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 bodies. 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 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 internal 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 air. 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 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 your hips up toward 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 movement. 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 backward while keeping your spine in a relatively straight line. An over-rounded C-shaped posture, or an overly arched S-shaped posture, both make it difficult to rotate 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 you're on your toes from the start of your swing, standing up as a way to regain balance during your swing is almost a given.

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 few of the very best ways that tour pros and top coaches recommend.

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

This is an ageless golf drill. It is one of the finest exercises for developing muscle memory because it provides a sure way to feel your way into proper form and gives you instant feedback and 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. Start your downswing slowly, with your lower body only. The feeling you're after is the reversal: your right glute should rotate back to its starting position against the wall as your left glute glides along the wall, finally ending at the point of impact. Your left glute should turn away from the target to create needed swinging space, allowing your hands to deliver the club with full arm extension and then finish the swing completely over your left foot with complete balance.
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 slow, mindful reps a day, making deliberate and distinct pauses. Your focus must remain on the feel of how your glutes react and work together with your hamstrings. This will reprogram your muscles and encourage your hips to rotate instead of firing forward.

Drill 2: The Chair-Tuck Drill

This provides an excellent visual and feel-based cue of the space you're trying to create.

1. Place a chair (or alignment stick) just behind and outside of your lead foot.
2. Set up to the ball in your normal position with a midiron. The chair is there as a tactile reference point.
3. Make smooth halfway downswings, focusing only on the transition. The entire move should happen with only your hips, with your club and shoulders in sync at the apex of your backswing. You'll find yourself tucking your hip away instead of pushing it backward. Feel your left rear pocket pulling backward, behind you, and away from where you set your ball. This "tuck" feel is perfect for feeling your hips clearing.

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

This exercise drills in proper sequencing, which is critical. Early extension often stems from starting the downswing from your upper body. This exercise teaches your lower half to go first.

1. Take a 7-iron to the apex of your backswing. Now feel a slight "squat" to help lower your weight slightly. This helps you engage your legs and ground your lower body. This is not a massive squat but is very effective.
2. From that loaded position, "pump" your body into the finish position and hold in your fully balanced position for a few seconds each time. Pump three times, each time trying to get the feeling that your left hip clears further out of the way. On the fourth attempt, take the club and swing down in a single smooth movement.
3. This drill reinforces the key sequence in your body: weight shifts down first, and your hips start the rotation before your arms and hands ever start. It will stop them from going over the top.

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.