In this article, we are going to tackle a big topic in the game of golf.

The matter of coming over the top when making a golf swing is a big issue, as countless golfers make this mistake as they transition from the backswing to downswing. If you come over the top with your swing, the club is going to move up and away from your body as you switch from backswing to downswing – putting you in position to cut across the ball at impact, likely producing a slice. If you are tired of the slice pattern that has plagued you for years, we hope the information below will send you in the right direction.

The reason that coming over the top remains such a big issue in the game is the fact that this habit can be hard to break. It is one of those habits where you likely need to get worse before you can get better. In other words, making changes to get rid of your over-the-top move will likely lead to some pretty ugly shots at first. Only those who stick with it over the long run are going to be rewarded to some impressive results down the line. Make sure you are committed to eliminating this mistake from your game before you even get started.

All of the content below is based on a right-handed golfer. If you happen to play left-handed, please take a moment to reverse the directions as necessary.

Why Is This So Common?

For golf instructors, it is always fascinating to see how swing errors repeat from one player to the next. There are certain mistakes in this game – such as coming over the top – that just seem to be repeated over and over, throughout the game. Something inherent in the game causes players to make similar mistakes, which golf teachers must work to fix in many of their students. Unfortunately, despite the fact that coming over the top is such a prevalent issue, there can still be quite a struggle when it comes to breaking this habit.

We think the best way to get started on this mission is to make sure you fully understand why it is that you are coming over the top in the first place. If you understand the underlying mistakes that lead to your over the top move, it is much more likely that you’ll be able to correct the move and get your game back on track. The points below are going to walk through the typical causes of an over the top swing.

• The hands are the problem. In the vast majority of cases, it is going to be the golfer’s hands which are at the root of the problem. Here’s how it goes – once you take your stance, you settle in over the ball and get ready to swing. In order to start your swing, you use your hands and wrists to move the club back away from the ball. This action forces the club head to the inside of the intended target line very early in the backswing. From there, the club stays in close to the body as the backswing continues, meaning your swing has a very narrow shape overall. When you arrive at the top of the backswing, you quickly realize that there isn’t enough room to swing down from the inside, since the club is already in so close to your body. The only choice is to move the club over the top to make some space and create a path for the downswing. Therefore, the club moves over the top, you pull it down from the outside in toward the ball, and a slice is usually the result. So, while the problem of swinging over the top happens during the transition, the error was actually made at the very beginning of the swing. By fixing your takeaway – and getting your hands to stay out of the action – you may be able to fix what takes place later on in the swing. We will discuss the takeaway in greater detail later in the article.
• Tempo is an issue, too. If you find yourself consistently coming over the top during the transition phase of your golf swing, you may have a problem with tempo (in addition to technique). Those who rush the backswing often fall into the trap of going over the top. This is because your body probably isn’t in position to make a great downswing after you rushed the backswing. A quick backswing usually consists of the arms just lifting the club up to the top, without much in the way of a shoulder turn. That’s a problem, as you are then likely to just use your arms again to ‘throw’ the club down toward the ball. The golf swing should be a whole-body, dynamic motion, with great rotation from the shoulders going back and the hips going through. The only way for that to take place successfully is if you slow down and let it develop naturally. You probably feel like rushing because you are nervous about the outcome of the shot, but remember that hurrying isn’t going to make things any better (and will likely make them worse). Focus much of your effort during practice on learning how to maintain a smooth rhythm in your golf swing and your over the top tendency may start to break.
• The lower body fails to get involved. Let’s say for a moment that you manage to get up to the top of your backswing in excellent position. Your shoulders have turned nicely away from the target, there is plenty of space between the club and your body, and you aren’t feeling rushed as the swing moves along. That’s all great news – but things can still go wrong. The last big piece of the puzzle that needs to fall into place before you can successfully avoid coming over the top is to have your lower body start the downswing. Too many amateur golfers allow their legs to play a passive role in the downswing, when they should actually be taking the lead. Do your best to start the downswing by rotating your lower body toward the target. Then, keep that rotation going as the club starts to swing down. Letting your lower body rotation trigger your downswing action is going to help the club fall nicely into the slot, meaning you will have stayed away from an over the top move. Not only does this technique help you steer clear of the over the top error, it also can help you generate tremendous power through the hitting area.

It all sounds so simple when you read it as written above. The mistakes themselves seem rather minor, yet they can lead to major problems when you step onto the course. At this point, you need to frame the problem in terms of fixing these basic mistakes which wind up causing you to come over the top. Don’t even think about the end result of fixing the over the top move and getting rid of your slice. Instead, see it as a battle between you and one of these fundamental errors, such as a poor takeaway or a lack of lower body rotation. If you can conquer whichever specific obstacle is in place in your game, the results will speak for themselves in the long run.

The Art of Proper Practice

We can’t tell you precisely which of the fundamental mistakes you are going to need to fix, as we don’t know what your swing looks like at the moment. You are going to need to determine where your technique is going wrong, so you can know where to start working. It may be that only the takeaway is standing between you and significant progress. Or, it may be that several parts of your swing are out of whack, and significant work is going to be needed to get things straightened out. Whatever the case, you’ll have to embrace the challenge of determining which parts of your technique need to be changed.

When that task is completed, and you are ready to get down to work, it’s important that you have a clear picture of what proper practice looks like in this game. How do you go about working on your game in a manner that lets you get the most from your time? It’s not as easy as you might think. Many amateur golfers head to the range with the best of intentions, only to wind up wasting time because they don’t have a clear practice plan in mind. We hope the tips below will help you focus your efforts and get the best possible return on your practice time investment.

• Create segments. Building segments into your practice sessions is a great way to focus your mind while accomplishing many different tasks. For example, let’s say that you need to work on your takeaway as part of your effort to eliminate the slice. So, should you head to the range and work on nothing but your takeaway for the entire session? Probably not. You’d be likely to get bored with that type of practice, and your mind would wander. It’s a better idea to have some practice segments which you can use to address various parts of your swing. You may decide to start with five minutes of warm up shots, where you don’t work on anything specific other than getting loosened up and finding a good rhythm for the day. Then, you could go into your takeaway work for 10 minutes, doing your best to focus on the job at hand. After that, you may want to address some other part of your swing for a few minutes before going back for a bit more takeaway work. These kinds of designed practice sessions are a great benefit to you as a player, since they keep you on track and help you address all of your various needs.
• Prepare in advance. This next point builds on the one above. Rather than designing your practice sessions ‘on the fly’, try writing them out before you even get to the range. Decide how much time you are going to have available to practice and break that time up as you see fit, based on your current swing needs and goals. Try to be as specific as possible when writing out your practice plan. Then, when you are actually at the range and have time to practice, you can just get down to work. Follow along with your pre-established plan and do your best to execute the techniques you are trying to learn. As you write out your practice plan, remember to include time to work on your short game, as well. We are talking about the full swing in this article, but you never want to overlook the needs of your short game as part of your overall practice routine.
• Practice alone. It is easy to look at golf practice as an opportunity to be social, and that can be okay from time to time. However, when you really want to make progress on your game, you are better off practicing alone. This will help you focus on the task at hand without getting distracted by conversation, competing with your friends, etc. Even if you head to the driving range with someone else, try to carve out at least a little bit of time for yourself to focus on what it is you are trying to achieve.

Improving the way you practice is not only going to help you break the habit of coming over the top – it is simply going to make you a better player all around. Golf is a notoriously difficult game to play well, and practicing properly is one of the big steps you can take to rise to the challenge.

The Important Role of Aim

You already know that it is important to aim accurately in golf. Of course, you probably think that aim is important because it determines where you are going to start your shots – and that is part of it. However, aim is also important because of the influence it can have on the way you swing the club. If you want to make better swings and get away from the over the top pattern, you are going to need to learn how to aim correctly once and for all.

Most slicers get into the habit of aiming well to the left of the target at address. This does make sense, as it provides your shot with some room to move from left to right before it lands. But here’s the problem – if you keep aiming this way, even while trying to fix your slice, you might not ever make the progress you desire. Knowing that you are still aiming left, you may subconsciously make that same old over the top move to produce the slice necessary to curve the ball back toward the target. This is a bad place to be, as you are essentially stuck in the middle, not able to improve your swing because of the way you are aiming.

There is only one way to get out of this pattern – you simply have to start aiming closer to the actual target. At first, this isn’t going to feel natural, since you’ve probably been aiming to the left for years. Again here, we see the importance of practice. You are going to have to work on your aim on the driving range before it is really going to feel comfortable on the course. Eventually, with enough practice, you’ll get used to the feeling of aiming toward the target, and you’ll break the habit of aiming left. This is a big step in the journey toward getting rid of your over the top move.

It does need to be noted that aiming directly at the hole is probably not going to be the optimal plan, so you need to experiment until you find the right aim for you. If your new and improved golf swing happens to produce a little draw, aiming a bit to the right of the target is obviously going to be the right choice. Or, if you’ve transitioned from a slice to a controlled fade, you can aim a little left of the hole. All golfers play some type of curve when hitting their shots, so there is nothing to be ashamed of here. The only thing we are trying to get away from is the habit of aiming so far away from the target that it encourages bad habits in your swing technique.

Maintaining Optimism

The task of getting rid of a slice is known as one of the most difficult in golf. This is why so many players still struggle with the slice to this day – it’s hard to make the necessary corrections. Even the most determined of golfers are probably going to run into a period of frustration along the way. If you hope to come out on the other side with a new and improved swing, you can’t give in to that frustration. Instead, you need to prepare yourself for it, and just keep working even when the results aren’t quite what you have in mind.

So, how do you stay positive through the struggle? The first step is to evaluate your progress in reference to small goals. Don’t wait until your slice has been completely eliminated to celebrate your success and pat yourself on the back. Go ahead and celebrate yourself throughout the process of improvement. For example, imagine that you are currently slicing the ball every single time you hit a shot with your driver. That’s a frustrating place to be, of course, but it can only get better. So, when you hit even just one or two straighter shots on the range, feel free to celebrate yourself and be proud of what you have accomplished. Even if most of your shots are still slices, those one or two successes show you that there is plenty of hope for the future.

Another way to stay positive is to talk to other golfers. If you have friends who have been playing the game for longer than you, it might be easy to think that the game comes naturally to them. They hit beautiful shots all around the course, and they shoot relatively low scores. They never had to go through the kinds of struggles you are going through, right? You may be surprised. Most golfers struggle when they are new to the game, and the experience of having to fix a slice is something that many players know all too well. By talking to some of your golf friends about the struggles they have had in the past, you may gain some perspective and realize that you aren’t alone.

Finally, at some point, you are just going to have to believe in yourself, plain and simple. This is something that tends to give golfers trouble. Golfers are not generally known for their optimism, as it is a game which seems to breed negative thinking, particularly among amateurs. Don’t let yourself fall into that trap. If you want to be a better golfer, you need to think like a better golfer. Expect to hit good shots, and don’t get too down on yourself during the low points. This is a game, after all, so make it as fun as possible along the way.

It’s not going to be easy to break the pattern of swinging over the top, but we hope the information in this article points you in the right direction. The work you will need to put in is going to pay off nicely when you start to see the ball sail directly down the middle of the fairway, time and time again. To be sure, golf is far more fun when the slice is a thing of the past. Good luck!

Now, if you ever tried to work on improving your golf, you've probably come across the concept of hitting a slice and probably come across the terminology of being over-the-top. So let's look at what over-the-top means first and then how we can stop it.

So over-the-top, if I just spin around here, refers to the swing path and plain going back and then how you downswing would be in front of that path or plain. So the club doesn't come up and down on the same line. It comes up and then in front or over the top of that original line. Over the top of the ball, hitting from out to in, mainly resulting in pull shots or slice shots.

Now, the reason for that is this. In your backswing, you turn your shoulders, then you lift your arms. Now, if you turned your shoulders, and now drop your arms, you would've come over the top. And that's a very simplistic view of looking at why most golfers hit from out to in or from over-the-top. From the top of the swing, their body turns too quickly, their hands throw over the top, and then we're in trouble. And it's trying to generate par in that first pitch of the swing that causes the problem. So a really nice cure and a really nice way to think about stopping this is from a good set position. Make your normal backswing and just pause. Count for two seconds—one, two—and then start the downswing. And by just giving yourself a time to pause and think at the top, you should resist the temptation to spin the upper body to smash down hard on the ball. You can still create power but it's just creating power in a different fashion. It's creating power by turning the bottom half first rather than throwing the hands forwards.

So nicely to the top—one, two—move the left hip out the way and bring the club down better. A lot of golfers know the right moves they should be making, but they struggle to make it because from the top, they get too aggressive with the hands and the arms and the club comes over the top. So slicing or pulling the golf ball is your fault. Consider that over-the-top is probably the reason for that fault. And that little exercise is a nice way of stopping that and coming a little bit more inside.