Over the Top move?

[outlaw1984]

I have this really bad, any suggestions or drills i can do to prevent this?????

thanks

[Old1964]

Put a soft shoebox 18" straight behind the ball so that the inside edge of the shoebox is in line with the outer edge of the ball and your target.

1. Focus on bringing the club back inside about 3/4 of your typical backswing - set your wrists with club vertical.

2. Take your downswing and avoid the box. It will take about 5 swings to miss the box by not coming over the top on either your backswing or downswing.

3. Make sure your rear hip and club are coming to the ball at impact at roughly the same time.

[Moonnerd]

This is a great short video from the Golf Channel.

Note the difference between her hips on the correct transition and what they do on the over the top move.  When coming over the top, we often turn our hips too far too soon which brings our upper body around (where the belly button faces in front of the ball) and then the only thing we can do is come over the top.

Instead, on the correct move, the hips move laterally/slide/drive/bump/twist slowly (choose your term) but your belly button does not pass the ball before impact like it does in the over the top move.

That allows your club to drop in the proper slot "inside the line" (with your right elbow by your right hip)instead of coming from the outside-in.

there is another video I will hunt down for you shortly.  Feel free to ask any questions that this brings up.

[Moonnerd]

I was searching for words in the previous post when I was talking about your belly button.  What I should have said was when your hips start moving laterally early in the downswing, keep your chest facing away from the target.  When I come over the top, its usually because my hips turn too much too soon and my chest no longer faces away from the target.

There are a lot of good things you can learn from that video.

[Topper]

Sorry for the long post, but I have the same issue (plus a lot of others) and thought you might be interested what I am working on to fix it.

I took a private lesson tonight and I was shuttled back and forth between the tee box and adjacent video hut.  The idea was to get me to see changes and associate a particular change with a certain feel.

To stop the OOT move, I had to start my takeaway with my arms by feeling like my hands were moving behind my right hip...not up.  This put the club right in line with my toes when the shaft was parallel to the ground and my bicept was against my chest.  This was surprisingly hard for me to get the feel for it.  As soon as my bicept squeezed against my chest (which happens quickly), it acted as my "trigger" to turn my shoulders.  From that point, my left bicept needs to stay "glued" to my chest.  My arms continue to move behind me with the shoulder turn.  They also moved up but that was due to spine angle.  I had to feel like my swing was going behind me and let the "up" part happen on its own.  Otherwise, my swing got too steep if I tried to "lift" the club.  I didn't really think about my right arm but the flying elbow mostly went away on its own.

My wrists were over-cocking or collapsing at the top on my original swing with my club often dropping past parallel.  This surprised my when I saw it because I hand no idea it was that severe.  To correct it, I had to feel like my backswing was stopped at 3/4 (at most) and my club was pointing "Up".  It wasn't actually pointing straight up but that's what it felt like.  I also had to feel like my backswing was short to keep from lifting up and out of my posture from over swinging or over turning.  My back isn't in the greatest shape.

Anyway, no more slice....even with all the other things I need to improve like a better weight transfer and extension on the follow through.  I ended the lesson with 4 or 5 drives landing in the center fairway.   I hope to hit several hundred balls on the range over the next couple of weeks to try to get these movements more automatic so I can move to other corrections during the next lesson.

I think everybody is a little different on the sensations they feel when swinging a golf club.  Maybe some of what I learned can help you.