The post 3 things every golfer can learn from Chris Gotterup’s unique swing appeared first on Golf.

The post 3 things every golfer can learn from Chris Gotterup’s unique swing appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

Chris Gotterup had a better Fourth of July weekend than most. With a win at the John Deere Classic, the 27-year-old claimed his third PGA Tour title of the season (and fifth over the past 12 months), bumping him to seventh in the OWGR and earning him $1.58 million for his efforts. Not bad for a week of work.

The interesting thing about Gotterup is that when you first watch him swing, you wouldn’t peg him as a Tour pro. It’s a powerful move, but it’s not one that’ll be taught in teaching bays across the country. It’s the textbook definition of “homegrown.”

But while Gotterup’s swing may be unorthodox, that doesn’t mean he isn’t constantly working on improving and refining it. Since he was a teenager, the New Jersey native has worked with GOLF Top 100 Teacher Jason Birnbaum as the duo has carefully crafted a move that can compete with the best players in the world.

“We took what he did naturally well and just tried to add to it and complement those strengths,” Birnbaum says.

Earlier this year, we sat down with Birnbaum to chat about his star pupil’s swing — and find out what everyday golfers can learn from it. Check it out below.

1. Swing hard

When Gotterup first started seeing Birnbaum, he knew how to swing only one speed: fast. And that’s something all young golfers should strive for.

Too often, recreational players spend years trying to build a technically flawless swing before ever learning how to create speed. According to Birnbaum, that’s backwards. It’s much easier to learn to control speed than it is to add it after years of making careful, controlled swings.

“Too many amateurs are trying to be perfect, and then once they feel like they have control, they try to add speed,” Birnbaum says. “Speed really should be first.”

In an era in which distance is more important than ever, learning how to go fast is a must. Don’t be afraid to go all out and learn how to create that speed. There’s always time to refine it later on.

It’s a recipe that worked for Gotterup. It can work for you, too.

2. Don’t be afraid of a strong grip

One of the most recognizable features of Gotterup’s swing is his exceptionally strong grip. Birnbaum says it’s something he’s had since childhood, and it’s been a major reason he’s been able to eliminate the big miss to the right while generating tremendous power.

But Birnbaum also cautions against judging his swing by a single position. Many golfers notice the amount of extension, or “cup,” in Gotterup’s lead wrist at the top of the backswing, along with a steep path into the ball. But according to Birnbaum, much of that appearance is simply a consequence of his grip.

“The stronger the grip, the more cupped the wrist,” Birnbaum says. “The amount of cup he has is probably a little deceiving because his grip is so strong.”

A strong grip can help generate power, so don’t shy away from it. If you do opt for a strong grip, though, remember that there are certain matchups you need to employ to make it work. Gotterup marries these matchups to perfection, and it’s one of the reasons he can play at such a high level with an unconventional-looking swing.

3. Function over fashion

With so much technology available these days, it’s easy to assume that every swing checkpoint has to look textbook, but Birnbaum doesn’t see it that way.

While many swing pundits focus on Gotterup’s steep downswing, Birnbaum stresses that appearances can be misleading. What matters is whether the club is delivering a consistent strike at impact, not whether a frame from the backswing looks unconventional.

“Sometimes pictures lie,” Birnbaum says. “We could look at a video that looks super steep, and the TrackMan numbers are perfect perfect.”

For Birnbaum, launch monitor data and ball flight always outweigh aesthetics. If the swing is repeatable, producing the right numbers and creating the desired shot, there’s little reason to chase cosmetic changes just because a position looks different from another Tour player.

The post 3 things every golfer can learn from Chris Gotterup’s unique swing appeared first on Golf.

The post The 1 move that keeps great ball strikers from coming over-the-top appeared first on Golf.

The post The 1 move that keeps great ball strikers from coming over-the-top appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

A swing that comes over the top is the bane of many a recreational golfer. Go to your local range and you’ll likely see dozens of players who struggle with the move. As a result, they hit weak fades or slices, and rarely have any real shot of becoming a lower handicap.

The reason the over-the-top swing is so common is because it is a result of a swing that feels correct. One of the main reasons for an over-the-top swing is that the golfer does not sequence the swing properly. With this move, you’ll see the golfer start begin the downswing with rotation rather than shift. But when you do this, you throw the clubhead outside the hands, and you have no choice but to come over the top in order to hit the ball.

When you watch a good ball striker hit the ball, the order of operations is reversed. Once they reach the top of the backswing, their first move down is a lateral shift toward the target. After that shift occurs, the rotation follows, allowing for the club to work more from the inside.

In the video below, GOLF Top 100 Teacher Greg Phillips of the Titleist Performance Institute shares an easy feel you can use to incorporate this sequencing into your swing.

How to shift then rotate

It can be tempting to get to the top of the swing and then try to unwind as quickly as possible. Your brain tells you that this is the best way to generate power, but in reality, it’s poor sequencing and largely inefficient. If you want to hit the ball like the best ball striker, you need to shift pressure into the lead side first and then allow your body to unwind.

Phillips like to teach this by putting alignment sticks on the ground that bisect the student’s stance on a diagonal from behind their trail foot out to in front of their lead foot. The goal on the downswing is to shift the pressure along that diagonal line before starting the rotation in the downswing.

“A lot of times I’ll put down alignment rods or I’ll put down clubs out here [right of the target],” Phillips says. “I want you to line up straight, but I want you to pretend like you’re going to hit it [off to the right].”

When you do this, the club will naturally work more on an in-to-out path with more natural shallowness.

“You’re twisting early,” Phillips says. “And I need you to have a little bit of lateral.”

If you struggle with an over-the-top swing, keep that in mind. If you can shift before you twist, you’ll produce a much more in-to-out move and fix that nasty over-the-top motion that plagues your ball striking.

The post The 1 move that keeps great ball strikers from coming over-the-top appeared first on Golf.

The post Playing golf in the wind? Focus on these 3 things to save your score appeared first on Golf.

The post Playing golf in the wind? Focus on these 3 things to save your score appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

If you’ve been tuned into the U.S. Open at all thus far, you know that the wind is howling at Shinnecock. With gusts of up to 40 mph in the forecast throughout the afternoon, players are battling not only the diabolical William Flynn design, but also Mother Nature.

Playing golf in the elements isn’t easy — and strong winds may be the most difficult of them all. When gusts are ripping across a golf course, controlling your ball becomes a near-impossible task.

Shinnecock Hills has plenty of defenses at its disposal, but the most treacherous of them all may be the wind. In its four previous times hosting the U.S. Open, the wind blew plenty and, as a result, just three players total finished the championship under par.

Weekend warriors seldom face blustery conditions like those at Shinnecock this week, but in case you do, it’s important you know how to control your ball in the wind. Check out the three keys below from some GOLF Top 100 Teachers that can help you out.

3 keys for playing golf in the wind

1. Move the ball position back

When you are facing a shot dead into the wind, you’ll want to keep the ball low so that the elements have a negligible effect. One easy way to do so is to move your ball position so it is farther back in your stance.

“Moving the ball slightly back in your stance helps you de-loft the club, which naturally brings the trajectory down,” says Jim Murphy. “A lower flight means less exposure to the wind and more predictable results.”

2. Club up

Don’t be afraid to take an extra club when playing in the wind. It can be tempting to play your normal yardage and try to swing hard and muscle it through the breeze, but this will only add spin and cause the ball to come up short. Instead, take an easy three-quarter swing.

“The smaller the swing, the less speed, lift, and spin your ball will have,” Kellie Stenzel says.

3. Think pitch shot

If you are struggling to conceptualize the size of your three-quarter swing, try thinking of your technique when hitting a pitch shot. Move the ball back in the stance, open the clubface just a touch and have a nice tempo back and through.

“You’ll hit a guaranteed low little burner,” Jonathan Yarwood says. “Really low spin, really low trajectory that’s going to cut through the wind.”

The post Playing golf in the wind? Focus on these 3 things to save your score appeared first on Golf.

The post How a ‘burnerverse’ golfer went from beginner to single-digit handicap in 18 months appeared first on Golf.

The post How a ‘burnerverse’ golfer went from beginner to single-digit handicap in 18 months appeared first on Golf.

Ed. note: The subject of this story is X user Upper East Side Golf (@UESgolf), a member of the golf “burnerverse.” He is referenced by his username and handle in this article in order to protect his burnerverse identity.

Upper East Side Golf is a certified golf sicko. That term gets thrown around a lot, but there are few that embody the term quite like he does.

Each morning, he wakes up around 5:30 a.m. and treks to Five Iron Golf‘s Rockefeller Center location to grind on his game. He often hits balls for 90 minutes and finishes with a lift in the gym before heading to his midtown Manhattan office to start his day job in the financial industry. On mornings when he isn’t grinding on his game in the simulator, you may find him walking the fairways of Pelham Bay golf course in the Bronx.

“I played 83 rounds in 2025,” @UESgolf says. “I’d wake up at 4:15 or 4:30 a.m., take an Uber, or drive once I got a car, go play at Pelham Bay, finish as quickly as possible, and get back to the city by 9:30 so I could go to work.”

There are golf “sickos” and there are golf sickos. @UESgolf is the latter.

Most remarkable of all, golf is a relatively new obsession for the 31-year-old. Although he is a life-long athlete, @UESgolf only picked up golf in the fall of 2024. Growing up in the golf-rich suburbs of Philadelphia, his father played the game, but @UESgolf’s focus was on lacrosse. Golf simply didn’t pique his interest.

That all changed a little over 18 months ago when he joined a group of friends for a round. After being bested by his less-athletically-gifted compatriots, he decided he to pursue golf to fulfill his competitive drive. It hasn’t taken him long to get the hang of the game. Despite a late introduction to the sport, @UESgolf has already whittled his handicap into the low single-digits, and has a clubhead speed with the driver that is well over 120 mph (seriously).

So, what’s the secret to his rapid golf improvement? I recently sat down with him to find out.

1. Focus on center contact

Like many new golfers, @UESgolf had poor clubface control when he picked up the game. Instead of chasing aesthetic swing changes in those early days, he focused on the most important skill in golf: consistently striking the center of the clubface.

Much of his practice revolved around simple feedback drills. Foot spray on the clubface to reveal strike location or a headcover near the ball to encourage a different club path. Everything he did was with the goal of teaching himself how to hit the center of the clubface.

“The biggest thing to focus on is compressing the ball and making good contact,” he says. “Even still today, a lot of what I try and do is just hit the center of the clubface.”

2. Dedicated practice

Rapid improvement doesn’t happen without serious commitment. As @UESgolf can attest, it takes dedication if you want to shave strokes off your handicap.

“I wake up at 5:30 a.m. and head to Five Iron to hit balls for an hour or two,” he says. “Then in the spring and summer, as soon as it gets warm enough for golf, which for me is about 40 to 42 degrees, I go play before work.”

Not everyone has the flexibility to dedicate that kind of time to golf, but the unfortunate truth about the game is that improvement doesn’t happen overnight. If you want to get better, you’ve got to put the work in.

3. Don’t go down too many rabbit holes

Like many who get the “golf bug,” @UESgolf spends plenty of time obsessing over his swing. But this can be a blessing and a curse. While it’s good to dedicate thought to how you swing the club, you can also drive yourself crazy if you go down too many social-media swing-tip rabbit holes.

“I was DMing with [fellow golf burner Arnie McNair] during one of those swing-rating things he was doing,” @UESgolf says. “He looked at my swing and said, ‘You’re a 6 handicap now, but you’d be a scratch golfer if you stopped doing XYZ and got off YouTube.’

“I was making all kinds of changes. I even cut down my clubs because I thought I couldn’t get around properly. I was doing all sorts of crazy stuff.’ … Eventually Arnie introduced me to Andrew McCain, who gave me a free swing evaluation, and I’ve worked with him since January.”

Not all social-media golf instruction is bad (in fact, lots of it is quite good!), but if you take every swing tip you see and apply it ad hoc, you are setting yourself up for disaster. That’s why it’s so important to have a professional take a look at your swing. Once you are diagnosed by a pro, fixing the flaws in your swing becomes much easier.

4. Mix up your practice

Becoming a better golfer isn’t just about finding better positions that look better on camera. It’s also about building a swing that is functional in on-course settings. @UESgolf understands this, which is why he incorporates a mix of block practice and variable practice into his routine.

“I’d say it’s probably about 60 percent variable and 40 percent block practice,” he says. “There are definitely days where I’m just trying to work out a kink and I’ll hit a bunch of drivers or a bunch of 7-irons. But the practice that seems to help my scoring the most is variable practice, working through different yardages and situations. Maybe I hit a 185-yard shot, then a 70-yard shot, then a 150-yard shot. That’s the kind of practice that translates best to the course.”

5. Remember to play

@UESgolf is a self-described range rat who finds beating balls “therapeutic.” But the biggest key for lowering his handicap hasn’t come in the simulator — it’s come from learning how to get the ball in the hole on the course.

“If you really want your handicap to come down, you have to play golf and learn how to score,” he says. “I learned how to shoot in the 70s from the white and blue tees. Now I’m playing farther back and it’s more challenging. Learning how to score is something you simply can’t do in a simulator.”

Golf can feel like an impossible game at times, but as @UESgolf proves, improvement is attainable with the right dedication, mindset and practice regimen.

The post How a ‘burnerverse’ golfer went from beginner to single-digit handicap in 18 months appeared first on Golf.

The post Why poor setup may be causing one of the most common golf-swing faults appeared first on Golf.

The post Why poor setup may be causing one of the most common golf-swing faults appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

Do you struggle with consistency in your ball striking? Is power lacking for you throughout the bag? Are your misses all over the place? The cause could be early extension.

Early extension affects a huge number of recreational golfers, but most don’t even know it exists — or how it hurts their swings.

Here’s a quick refresher: Early extension occurs when your pelvis shifts excessively forward during the downswing. When you move your hips toward the ball in the downswing, you limit the amount of space your arms and hands have to swing freely, which can cause inconsistent contact and a lack of power.

I’ve struggled with early extension in my own swing in the past, so recently, I enlisted the help of GOLF Top 100 Teacher Tony Ruggiero. During our lesson, he shared a variety of remedies for early extension — including setup tweaks that can eliminate the mistake before you even swing the club. Check out more in the video below, or read on for more.

How poor setup causes early extension

Like so many swing mistakes, one of the root causes of early extension comes in the form of a poor setup. When you make mistakes in how you address the ball, your body has no choice but to move in ways that cause early extension.

“One of the things that is important and often overlooked is the base of your spine,” Ruggiero said. “Folks get the base of their spine too much [away from the target] at address which makes them slide out from under it and then they slide [toward the target]. As a result, they stand to try to get the club on the ball.”

To remedy this error, Ruggiero suggests feeling the base of your spine directly underneath the top of your spine. And because you are slightly tilted away from the target at address, this means you need to feel like your lead hip is bumping slightly toward the target at address.

Another setup mistake that can cause early extension comes in the form of your hip hinge. To get into the right position, Ruggiero says you should feel like your shoulders are directly over your toes at setup.

“Take the club and put it across your waist and then push your rear end back,” Ruggiero said. “Now let your hands come down to your knees. That would be a pretty good, athletic-balance posture.”

It’s important you don’t overdo this feeling, however. If you push your tail bone too far back, you will get too much of your weight over your heels at address, forcing you to move your pelvis closer to the ball during the downswing — resulting in that dreaded early extension.

“If you’re not in balance at address, where the weight is too much on your heels or your weight is too much on your toes, there’s a good chance that somewhere in the golf swing you are going to stop turning, stop using rotation and stand,” Ruggiero said. “And that’s just you trying to balance yourself.”

So if you struggle with early extension, check your setup fundamentals first. You may be able to correct the issue without even changing anything in your swing.

The post Why poor setup may be causing one of the most common golf-swing faults appeared first on Golf.

The post This high-tech app exposes the biggest flaws in your golf swing appeared first on Golf.

The post This high-tech app exposes the biggest flaws in your golf swing appeared first on Golf.

Striving for improvement in your game is addictive. When you’ve got the golf bug, all you can do is think about the game.

As a golf addict for going on 20 years, the feeling is all to familiar. I’m the guy that rehearses my swing any chance I get. In the living room. On the subway platform. At the bar. Heck, sometimes I even dream about my swing thoughts. What can I say, it’s a sickness.

Since last summer, I’ve been militant about improving my swing. I’ve always known how to score, but now it’s my mission to build a consistent, technically sound swing. That includes practicing two to three days a week, and learning all I can about how my swing works.

I’m fortunate to have plenty of top golf-instruction minds at my disposal, but sometimes, diagnosing my swing comes from other sources. For example, the app Sportsbox AI has become my go-to for quick swing diagnoses.

How Sportsbox AI is helping fix my swing

Sportsbox AI is an app that uses motion-analysis kinetic software to convert videos of your swing (taken on your smartphone) into 3D models to provide real-time, corrective feedback. The app has the backing of some of the brightest teaching minds in the game, and was recently acquired by a group led by Bryson DeChambeau. The two-time major champ himself even utilizes the app to work on his own game, if that tells you anything about its swing-nerdiness.

Over the past few months, I’ve been using Sportsbox AI to analyze my swing after every practice session — and it exposed a couple of glaring flaws in my swing.

Too much hip rotation

One of the cool things about Sportsbox AI is that it provides a generally acceptable range for just about every movement in the swing. One such movement is called “Pelvis Turn,” which measures how much your hips rotate during the swing.

Early on in using Sportsbox, I noticed that my pelvis turn numbers were always in the red when I reached the top of the backswing. Upon further inspection, it turned out that my hips were turning too much, too early in the swing.

Now, a big hip turn may sound like something good, but it is easy to overdo it. When you turn your trail hip too much early in the backswing, it reaches the end of its range of motion. And if this happens before you finish turning your upper body to the top of the swing, you have to lift your arms to complete the backswing.

This is a problem that many recreational golfers have — and it was killing my swing. Sportsbox AI flags the issue in my swing every time it happens, letting me know when I need to watch how much I am turning my hips during the backswing.

When I first started using Sportsbox, my hip-turn number was as much as -51 degrees (negative is turn away from the target). But now, when I am swinging my best, I am closer to -39 degrees, keeping my pelvis turn numbers in the green.

Early extension

I’ve always had a bit of early extension in my swing, and Sportsbox caught it right away. One of the features of the app is its “Swing Flaws” feature which tells you if it catches a common flaw in your swing.

One way you can monitor for early extension is the “Chest Bend” number. When you bend at your hips and your chest gets closer to the ground, it helps keep your pelvis back and out of the way, reducing early extension and allowing room for your arms to swing freely.

With my old swing, my chest-bend number at the top of the swing was around -6 degrees, which is right at the edge of the range for the top of the swing. After seeing that, I made sure to bend at my hips more to initiate the downswing, and my chest bend number is now around +2 degrees.

This number is great for me to keep an eye on throughout the swing, as it tells me if I am early extending during the downswing. In my experience thus far, so long as I keep the chest bend numbers in the green, I do not early extend nearly as much.

If you’re someone who wants high-level analysis of your swing, Sportsxbox AI is a great option. The amount of data it throws at you can be intimidating at first, but once you begin to interperate what all the numbers mean, you’ll understand your swing like never before.

The post This high-tech app exposes the biggest flaws in your golf swing appeared first on Golf.

The post Do these 3 exercises to cure your early extension for good appeared first on Golf.

The post Do these 3 exercises to cure your early extension for good appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

Early extension is a golf-swing killer.

We’ve covered this topic ad nauseam on this site — but for good reason. When you thrust your hips toward the ball too early in the downswing, you eliminate the space needed to effectively turn through the ball. When that happens, your ball striking always suffers.

Understanding the proper technique to eliminate early extension is extremely important. However, for some golfers, understanding the issue is only half the battle. Because of physical limitations in their bodies, they simply can’t execute the technique that eliminates early extension.

“Everybody talks about mobility and strength, but I think one thing that is often overlooked is stability,” says GOLF Top 100 Teacher Tony Ruggiero. “If you’re not stable enough in that [front] leg, you’re gonna want to stand.”

If you’re someone who suffers from early extension, check out the video below. In it, Tony shares three different exercises you can do to strengthen your body so you can move in a way that doesn’t result in early extension.

3 exercises to fix early extension

What I love about the exercises Tony showed me is that they incorporate the movements of a golf swing. They don’t simply target the necessary muscle groups; they also force your body to move in the same way that they do during the golf swing.

1. Punch exercise

The first drill is what I call the punch exercise. To set up, get into your golf posture and then drop your trail foot back away from the ball. Next, grab an exercise band that is tethered behind you and pull it across your chest with your trail arm. From there, reach around your body and punch toward the target as you turn your body through.

“That’s pure rotation,” Ruggiero says. “That’s your ribcage rotating through and over to your left leg. When you do that and isolate your weight over your left leg, it’s helping build stability.”

2. Rowing exercise

The next drill is the rowing exercise. For this exercise, get into your golf posture. This time, grab either end of the exercise band in each hand with the center of the band tethered on the ground in front of you. From there, make a rowing motion going back with your trail hand, and then as you turn through to your lead side, make a rowing motion going back with your lead hand.

“There you should actually feel with this resistance having to push off the ground a little,” Ruggiero says.

3. Hinge exercise

For the final exercise, get into your golf posture once again with your trail foot dropped back behind you. This time, hold the shaft of the club across your shoulders. From there, rotate fully toward the target, posting up on your lead leg.

“A lot of people when they do that the first time, they’ll feel that their foot is fighting to hold the ground,” Ruggiero says.

Warm-Up Band, Black – Yobow Golf Recovery

Features: Warm up your lower body in less than a minute. Activates glutes, hamstrings and quads. Regular use leads to stronger and more stable hips which is essential in most sports Builds core and glute strength Helps with Injury prevention Will not snap or pull on skin Strength: Blue = Medium, Black=Strong

Buy Now$25.00 from PGA TOUR Superstore

View Product

The post Do these 3 exercises to cure your early extension for good appeared first on Golf.

The post This overlooked swing mistake can kill your ball striking — here’s how to fix it appeared first on Golf.

The post This overlooked swing mistake can kill your ball striking — here’s how to fix it appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

One of the most common swing ailments among recreational golfers is early extension. Yet despite its prevalence, most have no idea it even exists.

If you fall in that camp, he’s a quick explainer. Early extension occurs when the pelvis shifts toward the ball (forward) during the downswing. When this happens, you reduce the space for your hands and arms to swing freely through the hitting zone, causing inconsistent contact and a lack of power. Suffice to say, when you’ve got early extension in your swing, you are leaving susceptible to all sorts of ball-striking woes.

I myself fall into the camp of those who struggle with early extension from time to time. To help with that, I enlisted the help of GOLF Top 100 Teacher Tony Ruggiero to help me eliminate the ailment for good. Check it out in the video below.

Setup flaws that cause early extension

Like many ball-striking woes, many of the root causes of early extension come from poor setup.

“One of the things that is important and often overlooked is the base of your spine,” Tony said. “Folks get the base of their spine too much [away from the target] at address which makes them slide out from under it and then they slide [toward the target]. As a result, they stand to try to get the club on the ball.”

To fix this, Tony suggests feeling like you are getting the base of your spine underneath the top of your spine. To do this, it will feel like your lead hip is bumped slightly toward the target at address.

It’s also important that you get the correct amount of hip hinge when you address the ball, feeling like your shoulders are over your toes when you set up.

“If you’ll take the club and put it across your waist and then push your rear end back,” Tony said. “Now let your hands come down to your knees. That would be a pretty good, athletic balance posture.”

If you struggle with early extension, check your setup fundamentals first. You may be able to correct the issue without even changing anything in your swing, but rather slightly adjusting how your body sits at address.

3 exercises to fix early extension

If adjusting your setup fundamentals doesn’t do the trick, it may be time to change how your body moves during the swing. This can be a challenge when going full speed, because your body is so used to moving in a certain way. That’s where using drills to ingrain the new feel come in.

During my lesson, Tony showed me three different exercise-band drills that help ingrain the feel of turning through the ball without early extending.

1. Punch exercise

The first drill Tony showed me is what I’m calling the punch exercise. To set up, he asked me to get into my golf posture and then drop my trail foot back away from the ball. Next, he had me grab an exercise band that was tethered behind me and then pull it across my chest with my trail arm. From there, he asked me to reach around my body and punch toward the target as I turned my body turned through.

“That’s pure rotation,” Tony said. “That’s your ribcage rotating through and over to your left leg. When you do that and isolate your weight over your left leg, it’s helping build stability.”

2. Rowing exercise

The next drill was the rowing exercise. For this exercise, I once again go into my golf posture, but this time I grabbed either end of the exercise band in each hand with the center of the band tethered on the ground in front of me. From there, I made a rowing motion going back with my trail hand, and then as I turned through to my lead side, I made a rowing motion going back with my lead hand.

“There you should actually feel with this resistance having to push off the ground a little,” Tony said.

3. Hinge exercise

For the final exercise, Tony had me get into my golf posture once again with my trail foot dropped back behind me. This time, though, he instructed me to hold the shaft of the club across my shoulders. From there, he asked me to rotate fully toward the target, posting up on my lead leg.

“A lot of people when they do that the first time, they’ll feel that their foot is fighting to hold the ground,” Tony said. “That’s your body figuring out how to stabilize itself. Everybody talks about mobility and strength, but I think one thing that is often overlooked is stability. If you’re not stable enough in that leg, you’re gonna want to stand.”

How to practice without early extension

After going through some exercises to train my body to stabilize itself, Tony showed me a great drill to use on the range when hitting balls to eliminate early extenstion.

For this drill, he asked me to wrap a thick exercise band around my legs just above the knees. Then, he told me to put pressure on the outsides of my legs, feeling like I was pushing against the resistance the band provided.

“It engages your core which stabilizes your lower body,” Tony says. “If you keep the tension and pressure on that band going through, it’s very difficult to stand up.”

This is a great drill to practice on the range when you are actually hitting golf balls. After a while, you can take the band off and try to maintain that feel when you swing. If you can continue to feel that pressure on the outside of your legs, you will stabilize your core and make it extremely difficult to early extend.

“This is a great plan for improvement for a person that’s trying to get rid of early extension,” Tony says. “You’ve got a few exercises you can do away from the range that you can combine that with your practice. And then you’ve got a drill you can do when you actually do hit balls. Then you just have to take that out on the golf course.”

Warm-Up Band, Black – Yobow Golf Recovery

Features: Warm up your lower body in less than a minute. Activates glutes, hamstrings and quads. Regular use leads to stronger and more stable hips which is essential in most sports Builds core and glute strength Helps with Injury prevention Will not snap or pull on skin Strength: Blue = Medium, Black=Strong

Buy Now$25.00 from PGA TOUR Superstore

View Product

The post This overlooked swing mistake can kill your ball striking — here’s how to fix it appeared first on Golf.

The post How does elevation affect your driving distance? This data tells us appeared first on Golf.

The post How does elevation affect your driving distance? This data tells us appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

Every golfer knows how far they hit their driver (or at least has a general idea). But did you know that environmental factors can have a huge impact on how far the ball flies? Wind, temperature and elevation are all factors that can influence how your golf ball flies — and if you don’t know how these things affect your ball, it can have a huge impact on your game.

If you play a majority of your golf in one place, this may come as a surprise. When you are hitting your driver at your home course every day, the conditions will likely be fairly uniform from day to day. But when you take your game on the road, the conditions tend to be different, and you need to adjust your game accordingly.

Elevation is a particular environmental factor that can have a huge impact on how far your ball flies. So, how much does elevation affect your distance? For more on that, we dive into the Arccos Annual Driving Distance Report.

How elevation affects driving distance

You’ve probably heard that playing golf at higher elevations means your drives will fly farther — but by how much exactly? It’s probably more than you think.

According to Arccos’ data, 10 handicaps hit their driver just over 220 yards on average at sea level. However, when playing at over 5,000 feet of altitude (think Denver), that number jumps up to 239.7 yards. That’s a nearly 20 yard jump simply by virtue of higher altitude.

“Most golfers who play in Denver, Albuquerque, or anywhere in the Mountain West have experienced this intuitively,” Arccos wrote. “But 19.2 yards is not intuition — it is a precise, real-world figure derived from millions of actual shots at elevation, and it changes club selection in ways most golfers never fully account for.”

If you’re a golfer who plays a majority of your golf at sea level, this can be a huge boon for your game when you head to higher altitudes. Conversely, if you’re typically a mountain golfer, playing at sea level will make courses play a heck of a lot longer.

Next time you play golf in a new locale, be sure to take note of the elevation. It can have a huge impact on how far your drives fly.

The post How does elevation affect your driving distance? This data tells us appeared first on Golf.

The post Hit longer drives (without even swinging harder) by doing this appeared first on Golf.

The post Hit longer drives (without even swinging harder) by doing this appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

Hitting longer drives off the tee doesn’t always require you to swing harder. Sure, it helps to put more force into the ball, but there’s another way to belt it past your playing partners without swinging out of your shoes — and it all starts with optimizing your launch conditions.

One of the best ways to hit the ball longer is by increasing your attack angle. If you can hit more “up” on the ball, you can launch it higher and with less spin, which is crucial for hitting longer drives.

So, how can you increase your attack angle angle? One easy way is by adjusting the way you set up to the ball.

Fundamentals like setup are often overlooked by recreational golfers, but they can have a huge impact on how you strike the ball. A poor setup can lead to all sorts of issues in the swing, which leads to compensations that can have negative long-term consequences. But if you set up to the ball correctly, you will put yourself into the best possible position to strike it consistently.

If you want to increase you attack angle (and set yourself up for a solid strike on every drive), it’s important you learn how to set up to the ball correctly with a driver. I recently learned how to do this from GOLF Top 100 Teacher Jason Baile, and it has helped me hit the driver longer than ever before.

Increase attack angle with a setup tweak

One problem I have when setting up to the driver is that my shoulders and hips are too level at setup. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing when hitting irons and wedges, but for clubs that demand a more positive angle of attack (like the driver), it causes some issues. Namely, it creates conditions for a negative attack angle.

A negative attack angle isn’t necessarily a death knell when hitting the driver, but when you are a slower swing speed player, it can sap you of distance. When you hit down on the ball, it increases spin. This is great for control, but robs you of distance. So if you want to hit the ball longer, you’re better off hitting up on it.

If you watch LPGA pros, you’ll notice that they don’t swing especially hard at the ball, but they still get plenty of distance on their drives. This is a direct result of optimizing their attack angles and hitting up on the ball, allowing them to maximize their distance without swinging harder.

In my lesson with Jason Baile, we made it a goal to get my attack angle up to not only help me get more distance, but also put me in a better position for a consistent strike. This all started with adjusting my setup.

The first thing he asked me to do was slightly “bump” my lead hip toward the target at address. This movement slightly raised my lead hip and lowered my trail hip.

“I’d rather see you get the proper tilts at address with your lower body than your upper body,” Jason said.

The next thing he fixed was the orientation on my arms at address. Before, I had a tendency to get my trail arm too high, which covered up my lead arm when looking at my swing from down the line. To fix it, he had me think about pointing my trail elbow more at my trail hip when I gripped the club.

By tweaking these two simple setup mistakes, I instantly increased my angle of attack and got into a better position to make swings that didn’t have so many compensations built in.

If you are someone who needs more distance with the driver, check out the attack angle numbers of your driver on a launch monitor. Chance are, you need a little more positive angle of attack to launch the ball higher. For that, all you need to do is make a few small setup tweaks.

The post Hit longer drives (without even swinging harder) by doing this appeared first on Golf.