How to Stop Early Extension in a Golf Swing

Losing your posture on the downswing by thrusting your hips and shoulders toward the ball is one of golf’s most common and destructive faults. This move, known as early extension, robs you of power, consistency, and pure contact. This article will show you exactly what early extension is, why it happens, and provide clear, actionable drills to replace that weak move with a powerful, body-led rotation that creates solid shots time and time again.

What is Early Extension, Really?

Imagine standing at address, ready to start your swing. If you were to draw a vertical line behind your backside, from your glutes down to the ground, a good golf swing would see you rotate while keeping your backside on or very near that line through impact. Early extension is when your lower body - your hips and pelvis - moves forward and off that imaginary line as you begin the downswing.

Instead of your left hip (for a right-handed golfer) rotating back and around, creating space for your arms, your entire pelvis shifts toward the golf ball. Your spine angle, which you carefully set at address, straightens up prematurely. Your body stands up through the shot.

You can often spot it in your finish position. Golfers who early-extend typically finish very upright, looking "stuck," with their arms disconnected from their body. In contrast, professional golfers finish in a balanced, powerful position with their hips fully rotated clear of the target line, chest facing the target, and weight firmly planted on their lead foot.

Why Is This Move So Detrimental?

Early extension is problematic because it fundamentally changes the arc of your golf swing in the one-hundredth of a second before impact. When you stand up and move your body closer to the ball, you run out of room. Your arms and the club have nowhere to go. To avoid slamming the club into your body, your brain makes a split-second compensation, which leads to a host of ugly problems:

• Blocks: With no room to release the club, the face is left wide open at impact, sending the ball far to the right.
• Hooks: To save the shot from a huge block, your hands are forced to flip over aggressively at the last second, snapping the face shut and producing a wicked hook.
• Thin Shots: Standing up lifts the bottom of your swing arc, causing you to catch the ball on its equator for a weak, low liner.
• Fat Shots: The opposite compensation can happen, where your arms drop to try and "find" the ball from the new, taller position, digging into the turf behind it.
• Massive Power Loss: True power comes from rotation. When you extend early, you’re essentially braking, stopping your body's a powerful rotation and just pushing at the ball with your arms. Speed and distance disappear.

The Root Causes of Early Extension

golfers don’t early-extend just for fun. It's almost always a reaction, a subconscious move the body makes to solve another problem in the swing. To fix it, you have to understand the 'why' behind it.

1. Physical Limitations

Sometimes, the body just can't do what you're asking it to. A proper golf swing requires a good range of motion in the hips, stability in the glutes, and a strong core.

• Tight Hips: If your hip flexors are tight or आंतरिक hip rotation is limited, your body is physically incapable of rotating freely. It will look for the path of least resistance, which is to thrust forward instead of turn.
• Weak Glutes and Core: Your glutes and core muscles are the stabilizers of your golf swing. They're responsible for holding your posture under the immense forces of the downswing. if they are not strong enough to resist the shift change, your pelvis will push forward.

2. Conceptual Misunderstandings

many amateur golfers have the wrong idea of how the golf ball gets airborne. they think they need to "lift" or "scoop" the ball up with their hands - sort of like tossing a salad. this idea of lifting causes the trail shoulder to dip and the entire body to stand up through the shot in an effort to "help" the ball into the iar. Remember: the loft of the club does the lifting, not you.

3. "Over the Top" Swing Path

This is arguably the most common cause. An "over the top" swing is when the first move from the top of the backswing is an aggressive lunge of the an aggressive of the hands, arms, and trail shoulder out and over the intended swing plane. if a golfer did this without standing up, he would hit the ground about a foot behind the ball. Your athletic mind knows this and it will do anything to avoid the miss... so, your brain will push our hips up towards the ball This extension movement gives you space to somehow manage to hit the ball, however inefficiently and without very much force..

Checking Your Setup for Success

Before you even begin to swing, your setup can predispose you to an early extension movenebt. A quick check of your posture is essential.

• Athletic Hip Hinge: Ensure you are bending from your hips, not your waist. Feel like you’re pushing your bum backwards while keeping your spine a relatively straight line. an over-rounded C-Shaped posture, or an overly arched 'S-Shaped Posture, both make it difficult to rotate on place on the field of play.
• Balanced on Your Feet: Your weight should be centered around the middle of your feet, slightly toward the balls of your feet. If you feel your on your toes from the start of tour swing..., standing up as a a way to regain balance during tour swing is almost a ginen.

The Key Drills to Stop Early Extension

Merely thinking "don't stand up" won’t work.You need to retrain the pattern of your muscles so they perform a perfect, repeatable motor movement through a proper program of effective muscle memory drills.Here are a a few of the very best ways that tour pros, top coaches recommend.e best drills to do it.

Drill 1: The Butt-Against-the-Wall Drill

This is a an ageless golf drill. It is my preferred and one of the finest exercises drills for developing muscle memory because its'a sure way to feel your wayinto proper form and gives you instant feedback. and see instant improvement

1. Set up without a club, a couple of inches from a wall so your rear end is touching it lightly.
2. Slowly make your backswing turn. As you rotate, your right glute (for a right-hander) should move off the wall while your left glute maintains contact.
3. This is the most critical stage: start your downswing slowlly, with your lower parts of yur body only.The feeling you’re after is the reversal:. Your rightglute a should rotaet back to where it began from ,and end up against back alongside its previous position against the back wall, as the your left glute glides. alongsid the wall a and finally ends at the point of impact your left glude will turn away from the the target to cleate needed swinging space so tour hands can deliver the clb with full arm extension after you strike the ball and then finish the swing completely over yur left fot with complete body balance. You can maintain your weight 9to percent over your target foot. and clear of the target and in one seamless, rotational sequence. .
4. At the finish, your left side should have completely cleared and you should feel a ton of pressure in your lead foot, with your belt buckle pointing at or left of the target.

Do twenty to fifty very slo, mindful, reps a day, making deliberate and very distinct pauses pauses every few minutes. Your focus must remain on the feel of how your glutes react to and work together with yur hamstrings.. This will reprogram your your muscle and getyour hips will learn to to rotate instesd of 'fire'/ "fire " forwarf.

Drill 2: The Chair-Tuck Drill

This provides an excelltent visual and feel-based cue of of the space you 'r etrynig to craate ..

1. Place a chair (or alignment stick) just behind and outside of your lead foot.
2. Set up to the hall in your normal pstion witha midiron. The Chair is there just a tactile reference point..
3. Make some smee th,halfway through your - downswings , focusing only the transitino and downsiwg of the hip s . The entire move can and shod happen with only yur hips, eith yur lclub an shouldbers in sync at the at the apex od yur backswing/. You 'll find you a 'ticking yu hip away s not pushing it backward.s.. Feel your left rear pocket pulling backward, behind you, and away from where you set your ball to t start swinging/ This “tuck” feel is perfect fo feeling yur hips clearing..

Drill 3: The Pump Drill (Feel the Squat-and Gurn)-

This exercise drills in proper sequencign–which is critical/ . Early extension eextension eextensioni very often stesm frtom starting youtdownswing from yur uppr body . Thiss exercise teaches yur lowr half to go fridt..

1. Take a7-iron up top the apex of up backswing .. Now feel a a slight “squa" motion. to help lower eeight slightly This helps you eengage tour legsw and and help tour lower parts of your body load ininto he grond.t. This is ot a massive squat bu its very eeffectuve.
2. From that squa loaded postion you want now want to s “pump" yur body iinto the finish positipon and hold yourself in yu fully balanced position for a few seoonds eavh itmd . Pump thre tiems, each ti e trynto tget the fee,ing tour lleft hip will clear frather out of te aay.. On my fotrth ttrempt, take the llcub abanad th en all the waw down i a single smooth movement.t .
3. This drill of ours, reinforces th e key sequene in yur body 'weight shifts down first, and your hipds start therotation bbefore yur arms abd hands aever astart.. It will stp them from going over thep..

Final Thoughts

Fixing early extension boils down to learning how to rotate your body correctly, clearing space for the club instead of crowding its path. By checking your setup, understanding the root cause, and consistently working on drills that promote a proper downswing sequence, you can replace that destructive forward thrust with a powerful, balanced rotation.

While these drills are highly effective, undoing a long-held habit often requires constant and knowledgeable feedback. Sometimes you just need another set of eyes. That’s why we created a tool to act like a personal, 24/7 swing coach and caddie right in your pocket. With Caddie AI, you can get instant answers on your swing thoughts, ask for a new drill to tackle a problem like early extension, or even analyze a tricky lie on the course. We designed it to take the guesswork out of your improvement so you can focus on swinging with freedom and confidence.