Hi Guru

Unfortunately, at this time of my life, I’m an irregular player. I had a game last week, the first in 3 months. The one thing I really noticed, from divets, is that my swing was coming through outside in, much more so than when I played on a more regular basis. Any tips as to how keep this top of mind, or in warming up, to address this please?

thanks

Paul S

In your practice warm ups set up with one club parallel to your feet and another outside the ball that aims out to the right at about 15 degrees to the parallel one. get out a wedge and then put a tee in the ground 3” in front of the ball and 1” outside it. Now look at the tee and practice swing seeing the clubhead sort of covering the outside shaft. Now make a real swing looking at the tee. The Tee is close to your real low point target to swing through and to. You ball will just take off nicely with a divot post the ball that should take out the tee as well.

Read the Fix Your Golf Swing article to see why this works.

ha ha the dreaded baseball swing!!! l suffered with this for a long time, If you start the downswing with your shoulders instead of your hands the shoulders take your hands outside the line of the ball, it may help to shorten your back swing if you bend your left arm excessivly l found it much easier to initiate the downswing with my hands when l shortened my backswing. Also this tip l found most benificial; get your head out of your chest, when you look down at the ball in you setup, left your chin as high as you can without losing sight of the ball this will make room for your left shoulder at the top of the backswing, as soon as the shoulder hits the chin the left arm tends to break.

Guru-

I too am suffering from the outside-in divits. I tried your trick of putting a tee 3 inches in front and an inch outside of the ball and aiming at it. It definitely helped with my sandwedge and pitching wedge. My divots aren’t quite inside out, but they are definitely straighter. The ball was also going straighter (I was tending to hook my irons and slice my woods).

I didn’t get a chance to try your tee trick with the longer clubs. If we are using your method of ball position from the “fix your swing” article (always having left hand over thigh), where would we put the tee to aim at with a driver?

oftentimes much of this can be fixed at address. when a golfer puts one hand beneath the other on the handle, it tends to open up the shoulder and hip line to the left (for a right hander). it doesn’t matter what the footline shows, if the thighs, hips and shoulders are all pointed left, the club cannot travel to the inside on the backswing…only straight back or outside the line. thusly, the club cannot travel back on an inside path and strike the inside back quadrant of the ball. so, consciously realign the thighs, hips, and shoulders in a mirror until it becomes second nature to be square. then, the club has the chance to travel back, up and in simultaneously and return to the proper part of the ball. stand behind your playing partners on the tee and watch how many of them have their feel down the target and the rest of them pointed left.

Guru-

I too am suffering from the outside-in divits. I tried your trick of putting a tee 3 inches in front and an inch outside of the ball and aiming at it. It definitely helped with my sandwedge and pitching wedge. My divots aren’t quite inside out, but they are definitely straighter. The ball was also going straighter (I was tending to hook my irons and slice my woods).

I didn’t get a chance to try your tee trick with the longer clubs. If we are using your method of ball position from the “fix your swing” article (always having left hand over thigh), where would we put the tee to aim at with a driver?

Can be just a tad in front and outside the ball still to sort of force the issue, or even inside and behind it a bit so that you can see the line going away from you from the tee further out to the driver. Most instructors will put the tee (aiming point) for a driver behind and inside the ball. The only silly issue students find with that is that at set up the tee is covered by the driver head, hence the idea of continuing the line in front of the ball instead.

Remember we are really trying to keep the swing on plane doing this and if we had the flashlights the light beams will be coving the straight line (parallel train track idea of our feet to line of flight idea), while the head itself COVERs the angled line between ball and tee position.

This drill describes one of the most confusing parts of the golf swing; trying to reconcile 1)a straight plane line, which the end of the golf shaft points to ,and 2) the path of the clubhead, which is circular and in an arc, and intersects the plane line on briefly at impact. When using plane lasers, I can trace the plane line, but without the laser, when I try to hit the ball, I am focused on the straight plane line and I steer and come from outside in. If I try to come from a more inside path, I don’t feel I am tracing the plane line; it seems my plane line curves. I’ll give this drill a try.

This drill describes one of the most confusing parts of the golf swing; trying to reconcile 1)a straight plane line, which the end of the golf shaft points to ,and 2) the path of the clubhead, which is circular and in an arc, and intersects the plane line on briefly at impact. When using plane lasers, I can trace the plane line, but without the laser, when I try to hit the ball, I am focused on the straight plane line and I steer and come from outside in. If I try to come from a more inside path, I don’t feel I am tracing the plane line; it seems my plane line curves. I’ll give this drill a try.

Stay tuned…...photos soon….......

Is there really anything wrong with having a slight out to in action? It seems to me that a gentle fade is the most accurate and forgiving way to play.

A fade itself is a kind shot. Out to in though leads to all sorts of potential shots. A pull, pull hook, slice or fade. Rather hard to know what is coming up next.

Learn a little fade inside to low point to inside and life is indeed sweetness. Trevino’s comment on ‘you can talk to a fade” comes to mind.

I’ve developed a smooth fade lately, but the holy grail for me has always been the draw. Surely the small amount of extra clubhead speed at impact induced by a closing face has some benefit? Is the difference just ball position? Slightly back for a draw, slightly forward for a fade?

Wouldn’t think so…...

could be Pomo…ball position will have a big affect on shot shape for sure!

Toolish, my thinking is that those with an over the top move or outside in swing path, are basically preparing to make compensations during impact. This can be quite an illusion when it comes to ball flight….like a smooth fade? Moving the ball back in the stance would make me think the ball would be pushed to the right or topped. Moving the ball forward could have all kinds of consequences. To me an outside in swing path is an effect of an earlier problem. Should we be focusing there or somewhere else, like say, on impact alignments, lazer or flash light drills, dowels? What is the real sorce of the problem?

I have had a few Heinekens, but I’ve opted to stay at home instead of a Holiday Inn.

No matter what swing path is used, the important thing is the clubface angle. With an inside out swing the margin is very fine, whereas slightly across the line gives a greater margin. As long as the face doesn’t close you’ve got the whole fairway width to play with. With a FLW, it’s easy to prevent the face closing by having the back of the left hand follow the path line past impact..

No matter what swing path is used, the important thing is the clubface angle. With an inside out swing the margin is very fine, whereas slightly across the line gives a greater margin. As long as the face doesn’t close you’ve got the whole fairway width to play with. With a FLW, it’s easy to prevent the face closing by having the back of the left hand follow the path line past impact..

Interesting theory…I’m a senior golfer without much if any previous coaching. My divots show a tendacy to be slightly outside the line. I find consistent ball striking is my greatest asset. I’m probably doing many things wrong, but it never got to the point score wise where I wanted to seriously change things.

I’m a left hander who plays golf right hand and video’s show a FLW. Length was never a problem when I was young…these days I’m trying to swing more down and out and hold the lag to increase distance.

No matter what swing path is used, the important thing is the clubface angle. With an inside out swing the margin is very fine, whereas slightly across the line gives a greater margin. As long as the face doesn’t close you’ve got the whole fairway width to play with. With a FLW, it’s easy to prevent the face closing by having the back of the left hand follow the path line past impact..

Hmmmm, this seems like Steering.

Not at all – you can hit it as hard and freely as you like. Isn’t holding the clubface square called a vertical hinge in TGM-speak?

A vertical hinge gives you the “face pointing at the sky” in a wedge look with an opening clubface. With a driver if you use a Vertical as well as an OTT path you are looking at huge high bananas. A vertical hinge has the face opening (to the plane line) and laying back to show more loft. The opening action leads to the cut spin and an OTT adds to it.

Now I said it seems like steering as most people thing its common sense to keep the face square to the intended flight line and make all sorts of motions to keep the face square. All that happens is the ball goes higher and left/righter the harder they hit it. That is what I was referring too a steering.

An Angled hinge (still closing but not as rapidly as with a Horizontal Hinge) will give you a nice cut/fade. A bit more if you are OTT.

VHinges for a driver are not on the recommended shot list unless you are cutting a dog leg corner with a big tree line:) Generally mid to high handicappers only need the VH for a short game and need to relegate it to the bin for long sticks where they struggle with the right side of the fairway and bush.

It’s highly probable I don’t do what I think I’m doing. Missing right is very rare, as is a high right drive. Although it’s also rare, I’m subconsciously afraid of hooking shots, probably from my younger days. I wouldn’t have played 20 rounds in the last 10 years so the main aim is to just keep the pill in play so maybe I do steer it. Thank God for the occasional ISG day or I wouldn’t have played at all this year.

Haha. Yep the short stuff is way better than needing the Tree wood. I would say you have an Angled Hinge going on, ie a hand motion that does not feel like an active anticlockwise roll. This may feel like an opening face to you. When you are at full both arms straight chances are your clubface will be at 45degreeish to the flight line.

I had my $1000 round of golf at The Vines the other week. Sheesh living with the course over my back fence you would think I got out more often! Anyone want a membership:)

oftentimes much of this can be fixed at address. when a golfer puts one hand beneath the other on the handle, it tends to open up the shoulder and hip line to the left (for a right hander). it doesn’t matter what the footline shows, if the thighs, hips and shoulders are all pointed left, the club cannot travel to the inside on the backswing…only straight back or outside the line. thusly, the club cannot travel back on an inside path and strike the inside back quadrant of the ball. so, consciously realign the thighs, hips, and shoulders in a mirror until it becomes second nature to be square. then, the club has the chance to travel back, up and in simultaneously and return to the proper part of the ball. stand behind your playing partners on the tee and watch how many of them have their feel down the target and the rest of them pointed left.

This is so true. One lines up with the left hand on the club the reaches down to place the right hand on the club below it and in affect we reach down and forward opening up the shoulders. Think of tilting your spine straight back when you grip the club with the right hand and it will also get you that natural spine angle tilt you want.

I have a pull-fade tendency, more obvious with the longer clubs. Have filmed my driver, attached below. Any comments? Cheers Kendrick

Link did not stick:)

Looks like the swing files are around 2Mb total, can I email these to you or somewhere on this site? Please confirm. If not can you please describe in more detail suitable drills or checks to help eliminate a pull-fade/outside-in swing path.