What's causing my OTT move?

Got a video of my swing from a recent practice session and I can see that I have a OTT move that I need to eradicate. From what I can see I take the club inside on the take away and then at the top the club is pointing across the line. Are these two things linked and if so I then presume I need to work on the take away.

On top of that is it these two moves that cause the OTT to happen?

you are lunging towards the ball with your upper body. Practice hitting shots with your right foot back. This will force you to get the feeling of coming from the inside because your body will block the over the top movement.

That under-over loop you have will cause an OTT move.

The move you describe in text is exactly what Bobby Jones did.Forget OTT and figure out how you want to Hit the ball. Also there is a great Sybervision DVD of Mr Jones that you'll love.Good luck dude!

Are you rolling your wrists? It looked like on your backswing the clubhead was pointed up before you'd even moved your shoulders.

Honestly, I think most people come over the top in an effort to get down to the ball. It's hard to convince yourself you're still going to get down to the ball if you don't lunge over the top. I used to like working on getting the club back behind me, so I would do this drill where I took it back high, and swung it way down low, as low as I could.

This was me back as a 20 something handicap working on the drill: Notice the extreme drop? I also tossed in the swing with the fake finish position for fun. I guess I didn't quite get it to the finish position I wanted, so I tried to fake it. Anyway, that's what I was working on, getting the club to drop down behind me. Boy, I've lost some weight since then... Amazing.

do you mean forward toward the target or ball?

Toward the target, or wherever your body is aligned.

Yeah. Towards the ball = Hosel city

Everything here but the kitchen sink, so I'll chuck that in as well.

Stick an old shaft/stick in the front two belt loops of your pants and just check that you hips are square to your stance. My guess is the stick will point way left of your target line.

I did this recently and realised that while my shoulders were square, my hips were pointing a mile open (Way, way left of target). Turns out this is how I naturally stand - hips rotated a little left.

What this meant was that on the backswing my hips only ever rotated as far back as square and on the downswing I had no option but to come OTT in order to get back to the ball with any kind of power. (My hips had taken off way left and the shoulders tried to catch-up by going up and over). I squared my hips and suddenly my swing felt so much powerful because I was turning behind the ball, so I don't feel like I need to launch over the top to get any distance.

Square the hips, square the shoulders and you might find that you naturally come at the ball from the inside.

You may find like I did that for the first few rounds you'll hit some pulls and hooks but that's just because your upper body is following old habits, it eventually realises that it doesn't need to swing around any more, just through.

I could be wrong but it's worth finding a couple of minutes to check.

One of the biggest reasons for an over-the-top downswing, is the "swing the door shut" swing. In other words, if you slam a door shut, the top, bottom, handle, lock all move at the same time, the same plane and get there at the same time. However you get to/near/at the top, if your next move down to "hit the ball" includes shoulders, hands, arms, neck, knees, hips ... all moving towards the intended target at the same time ... WHAM, door slammed shut.

The golf swing is a controlled rotation of the upper torso back with quiet lower body ... followed by ... a controlled rotation (and slide if you will) of the lower body back towards the target, with quiet (albeit it minimal) upper body. In simplistic terms, the arms, hands, grip, shaft and club head, just come down and through the arc created "for the ride" on the rotation and turn of the lower body. It's not really a golf "swing" it's a golf rotate ... you swing a hammer; you rotate in an arc with a golf club.

I do feel it could be a mental thing in that because of previous swing flaws and maybe even now I am in positions which require me to feel like I have to hit down at the ball from the top. Will take your advice on board.

When you mention the deeper hands is that in the backswing to stop the coming inside and then having the club across the line at the top?

Cheers to everyone else for the advice. Has given me a few pointers.

Deeper hands: The hands come more inside, the club stays a little farther outside. On a down the line view of your swing, the hands will be farther left if they are "deep."

Worked on this up at the range today but wasn't able to get a video as the booths at this place aren't deep enough to get a camera in to film the whole swing. I took a few practice swings beforehand, then when addressing the ball I would practice the take away with the hands almost feeling like they were a brushing my right leg with the clud head still outside. Ball flight was a lot straighter most of the time with the odd draw coming in.

If anything it felt like the hands were a lot lower before, during and after impact and that I was swinging round myself a bit more. Will try and video this next time to get a comparision.

If you swing properly, you should have to slide your hips forward to get the hands through, otherwise they'll hit your right leg. That's why you slide the hips forward, to deliver the club from the inside.

Makes sense. I noticed that when I failed to do this I would either force the hands out wide or stand up in the downswing to clear room for the hands.

OTT can result from most any arm powered swing. Put in a search on Google for body powered professional golf swing. You will find a lot of information on how the pros do it.