5 of the most common swing faults we see in our golf instruction sessions and simple golf tips to fix them.
1. Not swinging to a balanced finish
Golfers don’t always swing to balanced finish. Instead, they either fall backward after swinging or they fall forward. If they fall backward, they’ve pulled the club through with their shoulders. If they fall forward, they’ve started the downswing and came over the top with the club. Both swing faults can cost you strokes.
Fix: Always swing to a full finish—whether you’re on the range or the fairway playing for keeps. This encourages you to swing through the ball and not at it. Also, feel your swing from start to finish. This keeps you focused on finishing your swing, so you don’t check out before impact.
2. Gripping the club too tightly
Gripping the club too tightly creates tension in your hands, arms, shoulders, and body. This inhibits your motion and makes it almost impossible to make a fluid swing. This in turn robs you of power. Be especially wary of this fault when swinging the driver, a club you should hold lighter than any other.
Fix: Do this exercise: Hold a club in front of your chest with the shaft pointing skyward. Hold it as light as possible. This grip pressure is too light. Now let the club fall until its shaft parallels the ground. Note the tension. This grip pressure is too tight. Hinge the club to 45-degree angle. Make some circles with your hands and wrist. This grip pressure is just right.
3. Making poor contact
Approach shots that fall short often come from weak contact. Checking your divots can tell you what kind of contact you’re making. Weak contact produces divots behind the ball. Solid contact produces divots in front of the ball.
Fix: If you’re making weak contact, try this exercise: Address the ball with a mid-iron. Now swing the club and hit the ball. As you do, feel your forward arm leading you through the swing. This allows the grip end of the club to lead the face, enabling you to pinch the ball against the ground—not try to scoop it.
4. Coming over the top
Many students taking our golf lessons commit this deadly error. Swinging over the top puts you on the wrong swing path. This in turn hurts ballstriking, accuracy, and consistency.
Fix: Practice the simple ball-toss drill, where you throw a ball under your arms while placing the palm of your hand over the butt end of a driver. The driver’s clubface should be touching the ground. This is the swing path you want.
For a more advanced exercise, after tossing the ball under the driver a few times, try swinging a wedge with one hand and hitting a ball—all while holding the driver with your lead arm. You can’t come over the top and do this right.
5. Bad alignment
Some students have no idea how to aim the clubface when they first come to us. If they aim it at a distant tree, they might be aimed well left of it. Or, they might aim their bodies right of the tree. Some students do both.
Fix: Follow this sequence whenever you aim a club: First aim your clubface, then aim your feet, and finally aim your body. Here are some specific steps to doing this:
1. Pick out your main target in the distance
2. Pick out an intermediate target a foot in front of the ball
3. Line up the clubface behind the ball
4. Place your feet together and parallel to the ball
5. Make sure your clubface aims at your target
6. Widen your feet so they’re parallel to your target line.
Use alignment sticks (of a couple of shafts) in the beginning to make sure everything is aligned correctly. Use the sticks whenever you go to the range.
Committing any of these 5 common swing faults short-circuits power, hampers ballstriking, and hurts consistency. They also cost your strokes, which can boost your scores and your golf handicap.
If you’re serious about breaking 80, you’ll work hard at eliminating these 5 deadly swing faults.
Written by Jack Moorehouse, the author of the best-selling book “How To Break 80”
