foot). The ball should be placed right in the middle of the stance for a sand wedge (or just slightly back of center), and move towards the front foot as loft decreases (culminating in the driver, when the ball should be played just inside the left heel). The more lofted club one is using, the steeper the swing and the bigger the divot. The most lofted club requires that the golfer hit more on the downswing, with the swing arc bottoming out well after contact and under the turf. As loft decreases this move becomes more subtle (huge divot for a sand wedge, pretty big divot for an 8 iron, shallow divot for a five iron, little or no divot for a fairway wood).

I think that people generally swing the driver and the less lofted clubs on too steep of a plane and the sand wedge and more lofted clubs on too flat of a plane, because they are trying to use the same swing with every club. This is one of the reasons why golfers have so much trouble with longer clubs and tend to slice more with them (another reason being that loft negates side-spin, so the ball is always going to go straighter with a more lofted club as the ball is generally spinning backwards rather than sideways, even on slight mis-hits. The margin for error is much smaller with less loft). On the other end of the spectrum, golfers have trouble getting the ball high enough in the air with the more lofted clubs as they are not swinging on a steep enough plane or hitting down on the ball enough.

Think sand wedge 'steep', driver 'sweep' as a general rule.