A foolproof method to stop coming over the top on the downswing

Your downswing is too steep and to the left. How do you know? You hit wicked pulls, pull hooks and slices, depending on what the clubface is doing at impact. You need to groove a bit more of a flatter swing. Here’s a simple drill that’ll help fix the problem with just a few repetitions.

Set up like normal but with a second ball placed roughly two clubhead widths in front of the one you’re actually going to hit. The goal here, as you can probably imagine, is to hit the first ball and miss the second, something that’ll be difficult to do if you swing over the top.

Before you start, reach down and touch your trail leg as a reminder to hang back on your trail side longer as you start down from the top. When you actually swing, think, Flat through impact, not steep, feeling just a touch of hang-back  and that the club is moving up.

Keep in mind that these are indeed feels — i.e., you never want to “hang back” when hit – ting an iron. Sometimes you learn faster when making exaggerated swings. Try it.

Jason Birnbaum is a GOLF Top 100 Teacher who is the director of instruction at Manhattan Woods Golf Academy in West Nyack, N.Y