Moving your hips toward the golf ball on the downswing, a classic case of early extension, is one of the most common and destructive faults in golf. It robs you of power, consistency, and clean contact, leading to a frustrating mix of thin shots, chunks, and wild pushes or hooks. This guide will walk you through what early extension is, why you do it, and most importantly, provide clear, actionable drills to eliminate it from your swing for good.
In the simplest terms, early extension is when your hips and pelvis move closer to the golf ball during the downswing. Instead of rotating around your spine, your lower body thrusts forward. This causes you to lose the posture and spine angle you established at address. As your hips move toward the ball, your body stands up, forcing your arms to get "stuck" behind you or throw the club at the ball in a last-ditch effort to make contact.
Why is this such a big deal? Because it’s the root cause of so many other problems:
At its core, early extension disconnects your body from the swing. It turns a powerful, flowing rotary motion into a weak, inconsistent stab at the ball.
No golfer actively *tries* to early extend. It’s almost always a subconscious reaction or a compensation for another issue in the swing. To fix it, you have to understand where it's coming from.
Often, the culprit isn’t your technique but your body itself. A proper golf swing requires a certain degree of mobility and stability. If you lack it, your body will find the path of least resistance, which is often thrusting forward.
Sometimes early extension is an instinctive move to save a bad swing. If your first move in the downswing is to throw the club "over the top" - meaning your hands and arms move out and away from your body - your hips have to move forward to create space. If they didn’t, the club would crash into the ground well behind the ball. In this instance, the early extension is actually a band-aid that your brain creates to try and hit the ball from a poor position.
Many amateur golfers believe that generating power means throwing their entire body *at* the target. They see tour pros drive through the ball and mistakenly interpret that as a forward lunge. In reality, pros are creating power by rotating with incredible speed away from the target line first, clearing their lead hip to make room for the arms and club to whip through the impact zone.
Enough with the problem, let's get to the solution. The feeling you are trying to create is that your lead hip is rotating *back and around*, away from the target line, while your trail hip works down and under. Think of your belt buckle turning away from the ball at impact, not pointing at it. Here are three of the most effective drills to teach your body this new movement.
This is the gold standard for fixing early extension because it gives you immediate, undeniable feedback. It forces you to maintain your posture and learn the feeling of correct hip rotation.
If you're doing this drill and your hips immediately come off the wall as you start down, you’re early extending. Reset and do it again, slowly, until you can keep that connection.
This drill exaggerates the feeling of clearing your hips and prevents them from stalling and thrusting forward. It's fantastic for syncing up your lower body and promoting a full D-turn through the ball.
This "stepping" action physically forces your lead hip to clear out of the way, making it nearly impossible to thrust your hips toward the ball. It ingrains the feeling of your lower body leading the charge and creating space for your arms.
This drill helps you rehearse the critical start of the downswing and teaches you to drop the club into the "slot" instead of throwing it over the top.
This rehearsal move trains you away from the over-the-top motion that so often causes the hips to early extend as a defense mechanism. It teaches your body that there is space to swing from the inside when you rotate correctly.
Overcoming early extension is a process founded on replacing a forward thrust with a powerful rotation. By understanding its causes and consistently practicing drills like the wall drill and step-through swing, you can train your body to stay in posture, unleash your rotational power, and finally achieve the pure contact and consistency you’re looking for.
Fixing long-standing habits like early extension takes feel, and oftentimes a little guidance. It’s exactly for situations like this that we developed Caddie AI. When you're out on the course and hit that frustratingly thin shot again, you can immediately ask Caddie for a quick swing thought or a drill to focus on for the next few holes. You can even take a photo of a tricky lie that resulted from a poor strike and get practical advice on how to recover, turning a potential disaster into a manageable escape. Having that instant, expert feedback in your pocket helps you make smarter adjustments in the moment, instead of just repeating the same mistakes.
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