Instruction
Coming over the top doesn’t have to spell doom for your swing
One of the most common phrases in golf instruction is “coming over the the top.” It’s a phrase even the most novice golfers use, but it is also very little understood.
First, let’s describe what is meant by “coming over the top” or “coming over it.” It’s a motion that sends the arms and club outside the target line and over the inclined plane that was set at address. It’s not in any way optimal, and can cause any number of issues. But in and of itself, it does not have to spell doom for golfers.
The real problem golfers run into is when they start their swings “out and over” the plane and then try to get the club back “in and under” the plane. I call this two moves from the top, and it’s generally far more destructive than a simple over-the-top move. In fact, given my druthers, I would much prefer that golfers simply keep their over-the-top motion; it is far better than trying to get the club back in and underneath the plane.
Look at it this way: if a player swings from outside the ball, the path is out-to-in, the attack angle a little steep and the face is open to the path. This is one way to play golf. Craig Stadler, Craig Parry and many other champion golfers swing this way. Bruce Lietzke made a wonderful career on the PGA Tour with an “in-and-over” move.
Their secret was simple: They made one move from the top of the swing. They didn’t attempt to re-route the club by backing up or reversing directions; just one move into the ball a little from the outside. Their rear sides fired down and through, which is the right side for right-handed players, and voila… a solid fade time after time.
By contrast, golfers who try to reverse direction in the downswing, actually pausing (imperceptibly) at some point and trying to get the club back to the inside, usually have very inconsistent results. They hit fat shots, thin shots, pushes and hooks, with solid shots being the exception, not the rule.
In fact, one of the most common causes of a reverse weight shift, or what I call “hanging back” through the ball, is starting down over the top and then trying to re-route the club. The “spin out” and “fall back” is the classic fault of mid- and high-handicap players.
I’m often asked by golfers how they can get “through the ball” better, or “get to their lead foot.” I explain to them that hanging back is often the result starting outside from the top and then trying to get back inside. No player has to “back up” simply because they started outside. The great players we watch exploding through the ball are hitting from the inside.
Having explained this from my years of watching it on the lesson tee, I will qualify it a bit; I am in NO WAY advocating coming over the top. I’m simply saying that if you do come over the top, you’ll have to accept a few things about your outcome:
- You’ll fade the ball.
- You can be prone to a pull.
- Your attack angle may be steep.
- You may not hit is as far as one who draws the ball.
Most golfers will hit better shots if they accept the move and don’t try to interrupt their natural motion by trying to get the club back insider.
For a deeper dive, see my video below.
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There may be no more painful affliction in golf than the “yips” – those uncontrollable and maddening little nervous twitches that prevent you from making a decent stroke on short putts. If you’ve never had them, consider yourself very fortunate (or possibly just very young). But I can assure you that when your most treacherous and feared golf shot is not the 195 yard approach over water with a quartering headwind…not the extra tight fairway with water left and sand right…not the soft bunker shot to a downhill pin with water on the other side…No, when your most feared shot is the remaining 2- 4-foot putt after hitting a great approach, recovery or lag putt, it makes the game almost painful.
And I’ve been fighting the yips (again) for a while now. It’s a recurring nightmare that has haunted me most of my adult life. I even had the yips when I was in my 20s, but I’ve beat them into submission off and on most of my adult life. But just recently, that nasty virus came to life once again. My lag putting has been very good, but when I get over one of those “you should make this” length putts, the entire nervous system seems to go haywire. I make great practice strokes, and then the most pitiful short-stroke or jab at the ball you can imagine. Sheesh.
But I’m a traditionalist, and do not look toward the long putter, belly putter, cross-hand, claw or other variation as the solution. My approach is to beat those damn yips into submission some other way. Here’s what I’m doing that is working pretty well, and I offer it to all of you who might have a similar affliction on the greens.
When you are over a short putt, forget the practice strokes…you want your natural eye-hand coordination to be unhindered by mechanics. Address your putt and take a good look at the hole, and back to the putter to ensure good alignment. Lighten your right hand grip on the putter and make sure that only the fingertips are in contact with the grip, to prevent you from getting to tight.
Then, take a long, long look at the hole to fill your entire mind and senses with the target. When you bring your head/eyes back to the ball, try to make a smooth, immediate move right into your backstroke — not even a second pause — and then let your hands and putter track right back together right back to where you were looking — the HOLE! Seeing the putter make contact with the ball, preferably even the forward edge of the ball – the side near the hole.
For me, this is working, but I am asking all of you to chime in with your own “home remedies” for the most aggravating and senseless of all golf maladies. It never hurts to have more to fall back on!
Over the last couple of decades, golf has become much more science-based. We measure swing speed, smash factor, angle of attack, strokes gained, and many other metrics that can really help golfers improve. But I often wonder if the advancement of golf’s “hard” sciences comes at the expense of the “soft” sciences.
Take, for example, golf instruction. Good golf instruction requires understanding swing mechanics and ball flight. But let’s take that as a given for PGA instructors. The other factors that make an instructor effective can be evaluated by social science, rather than launch monitors.
If you are a recreational golfer looking for a golf instructor, here are my top three points to consider.
1. Cultural mindset
What is “cultural mindset? To social scientists, it means whether a culture of genius or a culture of learning exists. In a golf instruction context, that may mean whether the teacher communicates a message that golf ability is something innate (you either have it or you don’t), or whether golf ability is something that can be learned. You want the latter!
It may sound obvious to suggest that you find a golf instructor who thinks you can improve, but my research suggests that it isn’t a given. In a large sample study of golf instructors, I found that when it came to recreational golfers, there was a wide range of belief systems. Some instructors strongly believed recreational golfers could improve through lessons. while others strongly believed they could not. And those beliefs manifested in the instructor’s feedback given to a student and the culture created for players.
2. Coping and self-modeling can beat role-modeling
Swing analysis technology is often preloaded with swings of PGA and LPGA Tour players. The swings of elite players are intended to be used for comparative purposes with golfers taking lessons. What social science tells us is that for novice and non-expert golfers, comparing swings to tour professionals can have the opposite effect of that intended. If you fit into the novice or non-expert category of golfer, you will learn more and be more motivated to change if you see yourself making a ‘better’ swing (self-modeling) or seeing your swing compared to a similar other (a coping model). Stay away from instructors who want to compare your swing with that of a tour player.
3. Learning theory basics
It is not a sexy selling point, but learning is a process, and that process is incremental – particularly for recreational adult players. Social science helps us understand this element of golf instruction. A good instructor will take learning slowly. He or she will give you just about enough information that challenges you, but is still manageable. The artful instructor will take time to decide what that one or two learning points are before jumping in to make full-scale swing changes. If the instructor moves too fast, you will probably leave the lesson with an arm’s length of swing thoughts and not really know which to focus on.
As an instructor, I develop a priority list of changes I want to make in a player’s technique. We then patiently and gradually work through that list. Beware of instructors who give you more than you can chew.
So if you are in the market for golf instruction, I encourage you to look beyond the X’s and O’s to find the right match!
Most pros take months, even years, to win their first tournament. Lottie Woad needed exactly four days.
The 21-year-old from Surrey shot 21-under 267 at Dundonald Links to win the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open by three shots — in her very first event as a professional. She’s only the third player in LPGA history to accomplish this feat, joining Rose Zhang (2023) and Beverly Hanson (1951).
But here’s what caught my attention as a coach: Woad didn’t win through miraculous putting or bombing 300-yard drives. She won through relentless precision and unshakeable composure. After watching her performance unfold, I’m convinced every golfer — from weekend warriors to scratch players — can steal pages from her playbook.
Precision Beats Power (And It’s Not Even Close)
Forget the driving contests. Woad proved that finding greens matters more than finding distance.
What Woad did:
• Hit it straight, hit it solid, give yourself chances
• Aimed for the fat parts of greens instead of chasing pins
• Let her putting do the talking after hitting safe targets
• As she said, “Everyone was chasing me today, and managed to maintain the lead and played really nicely down the stretch and hit a lot of good shots”
Why most golfers mess this up:
• They see a pin tucked behind a bunker and grab one more club to “go right at it”
• Distance becomes more important than accuracy
• They try to be heroic instead of smart
ACTION ITEM: For your next 10 rounds, aim for the center of every green regardless of pin position. Track your greens in regulation and watch your scores drop before your swing changes.
The Putter That Stayed Cool Under Fire
Woad started the final round two shots clear and immediately applied pressure with birdies at the 2nd and 3rd holes. When South Korea’s Hyo Joo Kim mounted a charge and reached 20-under with a birdie at the 14th, Woad didn’t panic.
How she responded to pressure:
• Fired back with consecutive birdies at the 13th and 14th
• Watched Kim stumble with back-to-back bogeys
• Capped it with her fifth birdie of the day at the par-5 18th
• Stayed patient when others pressed, pressed when others cracked
What amateurs do wrong:
• Get conservative when they should be aggressive
• Try to force magic when steady play would win
• Panic when someone else makes a move
ACTION ITEM: Practice your 3-6 foot putts for 15 minutes after every range session. Woad’s putting wasn’t spectacular—it was reliable. Make the putts you should make.
Course Management 101: Play Your Game, Not the Course’s Game
Woad admitted she couldn’t see many scoreboards during the final round, but it didn’t matter. She stuck to her game plan regardless of what others were doing.
Her mental approach:
• Focused on her process, not the competition
• Drew on past pressure situations (Augusta National Women’s Amateur win)
• As she said, “That was the biggest tournament I played in at the time and was kind of my big win. So definitely felt the pressure of it more there, and I felt like all those experiences helped me with this”
Her physical execution:
• 270-yard drives (nothing flashy)
• Methodical iron play
• Steady putting
• Everything effective, nothing spectacular
ACTION ITEM: Create a yardage book for your home course. Know your distances to every pin, every hazard, every landing area. Stick to your plan no matter what your playing partners are doing.
Mental Toughness Isn’t Born, It’s Built
The most impressive part of Woad’s win? She genuinely didn’t expect it: “I definitely wasn’t expecting to win my first event as a pro, but I knew I was playing well, and I was hoping to contend.”
Her winning mindset:
• Didn’t put winning pressure on herself
• Focused on playing well and contending
• Made winning a byproduct of a good process
• Built confidence through recent experiences:
- Won the Women’s Irish Open as an amateur
- Missed a playoff by one shot at the Evian Championship
- Each experience prepared her for the next
What this means for you:
• Stop trying to shoot career rounds every time you tee up
• Focus on executing your pre-shot routine
• Commit to every shot
• Stay present in the moment
ACTION ITEM: Before each round, set process goals instead of score goals. Example: “I will take three practice swings before every shot” or “I will pick a specific target for every shot.” Let your score be the result, not the focus.
The Real Lesson
Woad collected $300,000 for her first professional victory, but the real prize was proving that fundamentals still work at golf’s highest level. She didn’t reinvent the game — she simply executed the basics better than everyone else that week.
The fundamentals that won:
• Hit more fairways
• Find more greens
• Make the putts you should make
• Stay patient under pressure
That’s something every golfer can do, regardless of handicap. Lottie Woad just showed us it’s still the winning formula.
FINAL ACTION ITEM: Pick one of the four action items above and commit to it for the next month. Master one fundamental before moving to the next. That’s how champions are built.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “The Starter” on RG.org each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more Tips!
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Cliff
Nov 22, 2019 at 12:33 am
Thanks for the article. Makes me feel better. Is a draw-biased Driver best for someone who goes back to this type of swing? Or putting settings draw-biased. Any Driver recommended?
Bill T
Feb 23, 2017 at 3:37 pm
Great article, I have an out to in. It pulls left and draws left but the distance is great. When I try to correct it I lose between 15-30 yards. I wish I could straighten that 30 yard pull and I would be happy. Any Ideas
Mad-Mex
Feb 25, 2016 at 8:58 pm
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! GRACIAS!!!!!!!!!!
My brother in law knows my swing better than anybody and has been trying to get me to come down inside-out for months since I have a “baby” out to in. I have no issues with distance loss now I can go back to enjoying the game and stop worrying so much about mechanics.
Jim
Feb 24, 2016 at 5:09 pm
This is one of the best golf articles I’ve ever read explaining how many golfers get the club behind them coming down. The one thing is does not say is how damaging this two-move downswing motion is on the lower back. I 100% agree it is better to come over the top consistently than to try and re-route the club inside after you have moved it out above the plane.
Dennis clark
Feb 24, 2016 at 6:08 pm
Glad you enjoyed it. Outside in and shallow is a bad combo period. ????
Someone
Feb 24, 2016 at 1:33 pm
Isn’t this the concept of ledbetters A swing? Outside going up inside coming down?
Dennis clark
Feb 24, 2016 at 5:01 pm
I’m not familiar with the A swing enough to comment
stephenf
Mar 10, 2016 at 1:13 pm
It is. But Lead’s point is not a particularly controversial one. He thinks it’s mechanically more sound to be a little steeper from about waist-high to the top, then at the right plane angle on the downswing. The only thing that’s changed much in the A-swing is that he’s more or less saying it hardly matters what the backswing plane is, as long as it’s not inside-then-over. (He advocates what seems like an overly steep plane on the backswing, seemingly as an exercise to show how little it actually matters, as long as the downswing plane is good, similar to how baseball players drop the bat into plane with a similarly extreme move.) When you go back too far inside, you run out of room and the almost universally natural thing to do at that point is to get the club moving out and over to get to what feels like a complete backswing.
Leadbetter has always advocated “steepen, then flatten,” though.
If you’re interested, there’s an obscure book out there by a guy named Xichao Mo called _Decoding the Golf Swing Plane_. The book is, for my money anyway, the best and most up-to-date examination of the realities of the swing plane (and the best busting of swing-plane myths with empirical evidence) that you’re going to find. It confirms the notion that beyond the point where the right wrist and elbow joint make it necessary for the club to rise above its plane through impact (from about waist-high to waist-high), it doesn’t matter that much what “plane” the club is on, because there is no one single plane throughout the swing, nor really even — as Mo demonstrates — two planes (one above the waist and one below), both on the same swing angle, as Haney and Leadbetter et al. describe. At least the two-planes-one-angle thing is more accurate than the Hogan “sheet of glass,” or even “one-plane” theory, and thinking about plane at all, even on a technically erroneous model, will help people who are way off to start with. But as a matter of precise observation, Mo’s work is unsurpassed and unequalled, as far as I’m concerned (although I suppose its instructional value might be limited, or at least unexplored as yet).
Anyway, Mo’s work actually supports most of what Leadbetter is after with the “A-swing,” regardless of how much anybody might be inclined to think the “A-swing” is mostly just another iteration of the same stuff, in an effort to sell some more books and DVDs. Hey, can’t blame a guy for making a living.
An alternative view advanced by Luther Blacklock is the idea that the plane isn’t defined by the angle of the shaft at address (or relative to it), but rather by a line that goes from the sweet spot of the club through approximately the top of the sternum. His explanation of it and demonstrations of it are at least internally consistent and pretty convincing in some ways. I’d like to see an effort to resolve Mo’s work and Blacklock’s theory.
John kuczeski
Feb 24, 2016 at 1:14 pm
The first move you demonstrated looked like Corey Pavin’s practice swing….thanks for the input!
Dennis Clark
Feb 24, 2016 at 1:31 pm
Tiger too for a while under Haney. It’s a great feel drill for under…
snowman
Feb 23, 2016 at 10:53 pm
Nice article.; Your 4 point summary describes my tendencies exactly and I am a single digit handicap. I would love to draw the ball and hit it further and Im still trying to improve my path, but I’m self taught and apparently my Swing DNA is an OTT move…
Easy tiger
Feb 23, 2016 at 10:00 pm
Take some Ritalin buddy
Andrew
Feb 23, 2016 at 6:12 pm
Dennis, Great video – thx for sharing. Can one also be successful with an arms swing (swing your own swing) or do you still advocate swing from the ground up (lower body starts first)? Thanks, Andrew
Dennis Clark
Feb 23, 2016 at 6:31 pm
Biomechanists tells us that all good golf swings use the ground as a source of power and force. I wrote a piece on this site about it a while ago.
stephenf
Mar 10, 2016 at 1:30 pm
True, of course. But even the “arm-swing” advocates like Toski, Flick, et al. don’t say the arms ought to be all there is. Go back to their older stuff and you’ll see them making it absolutely clear that the body must support the arms-and-club swinging elements, and to do that the legs and hips move, you have to use the ground, etc.
The question has always been how much rotational force can be applied, and when, and precisely how, in a way that doesn’t destroy the swinging elements. I think it’s evident that over the years, various changes in swing technique and equipment have increased the level of ground-up force that can be applied without destroying the swing.
But then, it’s not so new. This all started not long after the steel-shaft era began. Snead always said “turn and burn,” for one thing. Even Toski and Jacobs advocated not getting loose with the lower body on the windup. Toski always said the farther from the ball any specific body part was, the more it should be responding rather than creating on the backswing — and then, whatever moved last on the backswing (feet and legs) was in position to move first on the downswing, as it should.
I just think a lot of the “body-versus-arms” argument comes down to a difference in emphasis and a difference in what any specific player or class of players tends to need. If you’re a very good player, a tour-level player for instance, you already know how to create a lot of speed at the clubhead with a strong, free release. So maybe you need to look at how your body is supporting that motion, and what you focus on will sound a lot like “body swing.” For an amateur who has never felt what it’s like to produce that kind of speed, though, and who is already throwing his body (particularly his upper body) at the ball, he’s going to destroy his swing if “body release” is his dominant thought. Even going with something as undeniably solid as “ground-up” isn’t going to improve a release he never learned to make in the first place.
It all reminds me of what Nicklaus said one time about the swing being a massing of many coordinated elements, and that you couldn’t say it was “all this” or “all that.” That kind of balanced approach was absolutely critical in making him so consistently excellent over such a long period of time. You could say exactly the same of Snead, who could talk about “turn and burn” and “hands snap” in the same two minutes.
Jimmy
Feb 23, 2016 at 4:48 pm
Plenty of great players have come over the top, George Knudson (the most accurate fairway wood player ever, could hit his carry distance within a yard and could stop his 3 wood with 1 hop) Craig Perry, Brendan De Jonge and many others play great, its about hitting it solid and being able to repeat it.
dennis clark
Feb 23, 2016 at 6:54 pm
https://youtu.be/aQkz9WuXNbE
Steve
Feb 24, 2016 at 12:26 am
But both these guys Perry and De Jonge are not any where as consistent with their swings and have to many rounds near par to be regular winners…for sure De Jonge trys to move the ball with that swing…only Bruce Lietzke just let the ball fade 99% of the time which I think was do to the fact he had a finish that was almost the same every time.
Dennis Clark
Feb 24, 2016 at 8:28 am
Right. The move is not what I teach or would call OPTIMAL, point is it can be FUNCTIONAL. 99.99% of the golfers in the world would give their first born to play like Craig PArry or any of those guys.
LC4
Feb 23, 2016 at 1:10 pm
Thank you for the video and thank you for making me feel better about accepting something I’ve tried in vain to change!
Dennis Clark
Feb 23, 2016 at 3:20 pm
I prefer inside but outside doesn’t have to spell doom, does it?
Tom
Feb 23, 2016 at 11:32 am
video helped.