How a swing coming over the top looks like

This thread is not meant to be looking for help, but if anyone got some super tips on swing thoughts, feel free to share. The main idea is to show an example of a swing coming way over the top and what the result is.

It's me swinging, recorded with a Casio EX-F1 at 300 FPS.

About the swing: I know there are more than just the over the top thing I need to work on, but the main focus here is on the move going over the top. The head dips too much. I hinge the wrists too much sometimes. On the top of the backswing it's not that bad, but my head has moved forward and down. The whole torso is moving forward and down to the ball.

But that's another story, what I want to show you is the club going over the top. From the top of the backswing to impact the club is thrown away, you don't even need a green card to see that this isn't right. I didn't record much today, it was very windy and cold.

Look a the swing plane and how the club is almost perpendicular to the ground. During the takeaway the club travel some here and there, but on the top it's somewhat on the plane. Then the madness begins and the club is going way over the top. Halfway down the hands are under my neck, they should have been under my shoulders. At impact I'm back to where I should be so I can hit the ball, but the plane is wrong and there's nothing I can do but continue to the inside.

You can easily see the club coming from outside to inside and the ball being launched off to the left. The clubface is shut at impact, so the ball takes off pretty straight, but unfortunately on the wrong plane. It's also a good way to see how you can use the ball flight to identify a problem. In my case the ball started left and continued straight left. This is a result of outside to inside swing and a shut clubface. Had the clubface been square to the target the ball would have started left, but actually ended up pretty much on the target. An unintentional fade if you like, I call it a small slice.

So, hope this helps, I know my swing sucks right now, but with this material I know better where to take the next step. After I shut off the camera I hit 20 or so balls, some of them I got straight by thinking of having the same angle on the club on my follow through as on adress. This helped some in getting the club more down at the right plane. My aim is to have a neutral swing where the club is going straight on the plane against the target. This way I can work the ball by aiming to the right or left. With this swing I have no control. I tried setting up for a draw and hitting some balls, it enden up going pretty straight. This is because with my club coming from the outside, if I aim right, the club will actually be pretty much on plane, like it should have been on a normal setup for a straight shot. If I set up for a fade, it will double the spin and become a huge slice.

Hi

Nice camera I'm was/in the sam "Over the top" boat ! Obvioulsy you try to learn 1 plane/rotary swing. If you do ...
First I try to learn basic motion “WHILE TURNING YOUR BODY, YOU THROW YOUR ARMS AROUND YOUR BODY”, or “WHILE THROWING YOUR ARMS AROUND YOUR BODY, YOU TURN YOUR BODY”. With that thoughts your backswing will be much better(more connected). A one-plane swing, like a baseball swing (the arms by the way in baseball are positioned opposite the right side of the body when the pitch is thrown), is powered by the turn of the torso.
From that recommendation and yours action I sugest focusing on "WHILE TURNING YOUR BODY, YOU THROW YOUR ARMS AROUND YOUR BODY" to get more in sync (right now you're all arms)

regards,

You are definitely coming over the top, but kudos for using the video analysis to help point out weaknesses. I was doing the same exact thing before I started a series of lessons - but I didn't even know I was coming over the top! Realizing where the specific problems are opens the door for fixing the swing. After seeing my swing on video for the first time, I realized how different it felt vs. how it looked. Video analysis is so helpful - highly recommend it to anyone who has never seen their swing like that before!

That's a great video at a good slo-mo speed.

try pausing for a half second at the top of the backswing, and then make a subtle move w/ the lower body and hips to initiate the down swing. some like the feel of pointing their right knee toward the target to start the downswing. that may help you to not drop the left shoulder as a start of the downswing, and help you to get your arms to drop down in the slot.

From the top, swing down not out. Simply extend the right arm straight down and the left arm slides down the chest. Simply lowering the arms transfers the weight to the front foot and will turn the body. Keep the shoulders back and the left arm on the chest as long as possible. As soon as the left arm comes off the body at the top, it breaks down, left wrist folds backwards to the target to allow the outside in swing path. This uplofts the decelerating clubhead resulting in weak thin fat right or left shots.

I like the towel throw to feel the golf swing. Simply take a towel and set up to an imaginary golf ball. No turn back with good extension and let the sternum complete the backswing so you have a tight good coil with no upward arm drift. Make sure the right arm has folded correctly under the left at the top and left wrist is flat. Now simply throw the towel straight down behind you. You should end up with all your weight on your front foot and your arms perfectly extended down the imaginary target line as any good pro.
For all the golf instruction out there, most people who come over the top do not know how to make a good backswing which is tight, coiled and uncomfortable at the top and then just swing down. Nicklaus in his book is right, the OTT move stems from a poor backswing in that it is a compensating move to develop power from the top due to lack of coil at the bottom. Swingplane based instruction is another culprit in that it can cause people to swing down on the ultimate plane, which is too outside at the top, rather than straight down and let the turn forward combine to create the ultimate swingplane

it started well, with the down move, but the ending here is completely wrong. Lowering the arms transfers the weight? Not likely. How can a vertical move transfer weight horizontally?

You're unwinding from the top, meaning the shoulders are over active too early in the transition. When your RIGHT shoulder starts to work out and not down, the arms go with it and the result is a complete disconnect from the lower half and no speed and steep into the ball.

Zeph

Don't worry too much about all the rest of the things you are working on. I like the fact that you are focusing on one thing and trying to get through it. Obviously your shoulder turn and your dip have a lot to do with you coming over the top.

I have two short recommendations but it really depends on whether you are a feel golfer or a technical golfer. If you are big on feels, i would recommend making a club that will show you your swing plane like a weighted club with flashlights on either side. It's a simple yet effective way to give you a feel to go to the range with the next day. If you are more technical and make it so you can't swing wrong, I would highly recommend making a swing cushion or some other device that you will hit when you come over the top.

Both of these are just stop gap solutions. Long term, I would be curious to see your ball position and your face on camera angle. I would be willing to bet that you have a lot going on there that is contributing to your swing plane problems. Let me know if you post from there.

really good camera work.

wonder if you can do us a favor: tape another one, same set up, same spine angle, but try to "somehow" land the ball as far right as you can.

you seem to have a very decent backswing, i really do not think you need much to get into the correct groove.

[QUOTE=Slicer McGolf;264308]it started well, with the down move, but the ending here is completely wrong. Lowering the arms transfers the weight? Not likely. How can a vertical move transfer weight horizontally?

This is the problem people have with golf. They never experiment with their bodies to see how things work. Read Ben Hogan's book he talks about how the whole body is connected, that is turning the hips brings the arms down.

Next time you get the chance simply turn back in a good golf posture, chest turned against the rear braced leg. Now move the lead knee towards the target, arms are pulled down, now turn back again and move the rear knee towards the ball, you guessed it, arms are pulled down. Now set up again and turn but this time just lower the arms, left knee moves towards the target and right knee towards the ball, ie a weight shift has occurred. To me it makes no difference how you start the downswing from the top, whether you just lower the arms, move the left knee to the target or right knee to the ball, because it all starts the same transfer and turn. I found that starting the downswing with the lower body tended to pull my right shoulder out and thus OTT, not straight down as Hogan stated. BUT, he made a much better backswing than I could ever make in terms of raw coiling and maintaining the corrects angles throughout. Do the towel throw, it will amaze you. If it doesn't you are merely raising your arms to complete the backswing and have no coil at the top as the reverse happens (the arms raising independently of the torso turn cause the coil to release so there is no tension at the top.) Hogan called this a false backswing and it is the root cause of the OTT move.

As a one-planer, I've had a similar problem. The thing that helped me overcome this was maintaining my spine angle as a constant throughout the downswing. You're dipping down at the start and casting out your arms a bit, and then yanking your whole body vertical through impact. If your maintain your spine angle (and don't rock back at all on your backswing), you'll have an easier time getting that inside to inside, instead of outside to inside, one plane swing.

I have read them all, and I have 5 fundamentals on me almost all the time. What you just said contradicts your original statement. The arms moving down does not shift the weight... the lead knee towards the target - the horizontal move - helps the arms come down - the vertical drop. THIS is the problem people have with golf. Bad information relayed to others. THe blind leading the blind.

Good camera work.

Actually looks a decent swing-better than 20 handicap, UNTIL you come over the top. That is a huge over the top motion. I come over the top, but nowhere near as much as that. I think you can easily improve.

Try the shoe box drill.
Try shortening your back swing.

Try swing well outside the line on takeaway and then drop back down as much inside as you can on the down swing.

Try hitting shots with your back to the target.

Try putting a golf ball in a takeawy position-swing back outside and swing down inside-you should hit a nice draw.

And as suggested alread try pausing at the top and dont start with that big body opening.

Good luck!

Most people I play with ask me why I have a handicap of 20. Overall I play better than 20, but the iron play especially is wasting so many shots. The reason is obvious from my video.

Lots of replies here, really appreciate it. I can't help but laugh sometimes at golf and how ridiculously hard it is to swing this club back and forth. I think we would've been better off without the ball. If the weather gets better tomorrow I'll try to get to the range again, hopefully get some front view footage. My first goal is to get the swing plane in order and take it from there. I have improvements to be made on other stuff, but it'll be much easier to work on once I get the plane in order. This was a 5 iron btw. I've only got 9-7-5 with me now, but it's more than enough to work on my plane anyways. The shorter the club, the straighter the ball goes, which is probably because of the steeper angle at adress. Next time I get to the range I'll be surprised if I can't make some headway on this. The video shows everything i need to know for now, it's indisputable evidence. I recorded for 15 minutes, there were little variation in the swing. It's an excellent tool for this work, and I can do it all by myself.

Hope we helped to some extent. You made an excellent video. Best of luck this season.

Hah...I just wrote a long reply, but wanted to make annotations on my Youtube video, I didn't get it to work so I installed the latest version of Adobe Flash Player and restarted my PC. So my post was gone...meh...I didn't even get the friggin annotations to work.

So, here we go again. I went to the range at noon to practice. Hit 8 full buckets while I was there. Recorded everythin, 2/3 down the line, 1/3 front view. Unfortunately not much to review really, it was pretty much the same, though I had a couple of shots that came out a lot better, but I wasn't able to pick up on what I did different. So I went home, watched all my shots on the video and got to thinking. I searched up "Tiger woods swing" on Youtube to find his iron swing and compared it to mine. What I noticed was my wrists turning over to the right and my takeaway going on a much flatter plane than his, even his driver plane was less parallell to the ground.

A bit bummed out I found new encouragement, found my keys and drove back to the range. There was no doubt I had found something of importance. My shots didn't end up where I intended all the time, but all except maybe 5-10 of them started out on the target line. I was very pleased with this last session, I finally made a change that really gave me immediate results. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera the second time.

I hit 4 buckets and after some time I could get the plane in order without thinking of it. As I said, the ball started on the target line but ended up on the right. The result of an open clubface. Some weeks ago I worked on my grip and noticed I've been holding the club with a slightly shut clubface. With this setup I have probably developed a timing which leaves my clubface open when I take the grip correctly, which I have done since I found out my grip was wrong. I'm really not sure how to proceed or how to work on correcting my timing. I tried a few times to really release my wrists, but I ended up hooking the ball. Maybe 5-7 shots came out square and going straight.

Question: Which way are the wrists supposed to turn? I know that I turn my wrists both sideways to the right and up. Are they supposed to turn sideways at all during the swing, or is this perhaps one of the reasons for my release problems which you will read about further down? Picture yourself holding a club in front of you, straight out, with your grip. Are the wrists supposed to move only up and down, moving the club closer and further away from your face or should it also move sideways? During and after impact you obviously turn them over, but from adress to the top of the backswing, should they turn at all sideways?

I also noticed during my front view video that when the club is 45º away from the ball my hands have released club. I know that wrist lag creates lots of speed and distance, for example Sergio Garcia, one of the guys that can hit the irons far. I've seen stills and videos of him and his lag is incredible. I'm not looking for that amount of lag, but at least more than I have today. I have posted the front view video so you can see this yourself below.

I expect these two last issues are somewhat related, so if someone got tips on how I can work on it, I'd appreciate it.

During my session I also thought of how I dip with my torso. I have a tendency, or more of a consistency of hitting the ball fat. Really slamming the club into the mat. As many of you know, mats hide fat shots, on the course I would've created huge divots without getting the ball anywhere.
Amongst other results like losing distance it's causing calluses in my hands. I hit some shots while trying to keep more steady with my torso, thinking of having a spear through the top of my head and out my bottom that I rotate around. The results were good, I hit some shots thin, but most I picked very nicely off the mat. This will probably be harder to work out of my swing than the plane. I noticed that if I don't think of it, I'll dip. But practice makes perfect, so I'll just have to give it time.

All in all I'm very pleased with the last session, I didn't cure something ofcourse, I'll need more time for that, but I found the solution to two of my problems. As I mentioned, I'm not sure how to proceed with the lag and release of my hands issue.
I'll also have to notice that I won't be using most of the tips and hints I get here. I really appreciate them, but I suppose you all understand that 20 solutions to 3 problems will leave me confused. I like to primarily work from feedback of the ball and the videos, making changes and recording it over again. Still, I read everything you write and pick up a few things here and there.

To make this evening even better I found a glove on the road while driving home. Looked like it had been lying there some days, but it was fairly new and in pretty good condition. It was also my favourite glove, so I was really thrilled. I've been using an all weather FJ glove on my training sessions, it's no good, but as long as I slam my club into the mat I'm just tearing apart the gloves so I don't want to use a $30 glove for this.

So, here is my front view video. This is from my first session where I still hadn't discovered the revelation of my swing plane, but it illustrates very well my early release. It's funny how my release is that early but I still come into the ball with the clubface open. I guess it's because the release goes up and down with the wrists, while the clubface square up once I turn over the wrists.

re "Question: Which way are the wrists supposed to turn?" What wirsts ? No wrist turning !!! Wrist are passive elements ! Arms and forearms and pivoting do the job Wrist are funny "animal" they do work for you without you knowing=manipulating them (if you do other parts of swing fairly OK)! However you should know this : Maintain the bend in your right (rear) wrist. If you unhinge your right (rear) wrist during the downswing, you will hit behind the ball. The right (rear) wrist bend is important in controlling the path of the club and the width of the arc of the swing!

regards,

However you should know this : Maintain the bend in your right (rear) wrist. If you unhinge your right (rear) wrist during the downswing, you will hit behind the ball. regards,[/QUOTE]

I have never heard this. Maybe anything can happen if you release early, not just fat shots?

Slicer and Wachesa, your posts have been helpful to me. I've read enough of both of your posts to know that you both know something, and I wanted to work out what was causing the misunderstanding.

Here's what I feel, playing around with a nine iron in the office. When I get to the top, I can shift my weight, and my arms don't drop. However, if I shift my weight with continued hip rotation, arms drop and right shoulder rotates internally to open the club face. Likewise, I can drop my arms such that my weight doesn't shift. However, if I rotate my right shoulder internally and reach farther around as I drop, my weight shifts to left forefoot.