How to Fix an Outside-In Golf Swing

That weak, curving slice that robs you of distance and lands you in the right-side trees is almost certainly caused by an outside-in golf swing. It’s one of the most common swing faults in golf, but the good news is that it’s entirely fixable. This guide will walk you through understanding why it happens and provide you with specific, easy-to-implement drills to retrain your swing path and start hitting powerful, straight golf shots.

What Exactly Is an Outside-In Swing?

Imagine a straight line running from your target, through your golf ball, and extending behind you. This is your target line. In a perfect world, your club would approach the ball from slightly inside this line, make contact, and then exit to the inside of the line again, creating what we call an "inside-out" or "in-to-in" swing path.

An outside-in swing, just as the name implies, is the opposite. The club head approaches the ball from outside the target line and cuts across it, moving inside the line after impact. This path across the ball imparts sidespin - specifically, left-to-right spin for a right-handed golfer. The result? The dreaded slice. If the club face is square or closed to this outside-in path, the ball starts left and either stays left (a pull) or slices back toward the target (a pull-slice).

Most players who suffer from an outside-in path describe it as a “chopping” motion. Instead of the club working around your body in a rotational circle, it feels like you're coming down steeply from the top, swinging your arms aggressively at the ball. This move not only produces slices and pulls but also leads to thin shots, fat shots, and a significant loss of power, because you're swiping across the ball instead of compressing it with the full force of your body's rotation.

The Main Causes of an Outside-In Swing

To fix the problem, you first have to understand the cause. An outside-in swing isn't random, it's a reaction to another flaw in your setup or swing sequence. Here are the most common culprits.

The "Over-the-Top" Downswing

This is the big one - the most frequent cause by far. An over-the-top move happens during the transition from backswing to downswing. Instead of initiating the downswing with your lower body (your hips), you start it with your upper body. Your right shoulder (for a righty) lurches forward and outward toward the ball, pushing your arms and the club "over the top" of the correct swing plane. Your a-ha moment is realizing the swing isn’t just up and down, it’s a rounded motion powered by your body’s rotation.

Why do we do this? It's often an instinctive but incorrect attempt to generate power. We feel like we need to muscle the ball, so we throw our hands and arms at it from the top. Unfortunately, this move disconnects the body’s real engine - the hips and torso - and puts the club on an immediate path to disaster.

Poor Setup and Alignment

Your swing is often doomed before you even take the club back. If you have a slice, you’ve probably developed a bad habit of aiming your body significantly left of the target to compensate. You're trying to play for the slice. The problem? Aiming your shoulders and feet to the left encourages a swing path that follows that line - directly across the ball from outside to in, only making the slice worse.

Posture also plays a role. Standing too close to the ball or having a posture that's too upright doesn't give your arms enough space to swing freely on an inside path. Your body's instinct is to create space by moving away from the ball during the swing, which often forces the club to come over the top.

Incorrect Backswing Path

What happens in the backswing dictates what can happen in the downswing. Two common backswing flaws can lead to an outside-in path:

• Taking the club away too far inside: Some golfers try so hard not to slice that they yank the club way inside on the takeaway, getting it "stuck" behind their body. From this position, the only way to get the club back to the ball is to loop it over the top on the way down.
• Lifting the club too vertically: Conversely, some players just lift the club straight up with their arms and no body turn. This also puts the club in a position outside the proper plane, leading to a steep, downward chop at the ball.

Drills to Correct Your Swing Path

Reading about the swing path is one thing, feeling the correct motion is another. Reworking a motor pattern requires repetition with immediate feedback. Here are four highly effective drills to help you ditch the outside-in path and groove a powerful, inside-out motion.

Drill 1: The Headcover Gate

This is a classic for a reason: it gives you undeniable feedback. You can’t cheat this drill.

How to Do It:

1. Tee up a ball (using a tee even with an iron makes the drill easier to start).
2. Take a spare headcover (or a rolled-up towel) and place it on the ground about 12-15 inches outside your ball, and about six inches behind it. It should be positioned in the area where your club would approach if you were coming over the top.
3. Your goal is simple: swing and hit the ball without hitting the headcover.
4. Start with small, half-speed swings. If you make your old over-the-top move, you'll smash the headcover. To miss it, you will be forced to drop the club into the "slot" inside it, approaching the ball from the a proper inside path.

This drill physically prevents your old swing and forces your brain and body to find a new path to the ball. After a dozen successful shots at half speed, you can gradually build up to a full swing.

Drill 2: The "Feel the Drop" Drill

The "over-the-top" move is a feel. To beat it, you need to replace it with a new feel. This drill is all about learning the sensation of the club dropping into the slot.

How to Do It:

1. Take your normal setup and make your backswing. Pause for a second at the very top.
2. Now, instead of thinking about your hands or arms, feel as if your first move to start the downswing is a small shift of your hips toward the target. It’s not an aggressive turn, just a slight lateral bump.
3. As you do this, feel your arms and the club just drop vertically for a few inches behind you. It should feel like they become passive and are just falling due to gravity, shallowing out the club path.
4. From that "dropped in" position, you can then rotate your body through to hit the ball. The club is now perfectly primed to come from the inside.

This sequence - hips first, then arms drop, then body rotates - is the antidote to the shoulders first, arms throw sequence of an over-the-top swing.

Drill 3: The Right Foot Back Drill

This is a wonderfully simple drill you can do with every practice shot to instantly promote an inside path.

How to Do It:

1. Set up to the ball as you normally would.
2. Now, simply pull your trail foot (the right foot for a righty) back about six inches to a foot, so it's further away from the target line than your lead foot. Your feet should still be shoulder-width apart.
3. This creates a "closed" stance.
4. Now, try to make a normal swing. You will find that this setup makes it physically difficult to swing over the top. It practically forces you to swing from the inside out to get the club to the ball.

You’ll likely start hitting draws (right-to-left shots) or even hooks with this drill. That’s a great sign! It means you're successfully changing your swing path from out-to-in to in-to-out. You are feeling the exact opposite of a slice.

Drill 4: Pass Through the Gate

This drill helps visualize and execute an inside-out path through the impact zone.

How to Do It:

1. Place your ball on the ground or a low tee.
2. Place two tees (or other small objects) in the ground a few inches in front of your ball, creating a "gate" that's just a little wider than your club head. This gate should be aimed slightly to the right of your target (about 1 o’clock if your target is 12).
3. The objective is to hit the ball and then have your club head continue on its path and swing straight through the gate.
4. If you have an outside-in swing, your club will be moving left through impact and you'll miss the gate entirely. To swing through it, you must deliver the club from the inside and extend out towards the target.

This drill beautifully trains the correct path after the ball has been struck, which is a perfect complement to drills that focus on fixing the path before the ball.

Final Thoughts

Fixing an outside-in swing is about retraining your path by correcting the root cause, which is usually an upper-body dominated downswing. By using physical guides and focusing on the correct sequence - lower body first - you can replace that weak slice with a powerful, drawing ball flight that finds the fairway.

Getting real-time, personalized feedback is one of the fastest ways to make a swing change stick. Sometimes on the course or range, you're not sure if you are applying these drills correctly. For those moments, Caddie AI serves as your 24/7 on-demand golf coach. You can ask us questions about your swing feels, get personalized drills for your specific faults, or even snap a photo of a tricky lie to get strategy for that exact shot. Our goal is to take the guesswork out of improvement, clarifying what you need to work on so you can play with more confidence and enjoy the game more.