Instruction
5 death moves for golfers
From time to time, every golfer falls into bad habits and plays poorly for a short stretch of time. To get out of the brief predicament, sometimes all it takes is a small swing tweak or another set of eyes to point out the obvious… you know, just to get their game back on the rails and the golf ball out of the trees.
This list does NOT cover any those small fixes. It examines swing flaws that are absolute death moves for golfers, and require immediate attention from a professional swing instructor.
Below is my list of the top 5 swing flaws that a golfer needs to fix immediately before their swings are destroyed and their confidence is shattered beyond repair.
1. An excessive “over-the-top” driver swing
As with any longer club, an “over-the-top” motion creates an unmanageable ball flight with the driver. But with the big stick especially, two radical misses occur. One is the banana slice, with no “pop” off the face and a severe loss of distance. The other is a low pull-hook that carries about half the normal distance; it starts left and goes farther left, and if there are firm conditions with out-of-bounds stakes, then golfers are certainly teeing up another ball.
Click to enlarge
If you read my articles, you know by now that the ball begins mostly in the direction of the clubface and curves away from the path (with centered contact). With that in mind, take a look at the Trackman numbers above.
This player wants to hit a draw, but it’s an impossible shot for him to manage from this position. Why? The path is moving -8.5 degrees left of the target. To compensate, golfers will automatically hold the face open to the path, causing a slice. After they do this a time or two, they will begin to rotate the face closer to the path, which will cause a smaller, but more playable fade… until they begin to rotate the clubface left of the path. That creates a radical pull-hook.
If you have a severe over-the-top swing, RUN, don’t walk, to a respected teaching professional in your area.
2. A strong grip with a shut face at the top
Through the generations, golfers have become stronger and so have their grips at address. Nowadays, the common position at address is to have a grip that puts a cup in the lead wrist (seen in the photo above).
I have no problem with stronger grips or a slightly shut position at the top, as long as the player knows he is doing it. I do, however, have a big issue when the cup of the lead wrist “flattens” all the way at the top of the swing, causing the blade to shut excessively for a strong-grip player (pictured below).
Most of the time players don’t know they’re doing it, and it causes pulls as you can see in the Trackman data below. The data is from a better player who has a very slight in-to-out swing path (0.2 degrees), but a clubface that is consistently left of the target (in the -2 to -4 range).
Click to enlarge
When this player came to see me, he could not understand why he kept pulling his shots. Once he became aware of the problem, he was able to fix the position at the top of his swing and the pulls disappeared. Had he never sought help, he could have ruined what was otherwise a very solid swing.
3. Adding excessive dynamic loft at impact with irons
Most players have a quest for more distance, but sometimes they go about it the wrong way. Anytime the lead wrist moves into extension too early and the shaft backs up in the downswing, golfers will add dynamic loft to the club at impact. Everyone is different in regards to how much lag they need, but the fact remains that if you tend to “flip” the club at the bottom, you will continue to have spin lofts and spin rates that are too high. Translation: you won’t hit iron shots as far as you could.
Some of these moves can return the club shaft to “vertical” at impact, which is not a bad thing, but too much flip and not enough lag will cause a loss of compression and distance. That’s not what any golfer wants. The fix is to make sure your pivot is driving the arms, hands, and club through impact. Whenever the pivot is faulty, you will also see poor impact alignments (as shown above).
Click to enlarge
The position above is not one that you can play your way out of; it will get worse and worse without teacher supervision.
4. Low spin loft (relative to swing speed) with the driver
Click to enlarge
Sometimes players are so focused on adding lag to their swings, or keeping their hands ahead of the ball, they forget loft is necessary for distance! When spin lofts are too low, the ball will launch too flat and golfers will have to rely on roll for distance. While this is OK under some conditions, it’s not ideal for most course conditions golfers see on a weekly basis.
The fix is to make sure your driver loft is correct so you can deliver the correct amount of loft into impact. For the player above, simply changing the loft from 9 degrees to 11 degrees was all that was needed to create longer drives. If your drives launch too low and get a lot of distance through roll, try adding more loft to your driver. If adding loft doesn’t fix the problem, then make sure your teacher audits your pivot, swing direction, angle of attack and dynamic loft.
5. Poor Smash Factor
If you’re experiencing a low smash factor, it could be a sign that you’re hitting the ball all over the face (as pictured above). Remember, if you can’t hit the center of the clubface consistently, there’s a bigger problem than just a low smash factor. A majority of the time, when your impact pattern looks like this, your pivot is faulty and the club cannot be delivered consistently.
Use foot spray (my favorite can be purchased here) to audit your impacts and see if you contact the same part of the face each time. If you cannot, then you’ll want to find out an instructor who can explain why.
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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Billy
Mar 3, 2016 at 7:26 am
Is “smash factor” a swing move? But yeah, I get it!
Peter
Feb 27, 2016 at 2:37 pm
I disagree, whether your cup the wrist and have a “square” face or flatten it and looks “closed” the relationship between the hands and the face is the same. Dan C has a great article about Cupped, Flat and Bowed wrist “looks”
Mike W
Feb 26, 2016 at 3:27 pm
The last line for problem #1 (and #3 for that matter) should read RUN don’t walk to your nearest golf FITNESS professional. These are physical limitation issues that need addressing in a gym setting not band aid training aids on the range.
Cliff
Feb 26, 2016 at 4:04 pm
These usually have nothing to do with fitness!
dhauser00
Feb 26, 2016 at 6:13 am
I also have problem #2.
If I adopt a strong grip at set up, how should the wrist look like at the top?
And if I use a neutral grip at set up, how would this look like at the top?
Thanks!
kyle
Feb 25, 2016 at 9:21 pm
How is number two different than how DJ, Trevino, Azinger, Duval, etc… have made a living?
I have a strong grip and shut face and play quite well. Probably isn’t great for many players, but it works well for others. Not sure why it’s considered a “death move”
stephenf
Mar 10, 2016 at 11:59 am
“…as long as the player knows he is doing it.”
Pretty sure those guys — and you — know you’re doing it, and have the necessary adjustments or compensations. Dustin Johnson is another example, of course. But the more shut you are, the more you have to do something to keep the face from closing at or before impact, which usually translates to a more emphatic move with the rotational elements. Some people see that as unnecessary error-plus-compensation. Other people say it’s just a matter of an individual player working out what he can live with, what his orientation is (he prefers going at the ball hard with rotation, for instance), etc. I wouldn’t do it, but there’s no denying that there are players who have been successful with it.
stephenf
Mar 10, 2016 at 12:06 pm
With regard to listing it as a “death move,” though, I think the author is right in saying that it’ll kill your chances of anything like accuracy or consistent contact, if it’s an isolated fact of your swing — that is, if you don’t have compensations or adjustments to make it work.
Still, it’s interesting: Is it a “death move” in the same sense over-the-top is? I don’t know. Probably not. You see the occasional really good player playing from a shut position. You see pretty much zero players getting severely over the top, because when you get OTT relative to your body lines, it really negatively affects your ability to apply energy forward through the ball instead of steeply downward, dissipating it into the ground. And it makes your body work differently in ways that can kill your speed. Moving the body harder to compensate for a shut position at the top doesn’t necessarily do any of those things, although it _is_ true that if the move becomes a total drag through the ball, if the arms and club aren’t trying to catch up and pass the center of the body at some point (in the case of a shut player, it’ll be further past the ball than with the conventional player), that can kill speed. But I think you could argue that OTT is more fatal, fundamentally, in how it affects the mechanics of the body and the dynamics of energy transfer.
Other Paul
Feb 25, 2016 at 8:31 pm
I love a strong grip and a shut facebat the top. If i lead with my hips and have open shoulders at impact the face is square or a hair closed. Played with some friends last night and hit one 330 (122MPH CH speed). Fast hips and shoulders are the way to go. I am not a big guy.
farmer
Feb 26, 2016 at 11:55 am
For Kyle and Paul, look at Judy Rankin when she was playing. I will bet that 90% of every pro’s students are looking to get rid of a slice. If you get into a toe down, clubface open position, you are going to have to make some compensation to get back to square.
stephenf
Mar 10, 2016 at 11:42 am
False dichotomy. There’s a middle ground between shut and toe-down, and that’s what you see in the preponderance of swings by great players.
stephenf
Mar 10, 2016 at 11:44 am
Another way to put it, in your case: If you want to move your body, hips, etc., really fast, maybe you have to have a strong grip and be shut at the top (a la Dustin Johnson — just don’t go steal anybody’s sh$%, sleep with their wives, or do coke). But it’s not the only way to play, or even the best way for everybody. Still, it points to the need for the elements to be in a balance that any particular player can live with.
TR1PTIK
Feb 25, 2016 at 4:59 pm
Tom, perhaps everyone is just tripped up by the term “smash factor”. Maybe a more appropriate way to say it would be impact location – which directly correlates to smash factor http://blog.trackmangolf.com/smash-factor/ – and is a prime reason for errant shots and low ball speeds among amateurs.
Almost any golfer should be able to find relative center with some repeatability if they work on it regardless of what their swing looks like. It doesn’t mean they will have a great smash factor or the best ball speeds, but it will be the best they can produce relative to the swing they currently have.
stephenf
Mar 10, 2016 at 11:55 am
Much easier to do if they can produce an appropriately shallow angle of approach with the club moving from the inside of the target line through the ball, though. When you get the kind of player whose path is always changing depending on how hard he’s throwing the body at it — which a lot of modern instruction actually makes worse — he’s going to find it pretty much impossible to find the center of the clubface (or the sweet spot, which is usually a little off-center with the irons) consistently.
Big Slice
Feb 25, 2016 at 4:38 pm
I need help with all of these. I suck
BRL
Feb 25, 2016 at 2:31 pm
Thanks!
I need help with #3. I didn’t see any articles about it, do you have a drill?
8thehardway
Feb 27, 2016 at 12:04 am
Google early wrist extension in golf. Also, I think a Shawn (sp?) Clement video made the point that, at impact, some golfers think the hands should be back at the address position when they really should be past where they were at address.
cgasucks
Feb 25, 2016 at 2:29 pm
Foot powder is a good idea to see ball impact on the clubface. I personally use duct tape since its way cheaper than those specialized impact labels you see in golf stores, widely available, and less messier than foot powder.
larrybud
Feb 25, 2016 at 12:30 pm
OK, but these are results of things which happen earlier in the swing, or with a bad setup. Smash factor is the ultimate “result” which a hundred things can affect why the player didn’t hit the center of the clubface and/or has a lousy path/face angle causing an oblique hit. Nobody goes in saying “I’m going to work on my smash factor today”.
I mean, might as well add “Swing and Miss” this this “death move” list, but none of it mentions common *causes* and fixes.
TR1PTIK
Feb 25, 2016 at 1:56 pm
I don’t think this list is really about trying to identify specific causes or fixes because there are far too many variations between golfers. I think the main point of the article is to help people identify things that are probably out of their control to fix without help from a certified PGA professional.
As for smash factor, I work on that all the time – exactly how Tom described. Even at home without a ball, I will place a tee in the ground or my practice mat and try to mark the clubface (driver) where I think the tee should hit (about 1/3 of the way up the face in the center). Assuming my path is good (which it usually is according to SkyPro) and the face angle is correct (what I struggle with more often), I should be able to take what I practice to the course with at least some success.
Birdy
Feb 25, 2016 at 1:57 pm
agree..having a bad smash factor is hardly a ‘death move’ as the title suggests.
cgasucks
Feb 25, 2016 at 2:33 pm
Agreed, a low smash factor is a by-product of a “death move”.
WB
Feb 25, 2016 at 12:19 pm
Tom,
What is the best fix for #2? Weaker grip?
WB
goobers80
Feb 25, 2016 at 11:28 pm
You can have a weak grip with a cupped lead wrist. In fact quite a lot or maybe all of the great players had it to some degree. A cupped lead wrist has been happening for quite some time in golf. I have seen pictures of Bobby Jones with a cupped wrist. That does nots determine the strength of the grip.
WB
Feb 26, 2016 at 12:26 pm
My point was that I have a strong grip but a flat left wrist at the top causing a closed club face. I do indeed struggle hitting pulls. Tom said he worked with a better player to fix his position at the top. I just wondered if it was making the grip weaker and living with the flat wrist or keeping the grip the same and working on cupping at the top.