How to Stop Pulling the Golf Club Inside

Pulling the golf club inside on your takeaway is one of the most common swing-wreckers, turning a potentially powerful, accurate swing into a frantic effort to save the shot. It forces compensations, primarily the dreaded over-the-top move, leading to slices, weak blocks, and infuriating inconsistency. This guide will walk you through exactly why you're doing it, how to feel the correct motion, and provide you with simple, effective drills to build a solid, on-plane takeaway for good.

What Does "Pulling the Club Inside" Actually Mean?

In the simplest terms, pulling the club inside means that in the first few feet of your backswing, your hands and arms pull the club head behind your body too quickly. Instead of the club moving back straight and then arcing gracefully upwards around your body, it gets immediately yanked to the inside, getting "stuck" behind you.

Imagine a line extending straight back from the golf ball (your target line). In a proper takeaway, the club head travels along or just inside this line for the first few feet. When you pull it inside, the club head darts inward, away from that line, almost instantly. This disconnects the arms from the body's rotation, setting off a chain reaction of bad positions that you have to somehow fix on the way back down.

Why It Destroys Your Swing

This early inside move might not seem like a big deal, but it's the root cause of many of golf's most hated miss-hits. Here’s why:

• It forces an over-the-top move: Since the club is now trapped behind you, your brain's only logical response to get it back to the ball is to throw the club "over the top" of the correct swing plane. Your right shoulder lunges forward, and the club cuts steeply across the ball from out-to-in. This is the classic slicer's motion.
• It leads to blocks and hooks: To counteract the over-the-top move, some golfers drop the club way underneath, coming too much from the inside. This can lead to a massive push-block out to the right or, if you flip your hands at impact, a sharp hook to the left.
• It saps your power: A connected, wide takeaway stores energy like a coiling spring. Pulling the club inside narrows your arc and relies on your arms for power, not the big muscles of your torso. You "pick up" the club instead of turning, losing a huge source of natural speed and force.

The Root Causes: Why Are You Doing It?

Fixing the problem starts with understanding why it's happening. Golfers don't pull the club inside on purpose, it's usually a result of a faulty setup or a misunderstanding of how the backswing should start. Here are the most common culprits.

1. Misguided Swing Thought: "Using Your Arms"

Many new and improving golfers think the backswing is an action of the arms and hands lifting the club. This often leads to the hands and arms yanking the club away from the ball independently of the body. The golf swing is a rotational action. Your shoulders and hips are the engine. The arms and hands shouldn't be the first thing to move, they should be responding to the turning of your torso.

2. Incorrect Setup and Posture

Your setup can either enable a great swing or doom it from the start. If you stand too far from the ball, you'll naturally have to reach for it, which encourages your first move to be pulling your arms back in toward your body. Likewise, a slouchy posture with no tilt from the hips makes it very difficult to rotate properly, so the arms take over.

3. Overactive Hands and Wrists

Are you "snatching" the club away from the ball? This is a sign of overactive hands. Some players mistakenly think the first move in the swing is to roll the wrists or prematurely hinge them. This immediately whips the club face open and pulls the club head far behind the hands, breaking the structure of your takeaway before it even begins.

The Fix: Your Guide to a One-Piece Takeaway

The solution to pulling the club inside is to build what coaches call a "one-piece takeaway." This simply means your arms, hands, shoulders, and chest all start moving back together, as a single, connected unit. It feels like you're creating width and extension away from the ball, not pulling in.

Step 1: Check Your Setup

Everything starts with a solid foundation. Before you even think about the swing, get your setup right.

• Posture: Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart for a mid-iron. Bend forward from your hips, not your waist, letting your rear end go back as if you were about to sit on a tall stool. Your back should be relatively straight but tilted over.
• Arm Position: Let your arms hang naturally down from your shoulders. They shouldn't be reaching way out or jammed into your body. When your arms hang freely from a good posture, that’s where you should grip the club.
• The Triangle: Look down at your arms and shoulders. They should form a stable triangle. The primary goal of the takeaway is to move this triangle together without it breaking down.

Step 2: The First Move - Turn, Don't Pull

With your setup solid, focus on the initial move. The swing starts with the rotation of your torso - your chest and shoulders turning away from the target. Feel like you are pushing the club away with your lead shoulder (left shoulder for a righty).

As you turn your torso, the "triangle" of your arms and shoulders moves with it. The hands are passive. The feeling is that the club head, hands, arms, and chest are all moving away from the ball at the same speed.

Step 3: First Checkpoint - Club Parallel to the Ground

When the club shaft is parallel to the ground, pause and check your position. At this point, one of two things should be happening:

• The club head should still be directly in front of your hands, or even slightly outside your hands.
• The club shaft should be pointing down your target line or parallel to it.

If you've pulled it inside, the club head will already be way behind your hands, and the shaft will be pointing far to the right of your target. This first checkpoint is your litmus test. Get this right, and the rest of the backswing becomes much easier.

When you're here, the face of the club should be "square" to your swing arc. This means the toe of the club shouldn't be pointing straight up at the sky (too open) or pointing excessively at the ground (too closed). It should match the angle of your spine.

Drills to Bake In the New Feeling

Understanding the concept is one thing, feeling it is another. These drills are designed to give you the physical feedback you need to stop pulling the club inside and replace it with a wide, connected takeaway.

Drill #1: The Headcover Tuck

This is a an oldie but a goodie for a reason. It gives you instant feedback about arm-body connection.

1. Take your normal setup.
2. Tuck a headcover (or a small towel) lightly under your trail armpit (your right armpit if you're a righty).
3. Make slow, half-backswings. The goal is to keep the headcover from falling out.

If you pull your arms inside and away from your chest, the headcover will drop to the ground instantly. To keep it in place, you are forced to use your body to turn the club away from the ball. This drill ingrains the feeling of your arms and torso working as a synchronized unit.

Drill #2: The Two-Stick Gate

This drill gives you an unmissable visual guide for your takeaway path.

1. Place an alignment stick on the ground pointing directly at your target (this represents your target line).
2. Place a second alignment stick a foot behind your golf ball, also parallel to your target line. This creates a "gate" for your club head.
3. Take your setup and begin your backswing. Your goal is to keep the club head tracking between the ball and the second stick until the club reaches waist height. You want to feel the club head moving straight back before it starts arcing upwards.

If you pull the club inside, you will immediately hit that inside alignment stick. It provides immediate, non-negotiable feedback, showing you just how much you might be yanking the club inside on your normal swing.

Drill #3: Back Against the Wall

This is a great drill you can do indoors without a club.

1. Stand up straight with your rear end touching a wall.
2. Now, get into your golf posture. Your rear end should still be against the wall, but your upper body will be tilted forward.
3. Take your arms and simulate a takeaway.

If your hands or the imaginary club hit the wall instantly, you are pulling everything inside. A correct, wide takeaway will give your hands and club room to move away from your body on a proper arc before they eventually get near the wall at the top of your swing. This teaches you how to create width and depth correctly by turning your core.

Final Thoughts

Fixing an inside takeaway comes down to relearning your first move away from the ball. By focusing on a "one-piece" start, where the engine is your torso rotation instead of an armsy pull, you can set the club on the right path from the beginning. Practice the setup changes and run through the drills consistently, and you'll build the muscle memory for a powerful, on-plane backswing.

Having a trustworthy second opinion is a massive help when you're working on swing changes like this. When you are on the range doing these drills, you may wonder if you are getting it right, but have no way to get a quick confirmation. Our approach with Caddie AI is to give you that expert right in your pocket. You can ask anything about your swing mechanics or course strategy, 24/7. And if an old habit creeps back in and you find your ball in a terrible spot on the course, you can snap a photo of the lie, and we’ll give you a smart, simple strategy to get out of trouble and save your score.