Fixing Early Extension in your Golf Swing

Early Extension can be a swing killer, causing all kinds of consistency errors including thin shots, shanks, blocks and hooks. By improving your early extension, you can greatly improve your strikes and make your misses less destructive.

So what is early extension?

Essentially it's standing up, or losing your spine angle during the downswing. When you do this, you move further away from the ball (think about it, you started with a slight bend from your waist, and now you are standing up) which forces you to release the golf club early causing you to throw the clubface at the ball.

There are many drills and swing thoughts you can try to improve early extension. But the key elements that seem to be required for long term improvement are learning to stay in your forward flex and continuing to rotate.

If you look at the image of Lee Trevino (one of the greatest ball strikers ever) below you'll see clearly how he's rotating and staying in his spine angle and his right shoulder will continue to go down and under. Because he is staying in posture and rotating, he can compress the ball at the last moment for pure impact.

If you can find swing keys that work for you that keep you down and turning, you can fix your early extension too!

Good luck and keep working ....