"Early Extension": The Hidden Killer of Consistent Golf Shots

The result? Chaos. Your body is an amazing survival machine; it knows it has to get the club back to the ball somehow. So it makes a series of last-ditch compensations—flipping the hands, slowing down rotation, anything it can do—to try and save the shot. This is where that frustrating inconsistency comes from.

Why Is This Happening?

Look, your body isn't trying to ruin your golf game (well, most of the time anyway). Early extension is almost always a reaction to something else, a compensation for a different problem.

• You're Trying to Create Space: This is a big one. Often, early extension is a direct result of an "over the top" move. If your downswing starts with the club coming down steeply from the outside, your body knows it's on a collision course. To avoid getting the club stuck in the ground or hitting a massive pull, your hips instinctively thrust forward to create space for your arms and the club to swing through. It's a clever physical reaction, but a terrible one for your golf swing.
• Misunderstanding "Power": Many golfers think power comes from a powerful thrust of the hips towards the target. They see pros with their belts pointing at the target at the finish and think they need to push their hips forward to get there. But in reality, power comes from rotational speed. The pros get to that position by turning their lead hip back and out of the way, not by thrusting the entire pelvis forward.
• A Lack of Stability: Sometimes it's a simple physical issue. If you lack stability in your glutes, hamstrings, and core, it's very difficult to maintain your posture against the rotational forces of a golf swing. Your body will default to the path of least resistance, which is often to stand up and thrust forward.
• Your Setup is the Culprit: If you set up with your weight too far towards your toes, your body's natural reaction will be to move your hips forward to find balance. Similarly, a backswing with a poor turn or a "reverse pivot" (where your weight moves to your front foot on the way back) leaves you with nowhere to go but out and towards the ball.

How to Stay in Your Posture

Fixing early extension is all about learning to rotate while maintaining your spine angle. It’s about creating stability in your lower body so your upper body can swing freely around it.

Here are a few feelings to work on:

• Keep Your Backside on the Wall: This is a classic drill for a reason. Set up with your backside just touching a wall or a golf bag. The goal is to make a swing and feel your glutes maintain contact with that object all the way through to impact. If you extend early, you'll immediately feel the space as your hips move away from the wall.
• Feel Your Lead Hip Clear "Back and Left": Instead of thinking about thrusting forward, a great swing thought is to feel your lead hip (your left hip for a right-hander) turning behind you. Imagine someone is standing behind you and you're trying to bump them with your left hip pocket as you start the downswing. This promotes rotation, not a forward lunge.
• Feel Pressure in Your Lead Heel: As you start the downswing, you should feel the pressure shift from your trail foot into the heel of your lead foot. This helps to anchor your lead side and encourages it to post up and rotate, preventing that forward movement of the hips.
• Feel Your Chest Down: Try to keep the feeling of your chest pointing down towards the ball for as long as possible through the impact zone. This encourages you to stay in your posture. The moment you think "lift up," you'll extend early.

Tackling early extension is a game-changer. It takes some work, and it might feel less powerful at first, but you're replacing a weak, inconsistent move with a stable, rotational one. Once you learn to stay in your posture, you'll find the centre of the clubface a lot more often. Your strikes will become more compressed, your ball flight more predictable, and those wild misses will start to disappear.