GOLFTEC Tips: When to Extend Your Golf Swing

🏌️‍♂️ Early extension in golf occurs when players fail to reestablish their forward bend during the downswing, leading to inconsistent strikes.

👣 Practicing with a club under your trail heel helps keep your foot flat and encourages proper knee flex during the downswing.

🔄 The best golfers regain knee and hip flex in the downswing before extending through the shot for maximum power.

🦶 A simple drill of pushing down on a club under your heel can train you to avoid early extension and improve ball striking.

00:00:00 - Lexi, we are here today to talk about fixing early extension. That is a super common problem out there. So, we're going to talk through first of all what it is. Um, and if this is your problem, just a couple of different ways you can maybe go about fixing it. So, you ready to jump in? Oh, yeah. Let's get into it. Cool.

00:00:19 - Okay. So, step number one, let's talk through just what this exactly is because I think this is a very commonly misunderstood problem. I think a lot of people think they know what early extension is, but let's really just talk through it. So, what should happen in a golf swing is as you make a back swing, your shoulders, your hips, your knees are going to extend. That's totally normal. That's what should happen, okay? Um, as you start to make a down swing,

00:00:41 - what actually happens is you regain your flex. So, your knees regain their flex. Your hips actually bend forward a little bit. Your shoulders bend forward. That's what the best players in the world do to hit the ball really far. where early extension comes into play and where it becomes a problem is golfers don't ever reestablish their forward bend. So, they start straightening or they start extending too early, hence the name early extension. All it really is is

00:01:03 - just they're not reestablishing the bend that they that they had it addressed. So, um if this is your problem, generally what happens is a lot of times you'll see a golfer's trail foot start to come off the ground too early. Their knee will start to move towards the golf ball. And what that'll do is it'll push your hips towards the ball. It'll start to straighten your spine. It'll make it really hard for you to hit the ball solidly. So, you'll see a lot of inconsistent strikes. And then you can

00:01:26 - also shift your path too far into out and it'll cause directional issues as well. Okay. Seem to make sense? Yeah. Okay. So, if this is your problem, a really easy way to fix this is by taking a golf club and essentially standing on it. So, a lot of golfers, like I said, who struggle with this problem tend to move their trail knee out towards the golf ball, which means their heel comes up off the ground. So, if you were to stick a club under your heel and make

00:01:47 - some practice swings and really feel like you were pushing down on that golf club, that would keep your foot flatter on the ground, it would help you reestablish your flex in your knees, have a little bit more flex in your hips and your shoulders. And then once the club's parallel to the ground in your down swing, then you can start to straighten and extend as fast as you possibly can. Okay? That's what the best golfers in the world do to hit the ball really far. Cool. Okay. So, we'll

00:02:06 - practice that a little bit and see if that can solve some of your issues. Sounds good. Let me grab another club. Okay. Okay. So, Lexi, we're going to do this first without a golf ball just so you can understand how this works. So, get in your address position and I'll go ahead and position this golf club in the right spot. So, you want to put it under your heel. Yep. Your other heel. There you go. Perfect. And you kind of have it angled away from you so you're not going

00:02:27 - to hit it. So, you can feel how that's sitting underneath your heel there. So, your objective is really to not let this club fall to the ground. If you were to lift your heel up off the ground, see how that club would fall down and hit the ground? You're really trying to keep that in the same spot until after you hit the golf ball. So, essentially keep your feet really flat when you do this. So, just make a couple swings. Go like half speed. Have to go super fast. Good.

00:02:49 - So, you can still turn your shoulders and your hips. You can still turn your your body towards the target. When you finish the swing, it's actually okay to have that fall out. So, okay, there you go. Just like that. So, like when you finish, it's okay to have it fall to the ground. Perfect. Cool. It's be a really easy way to sort of practice getting this feel and just understanding how this works. Good. Okay. If anything, I would almost tell you to feel like you're pushing

00:03:12 - down a little bit more in the down swing. Like reestablish the flex in your knees. So, like when you start down, basically bend your knees again, point your chest down to the ground. There you go. And then extend on the way through. Perfect. Okay. So, after you've done that a couple times, then you can go ahead step up, hit a golf ball. So, I'll move this. Go take your address position. Same thing. We'll stick this under your heel. Push down. There you go. Just punch one out there.

00:03:45 - Perfect. So, you can see how that moves your knee more in towards your lead leg instead of out towards the golf ball. So, that'd be a really effective way to work through this. If that's something you struggle with, then you just start to build up speed and go faster and faster until you're able to do it without the club there. Cool.

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