The 1 move that keeps great ball strikers from coming over-the-top

A swing that comes over the top is the bane of many recreational golfers. Go to your local range and you’ll likely see dozens of players who struggle with this move. As a result, they hit weak fades or slices and rarely have any real shot at becoming a lower handicap.

The reason the over-the-top swing is so common is because it feels correct. Most often, the golfer begins the downswing with rotation rather than shifting. This leads the clubhead to go outside the hands, forcing the player to come over the top to hit the ball.

When you watch a good ball striker, once they reach the top of their backswing, their first move down is a lateral shift toward the target. After this shift, they follow with rotation, allowing the club to work more from the inside. In the video below, GOLF Top 100 Teacher Greg Phillips of the Titleist Performance Institute shares an easy feel you can use to incorporate this sequencing into your swing.

How to shift then rotate

It can be tempting to get to the top of the swing and then try to unwind as quickly as possible. Your brain tells you that this is the best way to generate power, but in reality, it’s poor sequencing and largely inefficient. If you want to hit the ball like the best ball strikers, you need to shift pressure into the lead side first and then allow your body to unwind.

Phillips likes to teach this by putting alignment sticks on the ground that bisect the student’s stance on a diagonal from behind their trail foot out to in front of their lead foot. The goal on the downswing is to shift the pressure along that diagonal line before starting the rotation in the downswing.

“A lot of times I’ll put down alignment rods or I’ll put down clubs out here [right of the target],” Phillips says. “I want you to line up straight, but I want you to pretend like you’re going to hit it [off to the right].”

When you do this, the club will naturally work more on an in-to-out path with more natural shallowness.

“You’re twisting early,” Phillips says. “And I need you to have a little bit of lateral.”

If you struggle with an over-the-top swing, keep that in mind. If you can shift before you twist, you’ll produce a much more in-to-out move and fix that nasty over-the-top motion that plagues your ball striking.