I keep topping the ball.

[TheShanks]

Can someone please tell me something that can keep me from topping the ball. With my drive and can get it down there but the sometimes I top it. Alot of the times with my 5 iron and 7 wood I use to hit them solid for some reason ive been topping with those two clubs.

[wachesawgolfer]

Hard to say without seeing your swing.

Topping can be caused by:
1. straighening the rear leg prior to impact
2 An outside in swing path which causes the arms to pull back the club into the body during the downswing.
3. Too steep a downswing
4. ball placement
5. Balance on the toes or heels
6. Bent over spin angle.

or any combination of the above.

[TheShanks]

Ok thank you I will try them all to see if they work for me.

[wachesawgolfer]

You mean eliminate them, I hope. The key to a good swing is balance and tempo.

[TheShanks]

Well ya thats what I meant to swing and see if I do them

[bzotta]

Keep your head down, thats what worked for me when I used to top the ball.

[DDBowdoin]

keep your head down... most people who top the ball are anxious to see where its going

[wachesawgolfer]

Try looking up from your stance and you should see you can look up and not change your body angle at all. "Looking up" is really the body moving up, not just the head. Keeping the head down can result in it being too far down such that the shoulders don't turn freely under the head and as such the whole body rises on the downswing causing that "looking up" feeling. A better idea is to focus on maintaining a straight spine angle through impact and keep youe eye on the ball.

[MaRx]

"looking up" and having too steep of down swing are probably the most common issues...

To help the "looking up". I was taught to make a mark on your ball... When you lay the ball down, put the mark so that it is facing the rear as far back on the ball so that you can still see it from your golf stance... It helps to just stare at that mark throughout the swing... If you really focus on the mark through the swing this cured my "lookup". It will take some time to make it routine, but stick with it.

The down swing issue I solved with placing a ball 1.5'-2' behind the ball you're going to hit. When you take your back swing (slow), you should hit the ball behind your target ball on your backswing. This will somewhat correct the swing plane. This also takes some expirementing, but it worked great for me...

[allin]

I think most tops are caused by sliding, but what causes the sliding can be almost anything and there are other causes poor balance, to hard a swing, failure to straighten out he right elbow on the downswing, trying to hard to stay behind the ball, poor release timing. If your ball flight on the ones you don't top is known I would bet you could eliminate some of the possible causes and pick out some of the previous suggestions posted to try.

[BeRight]

Two words

Weight Transfer..

Try firing your hips into the shot and concentrate less on the arms. Should work as long as you have a good coil.