Golfers sometimes extend early in the downswing because they don’t know how to shift their pelvis in transition.
@MyTPI / X
Early extension is something that plagues many recreational players. But despite its prevalence, many weekend warriors either don’t know it exists or misunderstand what leads to it.
If you’re not familiar with the early extension, here’s a quick refresher. In simple terms, early extension happens when your pelvis moves TO the golf ball during your downswing. This flaw either causes your swing to become too steep or causes your arms to stick behind your body during the downswing. Neither is good and both make it extremely difficult to be a consistent striker of the ball.
We have written a lot on this platform about How to cure premature aging and each exercise has its merits. However, sometimes curing the problem requires you to better understand how elite players do AVOID that.
For more about this, we turn to GOLF Top 100 Teachers Dave Phillips.
The main movement for healing early elongation
As we explained above, early extension occurs when a golfer drives their hips toward the ball during the downswing. Elite players largely do not have this problem. Instead, they start the descent by bumping their hips slightly straight target.
However, before you get to that point in the swing, it’s important to get yourself in a good position during the backswing. To do this, you need to properly load on your track hip.
“If I roll over, (my track hips) have to move back,” Phillips says. “If there was a wall here along my tail, it would move behind the wall.”
Once you get to this point in the move, you can implement the main move we see in all elite players.
“I want the belt buckle to move this way first. it’s actually moving sideways, but it’s also moving backwards,” says Phillips. “So it feels like my belt buckle at the top of my curve is moving at a 45 degree angle.”
A great feel for executing this movement is to feel like you’re keeping your hips locked for a longer touch as you shift your weight to the side of the lead to begin the descent. When you do this and slam your hips into the target, you’ll naturally shallow your arms and put yourself in a great position to hit the ball hard.
“A lot of times people feel like they have to push on their lead leg,” says Phillips. “All I’m trying to do is re-center.
If you struggle with early extension in your swing, try applying this feeling to the transition. If you do it correctly, you should be able to keep the club more on plane and allow you to become a much more proficient ball hitter.
