Help with early extension and jammed up swing

[jbmoonchild]

 

I am a classic early extender and I am having trouble getting to the bottom of the cause of it. I think of early extension is a symptom and not a swing fault in and of itself - if I maintain my spine angle through contact, I will drive the club head into the ground 2 feet behind the ball. It always feels like my golf club is two feet too long and I need to stand up real tall on contact so that it clears the ground. Even when I early extend, I am very jammed up like the club still feels too long (it's not). So clearly something is wrong with my swing that is causing the necessity of the early extension.

 

I've taken plenty of video and I really don't believe I have an over the top swing path. I do seem to have a tendency to lunge at the ball a bit - my head and shoulders move down and towards the target and the ball on transition. 

 

I'm wondering if anyone can point me to some common reasons why I would feel like I need to early extend. Why does it feel like when I maintain my spine angle, the club is going straight into the ground 2 feet behind the ball

Edited September 6, 2021 by jbmoonchild

[tthomasgolfer605]

With your hands being low at address and the height of the tee, you really don't have a choice. You pinpointed it yourself. If you didn't early extend you'd hit way behind it. I see it all the time when people have 'standard' length 460cc drivers. 

[Valtiel]

It sounds like you have a solid understanding of what feels wrong, which is important. That feeling of the club being 2" too long is definitely a big part of why you're losing depth and extending early and IMO is coming from two main factors and how they match up; address position and backswing position. 

Looking at your address position first, your hands are very low and close to your body with a lot of angle between your arms and the shaft. Not necessarily a problem on it's own, but it requires the right matchups. Let's look at some comps:



You, Zach Johnson, Keegan, and Furyk. All high angle and/or closer handed address positions. Now let's look at where everyone goes:



Two notable things here. First, Keegan and Furyk have very upright backswings and high hands. The higher your hands, the straighter and more direct the line between their position at the top and at address. This means fewer compensations necessary to get the hands back to their address position. Keegan needs a lot of core strength and flexibility to stay in this posture, and Furyk needs to shallow the club a decent amount. Zach on the other hand takes a flatter, more rotational approach, which has three distinct characteristics. His hands are deeper but his backswing is short, so the club doesn't get too far behind him leading to additional compensations to get it back on plane. He also addresses the ball towards the toe of the club knowing that he will actually need to come closer to the ball and straighten the angles he has made at address. This all adds up to a consistently in to out path and a predominantly right to left ball flight. Zach has had trouble fading the ball over the years. 

Looking at your positions then, we see extremely deep hands (hands behind you) and a club that is also similar stuck back there. This is a bad match up and forces the compensations with your body (depth loss and early extension). This is where the feeling of the club being way too long is coming from, you simply can't get it back to your address position from here. Giving your hands and arms more space at address is the easiest first step, but you'll likely want to look at reigning in your backswing as well since any address position will require some sort of compensation with your backswing getting so deep. 

Edited September 4, 2021 by Valtiel

[jbmoonchild]

1 hour ago, Valtiel said:

It sounds like you have a solid understanding of what feels wrong, which is important. That feeling of the club being 2" too long is definitely a big part of why you're losing depth and extending early and IMO is coming from two main factors and how they match up; address position and backswing position. 

Looking at your address position first, your hands are very low and close to your body with a lot of angle between your arms and the shaft. Not necessarily a problem on it's own, but it requires the right matchups. Let's look at some comps:



You, Zach Johnson, Keegan, and Furyk. All high angle and/or closer handed address positions. Now let's look at where everyone goes:



Two notable things here. First, Keegan and Furyk have very upright backswings and high hands. The higher your hands, the straighter and more direct the line between their position at the top and at address. This means fewer compensations necessary to get the hands back to their address position. Keegan needs a lot of core strength and flexibility to stay in this posture, and Furyk needs to shallow the club a decent amount. Zach on the other hand takes a flatter, more rotational approach, which has three distinct characteristics. His hands are deeper but his backswing is short, so the club doesn't get too far behind him and require additional compensations to get it back on plane. He also addresses the ball towards the toe of the club knowing that he will actually need to come closer to the ball and straighten the angles he has made at address. This all adds up to a consistently in to out path and a predominantly right to left ball flight. Zach has had trouble fading the ball over the years. 

Looking at your positions then, we see extremely deep hands (hands behind you) and a club that is also similar stuck back there. This is a bad match up and forces the compensations with your body (depth loss and early extension). This is where the feeling of the club being way too long is coming from, you simply can't get it back to your address position from here. Giving your hands and arms more space at address is the easiest first step, but you'll likely want to look at reigning in your backswing as well since any address position will require some sort of compensation with your backswing getting so deep. 

Wow, thank you so much for such a thoughtful response! I hadn’t even realized how low my arms were hanging and I’ve been meaning to work on a less deep backswing as well.

 

will try these things and see how it goes!

[Valtiel]

7 minutes ago, jbmoonchild said:

Wow, thank you so much for such a thoughtful response! I hadn’t even realized how low my arms were hanging and I’ve been meaning to work on a less deep backswing as well.

 

will try these things and see how it goes!

No problem! It is all about the match up since Keegan and Furyk's hands are even closer, but they get equally high in the backswing to make that work. 

It might be an illusion, but it also appears like you may have REALLY long arms, which is something to take into consideration both with your mechanics as we're discussing but also with your driver fit. 



It would helpful to get your height and wrist to floor measurements to see where you stand in relation to "normal". I would not be at all surprised to find that your WfF measurement shows that your arms are longer in proportion to your body, even possibly around that 2" number you're feeling. 

Edited September 4, 2021 by Valtiel

[jbmoonchild]

6 hours ago, Valtiel said:

No problem! It is all about the match up since Keegan and Furyk's hands are even closer, but they get equally high in the backswing to make that work. 

It might be an illusion, but it also appears like you may have REALLY long arms, which is something to take into consideration both with your mechanics as we're discussing but also with your driver fit. 



It would helpful to get your height and wrist to floor measurements to see where you stand in relation to "normal". I would not be at all surprised to find that your WfF measurement shows that your arms are longer in proportion to your body, even possibly around that 2" number you're feeling. 

Interesting! I think I have long arms but I’m not sure what the numbers are supposed to be.

 

My wrist to floor is about 33” and my height is about 71”. Barefoot for both.

Edited September 5, 2021 by jbmoonchild

[Valtiel]

39 minutes ago, jbmoonchild said:

Interesting! I think I have long arms but I’m not sure what the numbers are supposed to be.

 

My wrist to floor is about 33” and my height is about 71”. Barefoot for both.

 

Wow yeah, I am 74" and my WtF is just shy of 35". My wingspan is 77" so my arms are longish. "Standard" wingspan is considered to be roughly equal to your height, and if your WtF is only 33" then proportionately you have even longer arms than I do! Very good for power, but that much more important when it comes to keeping yourself from getting stuck. 

 

Please measure your wingspan if you can to confirm (arms straight out, middle finger tip to middle finger tip).  

[jbmoonchild]

22 hours ago, tthomasgolfer605 said:

With your hands being low at address and the height of the tee, you really don't have a choice. You pinpointed it yourself. If you didn't early extend you'd hit way behind it. I see it all the time when people have 'standard' length 460cc drivers. 

Silly question but how do I get my hands higher at address? Stand farther from the ball or stand more upright?

 

EDIT: kind of “ancered” my own question (pun intended). Saw a photo of Abraham ancer at address, who probably has similar WtF measurement as me, and he is standing waaaay farther away from the ball. He doesn’t seem to care that his arms don’t hang straight down at address. For some reason I was caught up on having my arms hanging straight down after someone told me that once.

Edited September 5, 2021 by jbmoonchild

[jbmoonchild]

12 hours ago, Valtiel said:

 

Wow yeah, I am 74" and my WtF is just shy of 35". My wingspan is 77" so my arms are longish. "Standard" wingspan is considered to be roughly equal to your height, and if your WtF is only 33" then proportionately you have even longer arms than I do! Very good for power, but that much more important when it comes to keeping yourself from getting stuck. 

 

Please measure your wingspan if you can to confirm (arms straight out, middle finger tip to middle finger tip).  

Armspan is only about 2” longer than my height. I was born with some mildly funky stuff going on with my scapula and spine so my shoulders may be lower on my body. Oddly, my right arm hangs about 1.5” lower than my right (WtF). That’s the arm I originally measured at 33” WtF.

[Valtiel]

4 hours ago, jbmoonchild said:

Armspan is only about 2” longer than my height. I was born with some mildly funky stuff going on with my scapula and spine so my shoulders may be lower on my body. Oddly, my right arm hangs about 1.5” lower than my right (WtF). That’s the arm I originally measured at 33” WtF.

Ah that makes sense, thanks for following up. I thought it was interesting how it looked like your right hand sat very naturally below your left at address, makes sense then that it's because of the 1.5" difference in length. There could actually be some advantages in that, hah!

Everything else above still applies though, and if moving away from the ball Ancer style feels good then that is a good place to start. The thing to keep an eye on though is that you're maintaining depth, because ironically that problem can pop up in both scenarios. Stand too close/don't give yourself enough room and you can early extend to raise the handle and bring the club closer. Stand too FAR and you can early extend/lose hip depth to move towards the ball because it feels too far away. Finding the right middle ground and rotating correctly is the key there (check the AMG Pros vs. Ams Hip Turn video on youtube for that). 

[marlon]

Two words - upper body.

 

I fought this for years.  At the start of the DS, You are probably using your upper body to start, and this is incorrect - you want your hands, wrists to all be relaxed and the HIPS should be uncoiling towards the target HARD.  This will force your head back into proper spine angle and keep you off your heels which is indicative of EA.

Edited September 18, 2021 by marlon