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Do you swing “over the top? If you don’t know what it is, it is a move that is common among the majority of amateur golfers, and the result is usually a slice or a dead pull depending on your clubface position at impact.
The over the top golf swing is a premature movement of the upper body before the lower body in the downswing. The upper body actually gets ahead of the lower body causing an “outside to in” golf swing. This path is the least desirable in golf.
Take a look at the picture and you get a real clear idea of what’s happening in a correct golf swing and an incorrect one. Look at the top (incorrect) one. The golfers has pulled his club wat too far inside on the take-away, and how to compensate by coming over the top in the downswing 
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There are many causes of this swing fault, some of which are physical and can be easily corrrected, and some that are mechanical and with the right swing thoughts can be fixed.
1) Drop your arms. I used to swing over the top years ago, and I tried everything to correct it, including lessons with no success. Then I was watching one of my taped videos of Nick Price and saw how his arms seemed to drop in place in the downswing.
I ran to the range and tried it. My first move from the top of my swing was a dropping of my arms, the rotating. It worked! I couldn’t believe it! I just cured that dreaded swing fault with one swing thought. Give it a try!
2) Rotate down. Here’s another swing thought I’ve used if this swing fault creeps into my swing during a round. I think of rotating down toe the ball. Not out! Down. I maintain my spine angle, so I’m not literally dropping down, but I focus on rotating through that golf ball.
3) Improve rotational flexibility. One very obvious physical limitation that could be causing you to get your upper body ahead of your lower body is a restricted backswing. If you cannot make a full backswing, you will stop short and your mind will tell you, you have to turn down with your arms.
Improve your flexibility from a rotational standpoint, and you can drive your legs all day long and stay back with your upper body creating power and leverage.
4) Strong core muscles. If you have weak core muscles, you cannot maintain the adequate separation needed in your downswing. Where the upperbody stays behind for a split second, as the lower body starts to rotate. Your weak core will send a message to your brain that it cannot keep that separation, and the brain will send a message back to the body to bail out, and come over the top with your upper body. Makes sense?
5) Left shoulder down and out. Another very effective tip is if you’re right-handed, the first move down is my lead shoulder going down, then rotating. I use this one a lot. Ernie Els does this. The key is to watch how close your chin is to your left shoulder at the top of the swing, then starting down get that left shoulder away from you chin right now! That is the same as getting your left shoulder to do down and away during the initial part of your downswing.
6) Left arm close. Here’s a great tip. Notice how close your left arm (if you’re a right-handed golfer) is to your body throughout your swing? If you come over the top it goes away from your body. Try to get a feeling of your left arm staying fairly close to your body on your downswing. Don’t jam it in there, but have a sense it is in close on the downswing.
It is virtually impossible to come over the top with your left arm staying close to your body. Just try it and you’ll see what I mean. I have used and do many of these tips regularly to help me stay clear of the “over the top golf swing!” Give them a try, or if you have other tips, let us know by commenting to this post 
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What do you think? 23 Comments »
October 17th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Mike i”ll have to respectfully disagree on dropping your arms to start the downing swing, it is a lateral move of the hips that starts the downswing.
October 17th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
This could be a very fun conversation if people chime in
. If I did a lateral slide in my swing (I use to), I would hit a shank every time. I think every player needs a different tip or thought. A lateral slide for me would not be it. Thank you for your input!
October 20th, 2007 at 6:47 am
Mike, I watched your swing on the workout DVD in slo-motion and noticed you do start your downswing with a very slight hip slide. I’m sure you toned down the amount of slide. I think better players like your self all start with a lateral move of the hips but they do it without thinking. It is something you probably don’t think about, it just comes naturally
October 20th, 2007 at 7:00 am
John,
It is something I have to watch very closely! My swing thought is as I mentioned before. Left shoulder down and drop the arms. That is all I think especially if my swing goes a little south on the course
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Thanks for participating in this new blog!
Mike
October 17th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
don’t know if it is arms or hips, but has been arms for me. almost a pulling sensation. Hey, remember seeing this glass pane and how your swing worked in a Ben Hogan book as a kid. It always helped me.
October 17th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Concur with watching video of pro swings…I recently video taped myself at the driving range, I was proud of my swing until I compared myself to the pros frame-by-frame (lots of slow-mo pro-swings on YouTube), highly recommended…all the deltas between your swing and theirs leap off the screen in slo-mo, especially over the top (I never considered myself an over the topper until seeing the video)…its pretty humbling, watch Sergio’s move through the transition/downswing, amazing. I’m thinking about positioning my web cam/monitor so I can make 100s of practice swings while being able to see my exact swing plane (from the rear, down the line). I completely straightened out my putting stroke mechanics by making a feedback system and then burning-in a good stroke with a ton of repetition, no ball needed (putting avg has gone down abt 3 putts per round, I expect more strokes to drop-off)…bet it works for full swing mechanics too. I’ll let you know how it goes. As far as dropping arms/shoulders/head to start down, “world #1″ didn’t use to drop his shoulders/head very much in the transition, but look at him now, he drops 6+ inches…I heard some analyst criticizing the move…but you are going to have a hard time convincing me that this is an amateur “swing flaw” that he and all those hi-$ coaches of his accidentally introduced into his swing over the last couple of years…I haven’t tried it yet, but next time on the range I’m going to try dropping my fwd shoulder at least a little to get my swing started, see what happens. Dropping arms then rotate? Watch the pros on YouTube and see what all of them do, Great topic…
October 18th, 2007 at 5:16 am
JLW, it’s almost suicide to compare “slow-mo” of our swings to the grooved swings of touring pros. We’d be setting ourselves up for failure for sure
. I like to watch the pros swing in slow motion to get a real specific idea of the swing, but would keep it at that, as we will never have the swings of these pros 
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October 17th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
O.T.T. is caused by one basic thing :
The golfer attempts to “hit” the ball, with the hands and arms leading the motion, instead of allowing the body to “propel” the hands and arms … and the club head, as should happen in the proper swing… a motion that is present in any other sport that involves a “throwing” motion, including sports like hockey, where the “slapshot”, is also generated from the lower body.
Every golfer, will probably identify a different sensation or part of their
body that they feel is responsible for starting the downswing. The reality,
is that in any good golf swing, the swing starts from the “ground up”, as with
any other throwing motion.
You can use whatever “swing key”, that you like, but my favorite these days,
and one I use to teach beginners, is to forget “golf swing” and just make a
motion like you were going to throw the club as far as possible. I got the
idea from Fred ShoeMakers “Extraordinary Golf”.
When you do that, your lower body muscles will automatically lead the motion and your O.T.T. will instantly vanish forever … maybe
. The golfer still has
to resist that mighty “hit impulse” and trust the “throw the club” method.
It’s also essential to keep the upper body, arms, hands, wrists, all “soft” so that they can be propelled at the greatest speed through the ball. “Soft” wrists are a fundamental part of any good golfer’s swing, and is the opposite of what the high handicap hacker does …i.e. “death grip” + try to “hit” the ball = no “release” = low clubhead speed and usually a slice or a “blocked” shot.
Mike
October 18th, 2007 at 5:13 am
Very good points Mike
! Every golfer connects differently to all these swing tips. It’s a trial and error til one of them works. Thanks for your participation in here. I hope more golfers come in and take part 
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October 17th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Nice tips and suggestions from everyone.
Different people respond to different swing thoughts. That’s why it’s always good to try more than one and see which one works for you.
I like Mike Stramba’s suggestion. I have worked on my release by actually throwing clubs down the driving range to better feel the release (and resist the temptation to “hit”). This also reduces the likelihood of hitting over the top.
In fact, it usually takes several tosses to get myself to really let go. The tendency is to hang on too much. Try it some time.
Have you noticed… the pros make a “golf swing” where the ball just gets in the way whereas most golfers try to “hit the ball”. This is why pros have effortless power.
Hitting from the top just burns up a lot of swing energy too soon.
Dave
October 18th, 2007 at 8:31 am
I really like the “thought” of throwing the club that Mike Stramba gave. Alot of my o.t.t. is a result of lower spine damage I suffered while on active duty. I have limited flex in my lower back so I struggle with getting to the top in my backswing and then trying to get a forward movement going without sliding. I got some good tips from A.J. Bonner a short while back that really helped me along but my power, though increased, was still limited to what my arms and shoulders were providing. Using the swing thought of throwing the club really gave the club head a good whistle in the impact area so I’m looking forward to getting to the driving range and checking it out.
Semper Fi
October 18th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Its interesting to see there are so many different reasons for an over the top swing, I often find with my own swing there is a fine line from a nice draw to a pull, maybe I need to address some of these suggesions!!
October 25th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Im not sure if I have this type of swing as I can’t see myself swing. Any recommendations on figureing out what my swings looks like?
January 29th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Excellent post and comments here. I’m with Mike P. on this one. The #1 mechanical idea to help learn a good downswing motion is to allow the hands and arms to drop (keeping the right shoulder back). Where people often get messed up is in trying to MAKE THEM DROP– with effort. So the mental challenge is to completely release themselves of the “hitting effort” (which they’re used to) and simply allow the swing motion to happen. This is where the lightbulb can really illuminate… where you get that effortless feeling and the ball rockets off the clubhead.
All the other details (what moves first, holding the wrist angles, good release. and so on) can be addressed after this key function is ingrained.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Hi, i have the OTT swing and this ends up in a slice EVERY TIME
i have been told to ‘tuck my hips in’ on the downswing. what precisely does that mean?
thanks alot for your help
Cam
June 18th, 2009 at 9:55 am
I started golfing in 2003 and have spent a lot of money on lessons with video. My swing looks exactly like the guy on the top of the page.
On August 25, 2008 I was on the range working on my golf lesson and thinking to myself that I would never figure out the golf swing when BAM my 6′ 3″ frame it my drive about 80 yards farther than I had ever hit it. I did it about 50 more times and marveled at the swing it was totally different. I then drove home and picked up my wife and brought her to the range to show it to her. I hit about 20 more. I remember four distint things. 1) It felt like
I was pulling down on a rope. 2) My arms felt like they were along for the ride. 3) My hands totally lagged behind 4) I started the movement by turning my hips.
The next day I told everybody that I GOT IT. That night the swing vanished never to be found again, and like I said my swing today looks like the top of the page.
I can’t take it anymore.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
I hear ya Frustrated. I did the exact same thing one day at the range. I was raking driver and 3 wood almost 300 yards. The next day, the feeling was gone. This game is maddening but I love it.
September 8th, 2009 at 6:58 am
For me hitting over the top is rotating the shoulders before the arms come down ie right shoulder forward and left back. I concentrate on rotaing the shoulders on the back swing with no backward slide of the hips. The downswing is started almost simultaneously by dropping the arms and sliding the hips slightly toward the target –not rotating the shoulders that comes later. Just two swing thoughts for me = rotate on the backswing with no hip glide at all. On the downswing pull down arms first right elbow tucked in and flow through the ball with a lateral hip glide toward the target. The rotation of the shoulders is an automatic following movement–no thought required!!
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
The most i important thing you must do to start the down swing is move the right elbow
down and slightly in front of the right hip. This externally rotates the upper arm
and loads the arms in a position where the right arm can internally rotate and hit with force from the inside. This move automatically places the club on a flatter plane so you dont hit from the outside. If you just drop the arms down without controlling the movement of the R elbow you just chop down on the ball or hit it fat.
December 13th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
William,
I couldn’t agree more with you. This is a great tip.
Mike
December 13th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
I have found that over the top is the right side getting active far to early in the swing, in desperation to hit the ball. One really good tip to keep the right side inactive as you start the down swing is keep your none target foot flat to the floor until after impact. Just try this with short wedge shots to get the feel and watch the difference.
good luck
December 13th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Paul,
Thanks for sharing your tips
You’re welcome back anytime.
Mike
January 12th, 2010 at 7:48 am
Great tips , if you google this problem you only get one tip at a time. You put it all together. There is to much swing this way do this that way. We all need to go to gym rather and increase our core strenth and flexibilty. Then stand still, keep legs still, swing easy, little pause on top to get in the slot. Then swing this way and that way
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thanks ..