Golf Video Lesson: Fix Over the Top Swing

A golf video lesson showing how to fix an over the top swing.

Hey golfers, I'm PGA Teaching Professional Todd Kolb with another segment of On the Lesson Tee. Today I want to talk about one of the more common things as golf instructors we see, and that's the move called "Over the Top." First thing I want to do is help you understand what that actually means. Now most golf instructors would like to see the club and the hands traveling below the right shoulder—if you're a right-handed golfer—coming into the golf ball. This is the desired position if you want to hit a nice, high draw.
When somebody swings the club over the top, their hands and their club are swinging above the shoulder, which means the club is traveling to the outside and then to the left of the target. Very difficult, if almost impossible, to hit a nice, high draw from that position and get it to finish at the target. Now, one of the main reasons I see this on the lesson tee—although there's a variety of reasons that might cause the over-the-top move—is because the body gets going too quickly relative to the arms and the club.
So in this particular practice drill, we're going to match that sequence up. You're going to go ahead and tee a golf ball up—I like to do all my drills on a tee—six iron or seven iron is going to work great. You're going to put your lead foot in line with the golf ball, your trail foot goes straight back. You feel like you've got almost all of your weight on your lead foot. You're going to simply swing your arms and the club back, you're going to go ahead and swing them forward, focusing on swinging your arms out to the right, or what I might call right field. If your body stays here, and your arms swing past your body and out to right field, you're going to get that desired inside-out move that you're looking for. So, if you're swinging over-the-top, a variety of things might be causing that. This particular drill will get your sequence down, and you might even start hitting a few high draws.