I read some of the archives on the plane and tracing and had some further thoughts.
I have read that the shaft rotates around the sweetspot. To illustrate this, the example is to hold the grip end in the fingers, let the club hang by gravity and spin the club. Here the shaft clearly rotates around the sweet spot.
But I can't believe that this is what happens in a golf swing. If this was true, then swinging a dowel would result in a very different swing motion than swinging a golf club (or maybe even think of a hockey stick). Rather - it seems to me that the shaft of the club travels on an inclined plane. The base of this plane is along a line that goes through the point where the shaft touches the ground at impact fix - a couple of inches inwards from the center line through the ball. So at halfway back for example, the butt end of the grip should point towards this more inward plane line. Assuming this shaft plane exists, then it's easier for me to envision the sweet spot or club face rotating around the shaft rather than the other way around. I believe this also implies that plane boards are valid training tools.
So, when you swing your dowel you shouldn't be aiming the tip of the dowel directly at your imaginary ball, but rather an inch or so inside the ball where the shaft would hit the ground. Perhaps this is wrong or just extremely obvious, but it subconsciously threw me out of whack for a bit. Once I started thinking about the shaft traveling on this more inward plane, I was making very clean center contact.
I know my "mind should be in my hands" instead of in the shaft but I'm still working on that. Or maybe I just need to get some clubs with the face centered on the shaft .
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