Are You Coming Over the Top in the Golf Swing?

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If you’re coming over the top with your golf swing, you’re struggling to make good contact. You’re hitting shots fat, thin, and spraying your shots all over the course.

I’d venture to say that most beginner golfers struggle with the over the top move. I know I have and still do on the course. It’s a challenging fault to fix.

Since I still have this fault on occasion, have received coaching for it, and have been given and found, and have used, many drills to correct it, I feel like I’m in a good spot to go over it with you.

Here is everything I’m going to cover.

What Does Coming Over the Top Mean?

Coming over the top means that, on the downswing, your club gets steep and comes across the swing plane. It continues on this “out to in” path, going outside the ball line, until it makes contact with the ball

Coming over the top is a swing fault because it causes a variety of sub-optimal ball flights. This includes slices, pull, pull hooks, and weak, uncompressed cuts.

Even if you have a consistent ball flight i.e. slices or pull hooks or weak cuts, where and how far the ball goes will vary wildly. This will make this swing fault difficult to play and prevent you from scoring as well as you can.

Why Do You Come Over the Top in the Golf Swing?

There are many reasons why you might come over the top and get steep in the downswing. I’m aware of a few of them because this is a swing fault I have and continue to deal with.

That said, I’m not a golf coach or professional. I’ll share the causes I’m familiar with below, but keep in mind that there are likely others due to nuances or hyper specific variables in the golf swing.

If you’re coming over the top in your downswing, here are a few things to look for.

  • Rolling the club inside on the takeaway. This move has you rotating your forearms in the takeaway, taking the club under plane. You’re so laid off by the time you complete your turn that you lift your arms and club so that you can hit down on the ball. But when you do this, you’re unable to also shallow the club – so you come in steep instead.
  • Not making a complete turn. If you’re not getting your shoulders to at least 90 degrees (perpendicular to your tareget), then you’re not likely making a complete turn. What often happens here is that you don’t get the club deep enough (relative to your trail foot / ankle). When you rotate through the ball, it’ll be difficult if not outright impossible to avoid an out to in swing path.
  • Not getting enough (club) depth. Read the last paragraph, it’s the same thing here. I’m adding this separately because you can make a complete turn and still not get enough depth if you’re doing something funky with your arms or hands.
  • Too laid off on the backswing. This is similar to rolling the club inside, but you might not actually roll your forearms over and open the face. With good tempo, some people manage to stay under plane. They just add more loft to their shots than needed AND/OR deal with power draws and hooks. In either case, they lose distance. If you don’t have good tempo or realize that you’re not going to come in as steep as you should, then you’ll likely raise your arms and club, lose all depth, and then bring the club over the top.
  • Pulling the handle down in the downswing. I find that I might do this if I rush the transition or my hands and arms get too involved. Here’s why pulling the handle down gets you steep. If I understand this right, whatever you do to the handle will have the opposite effect to the club head. Pulling the handle down raises the clubhead up, steepening your downswing. You might not always come over the top but – at least in my case – it happens more often than not.
  • Getting too quick in the transition. I find that if I don’t have a good tempo when I move from backswing to downswing, it’s hard for me to shallow the club. I also tend to start to rotate my chest too quickly, often rotating with my hips or faster than my hips.
  • Spinning out / rotating chest before or with hips. If you rotate your chest faster than your hips you’ll find it nearly impossible to have an in to out swing. I find that when I do this I hit pulls or slices depending on my grip.
  • Weak golf grip. Your brain knows you want to hit a shot that is relatively straight. So when you have a weaker grip, you’ll be more likely to make contact with an open face. Knowing this you will often come from over the top so that you have some chance at squaring up the face before impact.
  • Shoulders too flat in the backswing. If you don’t have good shoulder tilt and sidebend in your downswing, you’ll struggle to swing the club from in to out. You’ll shift your swing arc to swipe across the ball with an out to in club path.

Like I said, I’m sure this isn’t all the reasons why someone might come over the top. But these are the situations I have some experience with and have often lead to weak cuts and slices or otherwise really poor contact.

If you’re not sure which one of these apply to, if any at all, I recommended taking a golf lesson, recording your swings on the range or course, or having a buddy (who has a clue) watch your swing.

How Do You Fix This Swing Fault? What Drills Can You Do?

Once again, I want to make it clear I’m not a professional. I’m just sharing what has been prescribed to me for my swing faults, or what I have researched, found, and tested. These are drills for coming over the top that have helped me.

Alignment Stick Outside Ball Line Avoidance Drill

  • Put an alignment stick just outside the ball line about an arms length away (trail side, after you have addressed the ball). You want the angle of the stick to match that of the club you’re using.
  • Your goal is to swing under and avoid the rod and hit the ball. If you pull down on the handle, rotate your chest too fast, roll the club inside, etc., you will struggle to avoid hitting the rod. If you hit the rod, you know you’re coming over the top.
  • Start with a shorter club, like an 8i or 9i, and start off slow. You don’t even need a ball to start, making this a great way to practice golf without a golf ball.

I’d strongly suggest putting a pool noodle over your alignment stick. This will protect both the stick and your club, as well as yourself if you hit the stick hard enough to come out of the ground.

If you have to hit off a mat, you can use a basket to setup your alignment stick. That can be sort of challenging to get just right, so I’ve bought and tested a couple alignment stick holders. One is called the Pure Plane Pro. This works okay but is a tad finicky to setup and is made of plastic, so it will break if you hit the alignment stick just right. I’m speaking from experience. The other is an offbrand device made to be similar to more expensive tools. I paid $40 for it on Amazon.

Alignment Stick Inside Ball Line Avoidance Drill

This drill is to help you from rolling the club inside. It’s identical to the last drill but with a couple of tweaks.

  • Rather than outside the ball line, you want to place the alignment stick on the inside between the ball line and your toe line.
  • To start, I had the stick just a couple of inches inside the ball line. I wanted to exaggerate keeping the club outside my hands and taking it up the plane. I did NOT hit balls like this, though. I only used it to work on my backswing.
  • As you reduce how much you roll the club inside, you can start to move the alignment stick closer to your toe line. This will allow you to start hitting balls, with the goal being of NOT rolling the club inside and hitting the stick, and then not hitting the stick on the downswing.

One thing I noticed while performing this drill — if you’re not careful, you’ll start coming over the top to avoid the rod in the downswing. When I did this, I hit hard pulls and some pull draws. This shouldn’t be a problem if you give yourself enough room between the ball line and where you have the rod setup.

Tempo Drills

There are many ways to work on your tempo. I’m using the LagShot to work on mine because you can hit balls with it. It gives you great feedback. If you’re too quick in your transition, you’ll deliver the club with an open face and hit the ball to the right. It takes a few tries to figure it out.

Another option is the Orange Whip. You can’t hit balls with this, but it’s another good option for working on your tempo in the golf swing.

You can use both of these indoors too, if you have enough room.

Another option is to use the Tour Tempo app. It gives you beats to swing your club to, with several 3:1 ratios to choose from — the ideal ratio for tempo. There are other metronome apps out there if you don’t want to pay for Tour Tempo, but I don’t have any experience with them.

Shoulder Tilt Drill

This drill will help you get the proper shoulder tilt and side bend in your backswing. Get into your stance and put a club across your shoulders, leaving about 3 inches sticking past your lead arm. Then scoot forward until your forehead touches the wall. Then go into your backswing.

The goal is for the butt of the club to miss the wall. If you’re hitting the wall with the butt of your club then your shoulders are likely too flat in the backswing.

Proper Downswing Sequence

This drill is straightforward. Put an alignment stick through your belt loops and another across your chest. Perform your backswing. Then your downswing. In your downswing, your hips should lead the way, followed by your shoulders. At impact the alignment stick across your chest should tick the rod in your belt loops and form an X.

Swing Path Avoidance Drills

Similar to the avoidance drills above, you can set obstacles on the ground to either force you to swing on the path you want to develop or on the path you want to avoid.

If you want to set up an obstacle so that you don’t swing out to in, then place a basket or water bottle approximately inline with your trail but just slightly outside the ball line. And then another in front of your lead foot a couple inches towards the target. Now if you were to come over the top, you’d likely hit one or both obstacles.

Those are a few drills I’m familiar with that will help to fix an over the top golf swing. When doing these drills, especially avoidance drills, make sure you start off slow. If you can’t do them slow, you sure as hell won’t be able to do them fast.

From there, pay attention to your ball flight. Is it changing? Are you getting more control over where the ball is going? Are you more consistent in height, distance, and curvature?

Other than that, record your swing periodically or watch yourself in the mirror to ensure you’re doing them right. Remember, feel isn’t real. You want to make sure you’re doing them right so that you don’t change one bad habit for another.

Can You Play an Over the Top Golf Swing?

Yes, you can. It’ll be hard, though. Since you’re bringing in the club so steep, odds are you’ll have to compensate a lot by early extending (standing up) to give yourself room to swing the club. You might also flip the club. You’ll do all this in an attempt to time your swing so that you can make decent contact.

When you have to compensate and time these compensations, you make it much harder to be consistent in the way you want. This will make it tough to play good golf — at least the level of golf most golfers say they want to play at.

So while you can play an over the top swing, I wouldn’t recommend it. You’re much better off taking the time to learn how to fix an over the top swing so that you can develop a more efficent, powerful, and consistent golf swing.

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