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Over The Top At The Bottom

I recently received a member question regarding steep contact. Specifically, this question has to do with steep contact at the bottom of the swing. Or in other words, there are times where players may work through some of the drills & concepts on the site, but still struggle with pulls and poor contact. In these cases, the (2) most common causes for this "steep at the bottom" pattern are:

A lack of ulnar deviation (or unhinge).
Excessive trail shoulder internal rotation.

Working through some focused 9-to-3s is a great way to start improving your ulnar deviation or trail arm pattern; thankfully there are a ton of videos on the site regarding these movements, so do not hesitate to give them a shot.

Playlists: Train Your Release, Unhinge in the release, Fix Your Flip

Tags: Poor Contact, Not Straight Enough, Release, Member Question, Intermediate

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This content video is discussing over the top at the bottom.

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So we actually had a member question about, hey, everything I try, I still get a little bit

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steep, a little bit over the top, but it's at the bottom this way.

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So basically, if you're looking at your checkpoint to a video and right around here,

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the club is inside the hands or inside the target line, so it's not out there compared

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to the stick.

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But it's inside through here.

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I'm all set up to come from the inside, but some golfers, depending on how they release

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the club, will typically get a little bit steeper a little bit outside, oftentimes they

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can struggle with toe contact, fat contact, or pulse.

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That's the classic kind of over the top late pattern.

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And it could be a pull hook if you have a good amount of motorcycle as you're releasing that

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way.

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So there's only a handful of causes for that movement.

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But I'll talk about the two most common.

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The two most common that I see would be either an inability or a lack of owner deviation.

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So if I keep this radial deviation that will, I would basically miss the ground unless

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I swing the shape of the swing enough to the left to basically create low point forward.

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This typically comes with a steep angle of attack.

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So if I do that one, I'm typically going to struggle with the longer clubs, three-wood

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contact, driver contact, and get very diggy contact even with my irons.

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So that would look, I'm in this position, but instead of the club continuing to go down,

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it's going to tend to drift out just like so.

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And you'll see that the shaft gets closer to horizontal instead of getting vertical.

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So that one's definitely one of the most common causes of getting steep down there at

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the bottom, or getting over the top at the bottom.

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When the other causes is that trail shoulder, and this is, I'd say, a compliment.

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Oftentimes these guys will happen in tandem.

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Getting that trail shoulder to go into too much internal rotation down at the bottom.

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So typically this one will happen when the arm is loaded in that position.

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It's kind of behind like this.

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And then it'll look like it's got more of a stall and more of a throw kind of like that.

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And oftentimes they'll come in and they'll hold the face kind of open more on the way through.

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So it'll have a really big look of a throw of the wrist.

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So if I'm facing this way, so now you can see from that down the line.

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It'll get back here and then it'll have a look where the club goes way to the left like this.

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So if that golfer is doing nine to three's, they'll have a hard time

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getting the club not to finish way to the left.

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So if you're doing the nine to three's, which is a good way to train steep at the bottom or

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train yourself out of the steep of the bottom pattern, you can get it a little bit more down.

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And you'll be able to get more of a right start line by getting the club to finish more

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out to the right at the end of the nine to three instead of way to the left, which comes more from

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that trail wrist trail shoulder.

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Or if you finish with the club slightly below your hands, that's a good sign that you did the

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owner deviation.

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If it finishes above your hands kind of like that, then that's a good sign that you're using more

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of the radial deviation or not getting enough of that shallower.

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The one, sometimes golfers who are not as hand aware or arm aware, if you're struggling with these,

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then you can also focus on more of the body and more of a bracing position of the body being

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back. But oftentimes those golfers are going to have really bad fat contact if they just get

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the body back there and they don't make it at least some change to what they're doing with the arms.

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So, if you're getting steep at the bottom, either look at that right arm going into internal

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rotation or the wrist not going into owner deviation, those are two most common causes of getting

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steep at the bottom when you're in a really good position at shaft last parallel, but then you

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still get steep and you still get a left mispattern down at the bottom this way.

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Those are the two main causes and we got lots of drills to work on how the trail arm works or how

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the owner deviation works on both sides.