Why You Need This:

Do you battle an over the top golf swing? Are you sick and tired of slicing?

Great news! I have an easy drill for you today to help get rid of the over the top golf swing once and for all!

What's Covered: Body alignments to get rid of your over the top move.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 4:50

Video Transcription:

 Hi guys, I’ve got a great question for you, I know it’s a really common problem out there, but how many people are sick and tired of coming over the top, chopping down into the golf ball, and losing a lot of yardage?

Or your swinging faster, and you’re more athletic than your friends, but because they’re coming into the ball a little bit better, they’re outdriving you by 20 to 30 yards?

Even if you have really high club head speed, your ball is slicing from left to right, chopping down into it, and you’re losing a ton of yardage as a result of doing that?

Well, I’ve got a great video that’s going to solve the number one issue with the over the top and getting into some better compression and delivering the club into the ball a lot better, so you can add that 20 or 30 yards to your drive if that’s what you’re currently doing.

So first let me talk about what is the over the top.

What happens when we do an over the top motion is as I go into the downswing, what’s going to tend to happen is my hips stay back, I keep my weight on my right side, my upper body is going to lead in front.

And now my club is going right to left across the ball and I’m kind of chopping down on that, and hitting swiping across, and that’s why I lose so much yardage.

If I’m looking from this direction, imagine I’m hitting a ball this way, it looks something like this.

Weight staying on my right side, upper body goes forward, shoulders open up, and then I’m slicing across the ball that way.

With that glancing blow we definitely lose a lot of distance. Well the number one thing for a player that’s coming over the top is to make sure that we have our spine tilt away from the target as we’re coming into contact.

So if I get into the proper compression line, really, really key to deliver your body into the ball the correct way.

So I get into my compression line, I’m going to see my left ankle, my left hip, and my left shoulder stacked up in a straight line, and they’re going to be tilted very slightly away from the target.

You’ll notice here if I draw a line from my belt buckle, or the center of my spine to the center of my spine at the top, you’ll see that that’s tilted away from the target.

When you’re coming over the top, what’s happening is instead of letting the hips slide forward and to rotate open, the weight shift to go to the left, the weight staying on the right side.

Now look at my hips, they’re back and my upper body is coming out in front, and that’s allowing me to get my tilt going off this direction a little bit, and it makes it really, really difficult to compress the golf ball when you’re doing that.

Well here’s a couple keys to fix that and start compressing it even better. Number one, as I go to the setup, I’ve got to make sure that I have my spine tilt.

So watch the stable, fluid spine and work on some drills with the spine tilt.

A good key for this, quick tip for that is, if I have a line going down the center of my stance, my nose should be behind that line.

As I turn to the top of the swing, I want to have a tilt away from the ball also, the same amount of tilt. So my weight should be on the inside of this right foot, my nose is going to transfer to the right, and then here’s the real key for those guys that are over the top.

The first move down has to be with the lower body, shifting to the left and getting a little bit ahead of your nose.

As my lower body goes, that’s going to shift in front, now as I’m at contact, my lower body is in front of my upper body, or my nose, and this is tilted away.

That’s going to allow me to deliver the club at a more inside angle of attack, and get some nice compression on the golf ball.

Then as I come to the full finish, I’m just going to be stacked up here.

Let’s look at this from the other direction and you’ll start to see how this will tilt you and coming more from the inside.

The more I tilt my body this way in the downswing, the more from the inside I’m going to be coming.

So watch, I’ll really tilt my body to the right, and you’ll see naturally how that makes me swing inside out.

For an over the top player, I mentioned how the tilt goes to the left. Now I’m swinging this way, I’ll do a couple demos here.

I’m going to let me hips stay back, my upper body goes in front, and now my swing is going right to left.

So that angle at address and throughout the swing, especially the downswing is really going to help you come more from the inside.

Let’s go ahead and go on these keys, I’m going to make a few practice swings here.

Nose back, good weight shift to the right, as I come down hips are going to start first, and I’m getting that angle away from the target.

Left ankle, left hip, left shoulders, stacked slightly away as I’m coming into contact with the ball.

So I’m going to go over those keys, there we go. That was pretty good, now I’m going to go ahead and take that to a ball.

Do about 100 repetitions, practice swings, then we’re going to go ahead and start to hit some golf balls and you’ll see how this really keeps that tilt.

There we go, hit that one pretty solid, dead straight, no slice at all, all comes down to the tilt of the body.

That’s going to help you guys hit some straight shots.

Good luck to you all, I’ve got to get out of here, it’s burning up. See you guys later, good luck getting rid of that slice, and play well.