Fixing early extension in the golf swing

Do you struggle with early extension in the golf swing??

Early extension is a result of the body standing up and losing posture in the downswing. There are a number of reasons this happens and this video covers some common mistakes golfers make with the help of GOLFTEC’s new optimotion 3D technology.

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ABOUT NICK
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Nick Taylor is coaching at GOLFTEC in Singapore, currently Nick coaches 3000+ lessons per year awarding him with International Coach of the Year at GOLFTEC in 2021 & 2023.

Nick is a British PGA member since 2009 and aims to make the golf game easier and simpler for you to understand by giving clear and concise advice, no mumbo jumbo just straight facts!

https://www.instagram.com/nick_pga/

hi golfers Nick here from Golf Tech Singapore in today’s video we’re going to talk about the early extension movement in the go swing it’s a common question I get on my channel I early extend how do I fix it well in today’s video we’re going to go into some of the reasons why golfers early extend in their swing but first of all we’re going to talk about what early extension is so as we set up to the golf ball I’m bent forward here say roughly 40° with my 7 if I was to early extend essentially I’ll be coming out of my inclination to the ground on my Bend too early into the down swing there’s various reasons this happens but what you’ll see is my head position will lift up and my hips will come towards the golf ball so my spine angle essentially extends upwards or less bent forward compared to our was a setup the best golfers will kind of maintain their head position they’ll maintain their hip possession throughout the back swing and through just into the start of the follow through P here that [Music] I’m going to talk you through one of my students this week and a classic example of someone that early extends we’re going to talk through kind of the setup things that this student did and then kind of the movements in the body that caused him to early extend and why he did it which kind of could help you golfers out there improve your golf if you see these things in your golf swing at first this particular golfer set up to the golf ball with a lot of knee Bend and a lot of weight towards the heel so the the center of the hips here was set behind my heels here as we set up to the golf ball you want the center of our pelvis to be more kind of more through our ankle and then less knee Bend so we can have space here for our body to kind of Bend forward and let our arms hang so this golfer was set up too much knee Bend and the weight was more behind the heels or the center of the pelvis more between behind the heels so already in the GOL swing this golfer would swing back and the hips would already start to move towards the golf ball so he’s already starting to kind of lose his angle to the ground I’m going to try and simulate what this goer did and explain what he did in his swing so there was a lot of knee Bend as he took the club back he took the club out side of the plane out this way on the mat here we have a line here for the club and one for the hand so the hands and Club should move around the body in a plane based on the angle of this golf club to the ground we should swing on the plane of that club this golfer was taking it outside the plane out to the top very high very upright and then from here in a bid to kind of shallow this goer would move the hips towards the ball lose his posture stand up to shallow the club into the ball so I’m going to try and simulate what he did so he was hitting a lot of shots out to the right he was managing to actually get his path coming a couple of degrees from the inside even though the path was going way outside he was managing to get it in because of this kind of early extension in the down swing so let’s try and simulate what this goer did so a lot of knee Bend weight was more than the heels CL went out so it was a lot of toe shots and a lot that’s exactly what this golfer did so hit the ball off the toe pushed it out to the right managed to get into out so that path actually was 6° into out my lle was around 5° toe down this is important lle refers to the angle of the golf club in relationship to the ground here so if I hold my club pretty Square to the ground now if I push the toe down that tilts the face to the right if I push the toe up it tilts it to the left so this golfer Not only was kind of early extending he was also pushing the toe down which then opens the club face so Not only was the golfer kind of hitting the toe shots from standing up he was also tilting that face down that lle down and pushing the ball out to the right so there’s a number of things happening here in these gol swing but if you just looked at the number you’d say oh okay swinging into out you don’t need to change his path but actually this is crucial for him to really improve the instructions for this golfer was first of all to get that setup right with the pelvis the weight more on the kind of middle of the ankle not behind the ankle at set up then to move the hands and Club inwards then through the ball I focused on my right shoulder tilt down through the ball that’s important so I’m not leveling out my shoulders as I hit through the ball so let’s give this a go so set up weight kind of more center of my heels then I’m going to kind of move my hand path more in maintain my tilt through the ball contact was a lot better kind of just push that a little bit to the right so not bad shot there my Lineo actually came through at zero dead straight to the ground you can see the contact there in the middle so the strike was better path was better my attack angle was better everything was just better there and the ball hit the green now we’re going to take a look at those two swings side by side now we saw the first shot there off the toe the lle was down the ball pushed out to the right second one much more closer to the middle and I hit the target there so lle came in much better now both of those swings came in to out at impact but there was a big difference in kind of the strike location and the ball flly which is the important thing here now when we take a look at the setup we’re going to use the GOL tech optimotion technology here to kind of measure the movement so in the original one where my student was the knee Flex was around 32° which then moves the center of the hips too far back behind my heels so by kind of having less knee Bend as I set up it gets the kind of the center of my hips here more over kind of the middle of my ankle we have the optim motion picking up the center of my shoulders and the center of my hips at setup marked by those little circles and we measure how they move in the go swing you’re going to see from this side view camera how they’re moving now in the back swing here you’ll see how the circle that’s measuring the hip on both occasions moves a little bit towards the ball so I do this a little bit in my kind of normal swing but a lot more when I kind of had my weight more back on my heels the club path we saw was way outside on the original swing where my student was whereas in my swing it was more around my body as I went back so I’m taking the club back more on plain and that’s really key I also manag to stabilize my head Center much more you’ll see the yellow kind of lines here they’ll move a little bit as I start to move so the more you see that line up the more movement you’re going to have from this side view camera we want to stabilize that as much as possible now as we move into the swing you’ll see in the student swing cuz the arm was up very high the way they shallowed was by extending the body and straightening kind of the posture of the body in the down swing so we lose that bend by the time the golfer moves into impact you’ll start to see this purple Trace line which is the movement in the downswing of the hips you see that with the hip movement and also the shoulders so the shoulders kind of go up the hips go towards the ball by the time the student hits the ball there the student swing the early extension the shoulder Bend there is at 22 now bear in mind the bend starts at setup at around 40 the student was hitting around 20° of shoulder Bend so they’re standing up through the ball hitting low toe the handle raises up pushes the lle down which is the shot that we saw on that first one now in my swing I managed to kind of keep that bend more closer to the toour average around 32° instead of 22 and you’ll see how I stabilize my head better then I said as we went through that we want to try and maintain this tilt to the shoulders so by this time the club kind of exits in the follow through you’ll see my tilt on my shoulder is around 44° and in the student case around 30 so the guler standing up through the ball losing the Tilt and you can see from that yellow line that’s measuring those two Center points how much that kind of moves in the down swing that’s the early extension that’s the piece here that we’re trying to fix by kind of coordinating the setup the back swing movements and then even into the follow through so I’m still thinking about kind of the Tilt here as I swing through so you’ll see they’re much more stable in my goal swing so to summarize there there’s some key checkpoints first of all it’s setup make sure you haven’t got too much knee Bend make sure your weight’s more towards kind of the center of your feet not back on your heels that’s the first thing then second thing is make sure your hand PA moves around your body in the back swing up the plane of the club you take it get out you’re going to probably early extend in the down swing like that golfer did so important keys there is setup hand PA in the back swing then in the follow through you going need to make sure you tilt your right shoulder down and if you’ve kind of set up properly you’ve swung on the right plane it’s going to be much easier to do that and maintain those angles through the golf ball so hopefully this video helps hopefully there’s some keys there that can help you get rid of your early extension in the golf swing the most I feel I’m here and you’re not