What Is Early Extension in Golf? Causes and How to Fix It
Early extension is when your hips move toward the ball and you stand up before impact. Learn what causes it, how to spot it, and drills to fix it.
What Is Early Extension in Golf?
Early extension is when your hips move toward the ball and your upper body stands up during the downswing, instead of rotating. Your spine angle straightens before impact, which throws the club off its path and leads to slices, hooks, shanks and lost power.
Early extension in golf is a swing flaw that plagues many golfers, from beginners to seasoned players. It occurs when a golfer's hips and spine straighten up prematurely during the swing, leading to a host of problems. It often results in the clubhead path being thrown off, leading to slices, hooks, or even shanked shots. Additionally, it can rob your swing of power, as the premature straightening prevents the build-up of torque and proper energy transfer. Understanding and correcting early extension is crucial for a more efficient and powerful golf swing.
Understanding Early Extension
Early extension in golf is a common pitfall, where players unknowingly alter their spine angle and thrust their hips toward the ball during the swing. This error disrupts the crucial "Tush Line," an imaginary vertical line from your hip to the ground. The result? Your body straightens prematurely, causing a mismatch between the club and the ball at the point of impact. The ideal golf swing maintains a stable spine angle and hip position from the swing's apex right through to impact.
Now, let's dive into an insightful video by AMG that sheds light on hip rotation in the golf swing.
In this video, AMG zeroes in on the challenges faced by an amateur golfer, whom we'll call "John."
Setup: John's hips are too far back relative to his heels, with overly vertical shins. This stance almost guarantees early extension during the backswing.
Backswing: Unlike professional golfers who keep their hips in contact with the "tush plane," John’s hips drift away from this imaginary line.
A top view analysis starkly reveals the consequences of these missteps. Observe the trajectory of John's hip center, markedly showing forward movement.
Contrast this with the trajectory of a tour pro’s hip center, which exhibits no such forward shift. This is the ideal we strive for.
Although Swing Tune-Up doesn’t currently offer a top view analysis, our tools are adept at identifying early extension in your golf swing. Let's perfect your swing together!
How to spot an Early Extension with Swing Tune-Up
It's very easy to spot early extension in your set up and takeaway, just turn on guides annotation and pay attention to where your hips are at the set up and during your backswing. Guides annotation should draw the tush line for you automatically.
You can also spot it visually by turning on spine tracking. In the below screenshot, the green line (impact) is much more upright than the white (address). Looking at swing metrics, you can see the spine angle at impact is 18.9 degrees which is significantly lower than the angle at address which is 30.1 degrees. Read this for more info.
Additional tools to help you with your early extension
With the Joints annotation, try to focus on the dots on the hips and try to stay consistent with it.
With the new Swing Check feature, it will tell you in real-time during your practice whether it deviates from the original position.
Causes of Early Extension
Several factors can contribute to early extension:
Lack of Hip Mobility: Limited flexibility in the hips can prevent proper rotation, causing the hips to thrust forward.
Poor Core Strength: Without a strong core, maintaining the correct spine angle throughout the swing becomes challenging.
Incorrect Swing Perceptions: Some golfers mistakenly believe they need to 'lift' the ball, leading to a straightening of the body.
Ground Contact Fear: A fear of hitting the ground or 'chunking' the ball can lead to pulling up and away from the shot.
Pushing Off Wrong Foot: You should be pulling to the left, but instead push from the right.
Drills/Exercises to Correct Early Extension
Wall or Chair Drill: Practice swings with your backside against a wall or chair. Focus on maintaining contact with the wall/chair throughout the swing to encourage proper hip movement.
Hip Mobility Exercises: Incorporate stretches and movements that enhance hip flexibility, such as lunges and hip rotations.
Core Strengthening Exercises: Focus on exercises that build core strength, like planks, Russian twists, and medicine ball throws.
Constantly Monitor and Practice: Use Swing Tune-Up daily to monitor your transformation and track your progress.
Early Extension FAQ
What causes early extension in the golf swing?
The most common causes are limited hip mobility, a weak core, trying to lift the ball into the air, fear of hitting the ground, and pushing off the trail foot instead of rotating through the shot.
What does early extension cause?
When your hips move toward the ball, the club loses its path through impact. That leads to inconsistent contact and misses in both directions: slices, hooks and even shanks. It also costs power, because standing up early stops your body from building and releasing torque.
Does early extension cause a slice?
It can. Standing up early throws the clubhead path off and often leaves the clubface open at impact, which produces a slice. Many golfers who early extend also hook the ball when they flip their hands to save the shot, so the miss can go either way.
How do I know if I early extend?
Film your swing from down the line and compare your hips at address and at impact. If your hips have moved closer to the ball and your spine is more upright at impact, you’re early extending. Swing Tune-Up’s Early Extension metric measures this for you and grades it from Optimal to Severe.
How do you fix early extension?
Start with the wall or chair drill: make practice swings with your backside against a wall or chair and keep contact through the downswing. Add hip mobility and core exercises, and check your progress on video. See the drills above for details.
Conclusion
Addressing early extension in your golf swing requires patience and consistent practice. Incorporating the drills and exercises mentioned above can lead to significant improvements. Remember, every swing change takes time to embed, so stay persistent and focused on the process.
Fix your early extension now
Use Swing Tune-Up to measure your spine angles during key phases of your swing to spot early extension and works towards your perfect swing. Click on the download button above to get started!