Stop coming over the top and lower your handicap

Coming over the top is just one of the many widespread swing action faults experienced by your average weekend golf player.

It’s what leads to the majority of slices, shanks and pulls making it almost impossible to lower high golf handicaps.

Unfortunately, coming over the top is more than simply an occasional problem for many saturday or sunday golfers.

You continually hear about how coming over the top is the number one flaw of weekend players, although you are not always conscious you are doing it when you aren’t able to observe your own swing

But it’s never too late to take action

The key point to fixing the condition of coming over the top is to first have an understanding of exactly why it happens.

The importance of Swing!

Maintaining the path of the club head through and to impact with the golf ball is the major solution to developing a good golf swing action .

Starting the swing action with a rotatation of the shoulders in advance of moving the arms in the direction of the target is usually the primary reason of an over the top or an outside to in swing action.

When the downswing path or plane is above, or over, the optimum plane it results in the path of the clubhead on impact to strike the ball from right to left (for a right-handed golfer) along the target line.

Coming over the top returns the club head from the top of the swing on a path outside the target line and invariably too steep to achieve the ball direction and flight wanted.

Swing quickness contributes to coming over the top and often caused by the common fault of trying to hit the ball farther than you are able with the choosen club. Many, if not most, weekend golfers are guilty of under-clubbing almost every shot!

Attempting to hit the ball with maximum power or attempting to correct an out-to-in downswing the swing position is often adjusted with a loss of swing control.

If the in-out path becomes excessive, it causes your swing to break down resulting in a very unpredictable ball flight.

There are generally two forms it can take:-

1. Excessive tilting of the spine on downswing taking it away from the target line
2. Spine drifts toward the ball on the downswing.

In both cases the downswing path will tend to follow an excessively in-out path. The result is the golfer is forced to make an attempt to correct and realign the club face with the ball.

The same result will occur if you lunge forward with your upper body when you start your downswing.

The Backswing

The lower body should be the foundation for the upper body during the backswing.

The two most common flaws and errors in the backswing is leaving too much weight on left, leading leg (right leg for left-handers) at the top end of backswing and starting the take away of the club too flat.

The natural tendency and an almost inevitable result of having most of your weight on your forward leg at the top of backswing is it being transferred on to the right leg when you start the downswing.

When the club face is left open at the top of the backswing, the natural reaction is to swing to the left (over the top) to get the club face back square at impact. In order to keep the clubface in the correct plane the club needs to taken back more steeply in the backswing.

Excessive quickness in the backswing is a real swing wrecker.

The object of the backswing is to enable you to set up your backswing in the most efficient way to deliver the correct impact with the ball. Once at the top of your backswing you start the downswing leading with your arms and hands you are setting up the typical situation of hitting from the top.

The Downswing

The tendency to come over the top is one that is common to almost all average club higher handicap golfers. Coming over the top means that the downswing plane of the club is outside the plane of the club going back.

Downswing path problems can be caused by a variety of reasons.

An effective downswing begins with a smooth and controlled speed of movement with the hips and shoulders leading the charge and pulling the arms and club head towards the ball. An excessively quick downswing disrupts stable weight distribution and causes no end of problems.

The tendency to lean backwards in the downswing is the normal response to this shift in weight distribution. When you shift weight into your back leg at the beginning of the downswing, the club will be thrown out and over the top.

Instead of bringing your hands back inside on the downswing it results in you moving your hands outside of the swing plane and coming down across the ball resulting in a pulled or sliced shot.

Maintaining or moving your weight distribution on your left leg (right-handed golfers) on the downswing keeps the club head on the inside and in the correct strike plane.

Generally, golfers coming over the top have very little other options they can take as it is a natural reaction in an effort to control the swing action started with the backswing and makes it a very difficult problem to overcome.

Quickness in both back and down swing errors are caused, in the main, by:

• attempting to hit the ball further than is either practical or possible
• compensating for the faults caused by trying too hard
• unrealistic expectations about how far they should be able hit the ball
• the stress and frustration as a result of any or all of the above

The problem arises when the player tries to generate extra distance and swings the club either too fast in their backswing and downswing or too far in the backswing causing their swing rythum to break down.

The problem is further compounded as the average or recreational player practices less than lower handicap golfers and it is more likely their swing will be off-balance.

Coming over the top in almost all cases is caused by:-

• bad/misaligned starting position
• swinging too far on the inside on the backswing
• in the downswing, shoulder/hips starting to rotate too early

It is important to remember that your starting setup & position has an impact on your backswing. In turn your backswing impacts on your downswing and your downswing influences your impact with the ball.

The backswing influences final impact as it is the starting point from which your downswing finally makes contact with the ball.

As players it is difficult knowing what it is we are actually doing in our swing and what we might imagine is happening is generally never the case.

It’s important that before making any major or even minor changes we make an effort to find out and there is no better time than NOW!

Tags: #golftips #golfswing