Avoiding the Inside Takeaway

Yes, we amateur golfers hear over and over again that we should swing inside-out and not over-the-top (OTT). In an unconscious effort to achieve this, we often roll the wrists and bring the hands and club inside too quickly, often well below the waist, during the takeaway. This often leads to the very thing we're trying to avoid--an OTT move that is unconsciously utilized to get the club back on line and hit the ball. The result is often pulls and pull-hooks for better players who can close the club face well; for others who can't, it produces a slice. Another symptom of this condition is a very narrow swing arc going back, with the right elbow bending too early and getting too close to the right side. The right elbow will drop into the right side coming down; it's no help to you there early.

Incorrect: club too inside

One should always ensure that the clubhead stays outside of the hands for as long as possible, when viewing the takeaway down the line. In other words, the clubhead should only move inside somewhere in the upper trunk area--around the right shoulder. If it moves inside at waist level or even below, the club is being jerked inside by the hands and/or the right elbow is bending too early. The right elbow should ONLY FULLY bend late in the backswing. The hands stay in front of the body and only move inside due to the correct shoulder rotation. Actually, the correct shoulder turn in the takeaway and backswing SHOULD prevent you from doing this, provided you're not using the small muscles in your arms and hands to move the club.

Watch slow motion video of professional golfers (down-the-line view) and pay attention to the takeaway; specifically, look at their hands in relation to the club face, and pay attention to the bending action of their right elbow. You'll see that the right elbow bends late (and only reaches a full bend REALLY late in the backswing), and you'll notice that the clubhead stays outside of their hands (when viewed down the line) for a long time. The club head only comes inside (passes their mid-body line) somewhere around their right shoulder, not down near the waist like us inside-early schmucks. Their hands remain in front until waist high or even slightly above the waist; in other words, it's as if the hands move backwards in a straight line during the takeaway. And when the club head does finally move inside, it's due only to the motion of the shoulders turning; the arms and hands have nothing to do with it!

If you're guilty of this huge golfing transgression, you will feel like you're taking the club OUTSIDE the line when you first start doing the correct motion. But you're not going outside as long as you move everything--shoulders, arms, and hands--back together. You're on your way to achieving WIDTH in your backswing, which will help in numerous ways.

Correct: Club outside hands

Coming down, the right elbow will drop in close to the right side around the right hip, as you fire through. In essence, the swing is going from wide to narrow to wide again in the through swing. In other words, the swing flattens some coming down, and if you traced the club head all the way through, you would see that the club head actually loops up and then under a bit, giving your swing an inside-out path naturally. The OTT swing has the opposite loop: up and over.

Another key point: When you move the arms and club back in this way with the club head staying outside your hands, you'll be prone to swaying your hips to the right, especially if that's already one of your problems. To counter this, imagine that your right hip moves straight back and towards the target in the takeaway to counter the weight of the club head staying outside the hands. In a sense, you want to think of them moving in opposite directions. Sounds silly, I know, but if you look at DTL video of pro swings, you'll notice that their right hip moves backwards slightly during the takeaway. This will get you swinging the club back on the right plane without your swing center moving off the ball.

With any "fundamental" in golf there come the gotchas. For this aspect of the takeaway, remember that the arms and hands should simply move up during the takeaway in relations to the chest, while the club head stays outside the hands! In reality, the hands also move inside (inside or back, and up simultaneously), but the inside part of the equation happens only because the shoulders are turning. The hands and arms should not roll the club open, pull the club inside, nor should they move out away from you; if your hands move out away from your body and not inside and up during the takeaway, you're setting up for an OTT swing even if the club head stays outside the hands.

This is an especially good thought for the open-clubface-at-impact slicer. Most of these slicers create their open clubface because they roll the club wide-open during the first three feet of the swing. As a result, the club usually gets way behind them at the top, and from that position, it is very difficult to square it up. There must be some wild, compensating move made coming down. If you think "hands inside, club head outside", this will keep your clubface square at waist high, and will also help put you in the proper shape at the top of your swing. It will definitely prevent that clockwise, rolling-open action of your forearms and club, which has led to many disastrous shots over the years. So remember, "your hands are in, the club head is out...as a result, you will be square throughout".

Golf Tips - Hands Inside the Club Head During The Swing

Take the club straight back low to the ground and allow the turning of your shoulder to bring the club inside on the back swing. Do not pull the club to the inside with your hands and wrists but also guard against reaching too far back. Reaching will cause you to sway off the ball. Prevent reaching by keeping your weight on the inside of your right foot.

golf long drive take away and back swing

Another great practice drill requires the use of two alignment clubs. First, place a club above the ball, parallel to the target line. Then place a second club eight to 10 inches inside this line. You’ll notice the two clubs form a path, which should be your track on which to swing the club. At first, it will probably feel like the club is moving to the outside of the target line, but after a number of repetitions, the proper swing path will begin to feel normal. Practicing this drill will help keep your shoulders, hips and feet in alignment, and promote a more on-plane backswing.

Staying On-Plane | GolfTipsMag.com

My point in that article, and in this tip, is, if you will make a conscious effort to take the club back straight for as long as possible, you'll give yourself the optimum chance for a powerful, square-faced return of the clubface to the ball.

Instruction Tip #39 - The Takeaway

The most influential component of swing arc is the position of the right arm throughout the backswing. A player with a narrow swing arc tends to fold the right arm too early or keep it unnaturally pinned to the right side all the way to the top. Both flaws pull the club in too close to the body. The player with this flaw will feel the need to free the club by throwing it way over the top and away from the body.

Stop Coming Over The Top | GolfTipsMag.com

The best way to fix an inside golf swing takeaway is to work on your wrists and the role they play. The first initial movement should be the hinging of the wrists vertically instead of horizontally. You need to ensure your left wrist does not flatten out too early which pulls the golf club on the inside. Next you need to move the golf club across your chest as you hinge your golf club vertically.

How Your Golf Swing Takeaway Is Destroying Your Golf & How To Fix It In Just 5 Minutes

What is the one flaw in the golf swing that leads to inconsistent golf shots time and time again? If you hook, slice, hit fat or thin shots and can’t figure out the cause, you may be bringing the golf club back too far to the inside. If you want to master the takeaway, then you must keep the golf club outside of your hands in the backswing. In this article, we are you to cover a few simple golf tips that you can use to stop taking the club back too far to the inside.

Stop Taking the Club Back to the Inside: Fix Your Takeaway Today!

To determine if your hands and clubhead are properly positioned, assume your normal golf stance with a full-length mirror to your right (left, if you’re left-handed). Watch your takeaway and note where the shaft points when your hands have reached the right pocket. If it points in front of you, good – the clubhead is outside your hands. If it’s already parallel to the target line or pointing behind you, your takeaway is too far inside.

A simple way to instill a “clubhead outside the hands” takeaway is to keep the butt of the club pointing at the right hip as it passes by. If the butt points left of this spot, you’ve got too much wrist action and/or an inside path.

Be mindful of the rotation of your forearms on the takeaway. If you pull the club straight back without the arms and hands rolling naturally, the clubface will become closed. Check the toe’s position at the parallel point as described above; if it points well in front of you, it’s closed.

Think “Clubhead Outside the Hands” for Solid Takeaway

A good takeaway sets the pace for a good swing. Unfortunately, many amateurs get off to a shaky start: They lift the club and roll their hands away from their body, which draws the clubhead inside and opens the face. As a result, they make erratic contact.

Perfect your takeaway - Golf.com - GOLF.com

Address Procedure, Shaft Angles, and Taller Posture

I recently discovered a simple error I was making at address that affected the consistency of my contact in the full swing, especially with the driver. This unlikely culprit was also causing me to bend over too much from the hips with too deep a knee bend at address. What was this error? The angle of the club shaft to my arms was not large enough. In other words, I had preset too much radial deviation and not enough ulner deviation at address; my wrists were preset with too much wrist cock (too close to 90 degrees), which meant I had to bend over more from the hips, bend the knees more, and widen my stance in order to address the ball!

Taller posture, larger wrist angle

The result was inconsistent contact on the club face, and the club was also bottoming out behind the ball (fat) or hitting the top of the ball (thin and skulls). I would get a lot of pop-ups and skulled shots with my driver. The wrist angle naturally increases in the downswing as the wrists uncock, which means the difference between my address shaft angle and impact shaft angle was too great; the impact shaft angle is usually always more upright than at address, but too much can cause the errors I was experiencing.

I should note that the two work in tandem: a taller posture should cause one to address the ball with a more upright shaft and, thus, a straighter wrist angle (shaft-arm angle). And the opposite is true. Therefore, as the angle of posture (legs to trunk) decreases (moves away from 180 degrees towards 90 degrees), the shaft-arm angle also decreases (i.e., the hands get closer to the ground). And vice versa.

Other variables play a role. One's body type and equipment (length of shafts and lie angles) have an impact in this equation. You should experiment to find what's best for you to make solid contact in the center of your clubs. I wrote before about having the grip point at the belt buckle at address, but the truth is that this may be too flat for some players: it should point somewhere between the belt buckle and the belly button.

Every golfer needs a good procedure for helping to ensure a proper setup or address posture with respect to stance width and distance from the ball. It's easy to overlook the importance of a good address procedure as a fundamental, but when done consistently the same way with all clubs, it helps eliminate inconsistency introduced into the swing BEFORE the first move off the ball in the takeaway.

I've written before on how a wider stance helps promote a hook and higher ball flight, while a more narrow stance helps promote a slice (a wider stance presets the upper body further behind the ball and theoretically produces a flatter swing). What set me off on my quest was learning that I tended to bend over too far from the hips (also using too much knee bend) when addressing the ball, especially with the driver; this meant that my posture was not upright or tall enough. Increasing or straightening the wrist-club angle at address automatically induces a taller posture and reduces the amount of the downward wrist uncocking (ulner deviation) that occurs during the downswing! It's important not to go too far and completely straighten the angle, but getting closer to straight will help reduce the vertical variance in club movement through the ball when the wrists uncock. In reality, it also reduces the amount of horizontal variance, helping to return the ball to the center of the club face at impact, because you're presetting both downward and outward movement of the club head.

Using chalk on the club face, I noticed that my contact with the driver face was consistenly too high. Most of my misses were no longer left and right (horizontal) but up and down (vertical) with respect to impact on the club face. I could compensate slightly by hovering the club completely above the ball at address, but this was ridiculous as no golf professional does this, and the contact was still too high on the face. So, on a whim, I addressed the ball as usual and then raised my posture a few inches. Doing so caused the angle between the club shaft and arms to increase as my wrists had to increase in ulner deviation to keep the club aligned with the ball. Standing taller can also cause the stance width to decrease slightly, but what's more important is to recognize the relationship between the angle of the address wrist cock and the amount of upper body bend (or posture) over the ball at address. Subsequent drills using chalk as an indicator produced many more impacts located in or nearer to the center of the club face, which is essential for distance with any club but especially for the driver.

So I asked myself if there might be a more failsafe method of addressing the ball to achieve a taller posture, better stance width, larger arm-shaft angle, and correct distance from the ball, and I remembered something that I had poo-pooed away before but that most professionals do some form of when addressing the ball.

After ascertaining the proper aim behind the ball, one should first place the club behind the ball on the intended starting or target line (aligned to a close target a foot or so in front of the ball on the intended starting line). This should be done, initially, with both feet together with the ball located on a line running between both feet and perpendicular to the target or starting line. Most important is that the wrist angle at address is extended or closer to a fuller down-cocked position. The knees, hips, and shoulders should be on lines parallel to the target or starting line. The head should be located slightly behind the ball. At this point, one should assume the correct upper body posture by bending over from the hips with the arms hanging to get the correct distance from the ball; if you've suffered from too much wrist cock at address, your posture should feel much taller.

Address procedure

Now, all that's left to do is to move both feet to a stance comfortably wide enough, with a very slight knee bend, to maintain that upper body posture relative to the ball established when both feet were together! Your head and upper body should not move vertically when you take your stance. In other words, the posture stays taller. With the driver, only the right leg need move, as the ball position should be more forward. The shoulder, hip, and knee lines shouldn't move from their original positions; if they do, then the stance assumed has been too wide. If one wants to hover the club (to improve impact or smooth out the takeaway) then one should hover it when going through this procedure; otherwise, the upper body's posture will change when raising or grounding the club.

Notice that tour players look “big” compared to their clubs. Even with a longer iron, say a 4-iron, they seem to be standing “on top” of the ball, meaning the ball is not too far from their feet. Their spines are generally bent forward a fair amount, and the shaft of the club points at the belt-line, and often higher.

Are Your Golf Clubs Too Long? | Golf Things Considered

The clubshaft should be pointing to the belt buckle or slightly above it…

10 Checkpoints For Proper Setup Position ~ Create Golfers

In establishing the correct shaft angle, we also resolve the question of the correct position of the hands at address. Far too many players hold their hands too low at address - few hold them too high. Holding the hands low at address is a major cause of excessive wrist action in the swing. A vice to be avoided at all costs!

Here once again, is the routine:

1 Evaluate the shot.

2. Take up your grip and square the club face to it.

3. Ground the club correctly behind the ball.

4. Now place the feet into position.

Note that the positioning of the feet came LAST.

The average golfer often reverses the procedure, placing his feet first, then vaguely grounding the club he juggles with his grip in an attempt to get the club-face square. There is no logical sequence in his method and his last minute grip adjustments account for the fact that his grip is never the same one shot from the next.

Golf Lessons - Lesson 4 from Golf Today

In an athletic address position the arms hang comfortably from the shoulders with a slight cocking of the wrists as you grip the club. The toe of the club should be off the ground slightly, with the club resting more on the heel of the club. From this set up position it is easier for the wrists to cock correctly, starting the club on plane and setting the club at the top of the back swing.

Club lie angle at address and impact are not the same | Derek Hooper Golf

 

Driver Downswing: See the Ball at Eye Level

One feel I use to shallow out the driver is to feel that my eyes are behind and level with the back of the ball up to the point of impact. Impossible, I know, but we're talking about a feeling here, not reality.

The head and chest are behind the club shaft, the head is actually behind its original position.

Another way to put this is that--of all the clubs--it's most important with the driver to exaggerate staying behind the ball! It's true that the longer the club the more behind the ball you should be at impact, but it's an absolute necessity to hit good, penetrating drives with the driver.

Look at slow motion video of most professional golfers and you'll notice that, up to the point of impact, their heads are located over their right leg when swinging the driver. In many cases, their heads move FURTHER right from the initial address position, which was already behind the ball! (You'll still notice that their heads are behind the ball with other clubs too--just not that far back.) Thus my feel of trying to get my eyes behind and level with the back of the ball. The continuing motion of the arms and club will pull you fully over into the left leg and into your balanced finish.

A wider stance and increased rightward tilt at address will help with staying behind the ball at impact, but it also encourages a hook. Remember that a wide stance is a hook condition, meaning that it inhibits lower body movement and encourages more arm movement through impact. If you find yourself hooking the ball wildly, you may need to go with a more narrow driver stance to help straighten out your drive; a narrow stance is a fade or slice condition, because the body can get ahead of the arms; as the stance widens, the swing plane becomes flatter, and the plane becomes more vertical with a more narrow stance. There are many such characteristics associated with different ball flights that you can use to encourage a shot shape you desire, but remember that you still must be able to get behind the ball and stay there up to impact.

Swinging this way also allows you to tee the ball up higher to encourage a high draw without the fear of sliding the club UNDER the ball and hitting pop-ups, which is common with golfers who swing the driver too steeply.

Staying back like this with the driver helps to shallow out the downswing and produces a flatter swing plane, causing the golfer to catch the ball on the upswing and impart an upward angle of attack, which reduces backspin, helps ensure an inside-out motion (often resulting in a nice draw), and thus, increases distance. Some instructors teach setting up with an exaggerated spine tilt to the right, but this doesn't help if the golfer immediately begins moving back over the ball (as if hitting an iron). As a matter of fact, it might be best to set up with a rightward tilt with the understanding that this right tilt will, initially, increase when the downswing begins.

Some golfers try to keep their head still or over the top of the golf ball. To make a full turn on a swing with your driver your head might move a little towards your back foot. That’s fine if not desired. You need to be well behind the golf ball at impact. One should have a straight line from the front shoulder to the ball at impact.

Golf Tips with Bobby Lopez: Why Is It More Difficult To Hit Your Driver Than Any Other Club?

David Leadbetter in 100% Golf, 2004, states: "the head and upper body stay behind the ball as you unswing and accelerate into impact." Try to maintain your spine angle from the set up all the way to the moment of impact and don't worry if your head has a little lateral movement. Your head and spine are behind the ball at impact.

Keep Your Head Back and Behind the Ball Through Impact! Six Top Golf Pros Agree

The key to solid driving is that you first get fully behind the ball as you wind up your backswing. Only then can your truly stay behind the ball as you unwind on the way back down. With the driver, one of the problems that I see a lot of amateurs struggle with is they get too far ahead of themselves on the way down, which results in the swing being too steep coming in to the ball.

Remember, you have to get back to the left side to strike the irons properly, which involves making sure that your body weight is centred more on top of the left foot as you hit the ball. With a driver, if you can first get behind it and then stay behind it, you will enjoy flighting your tee-shots with a good powerful trajectory.

The BIG Feeling - Denis Pugh

Anchor the head at the beginning of the downswing. There is no need to shift the weight forward the same as on an iron shot where you have to hit down onto the ball. Keep the head back to hit the ball on the upswing.

Driving the Golf Ball - Golf Swing Driver Tips

In the swing you will need to feel that you are staying behind the ball with your upper body as you aggressively drive the hips and weight over onto the front foot. This is where the “uphill” sense comes from – as the hips drive the head stays back you create the body motion that allows for the clubhead to move up into the hit. I like to refer to this as body curve.

Driver Set Up | Andrew Rice Golf