What Your Finish Position Can Reveal About Your Swing Flaws (part I)

You don't need golf lessons to tell you there are only two times when your swing is static- at the start and the finish. The rest of the time it's in motion. While your address greatly influences your swing, your finish tells you how well or how poorly you swung the club. If you know what to look for in your finish, it reveals hidden swing flaws that can spell trouble on the course.

In this two-part article we'll examine six of the most common types of swing finishes. We'll look at three finishes this week and three next week. In examining each finish, we'll review why you end with this type of finish and what it reveals about the quality of your swing. Hopefully, this information will serve as a golf instruction session that will help you find and correct flaws in your swing and improve your golf handicap.

High Finish
The two most common finishes I see in golf instruction sessions are the high and the low finish. While finishing high isn't necessarily bad, what you do to create it can b. High finishers swing on very inside-out swing paths, with the club traveling way to the right of the target. While the inside-out swing is preferred, when taken to extremes, it minimizes control and often spells trouble. Typically, high finishes are associated with push hooks and push fades and with thin shots and shots hit off the heel of the club.

Good golfers almost never move the club more than a few degrees inside. When the club comes too far inside with a closed clubface, you hook. When it comes too far inside with an open clubface you push. In addition, swinging the club too far inside delivers the club below the swing plane, which often prevents the club from striking the ball on a slightly descending path. Shots from this position don't get compressed and are often hit thin. The key to correcting this hidden flaw is to be subtle with the inside move and not to grossly overdue it.

Low Finish
In contrast to the high finish is the low finish, which I also see a lot in golf lessons. A low finish results from an overly outside-in swing path. A downswing motion that starts with the arms instead of the body causes an overly outside-in swing path. When the arms outrace the body through the hitting zone, instead of being dragged through, the club comes over the top of the swing and into the hitting zone at a steep angle. This type of swing creates pull slices, pull hooks, and toe shots.

Shots from an overly outside-in swing path are seldom well struck and seldom on the desired swing path. If you look closely at the finish, you'll see that the player's arms are jammed close to the body. That's because the arms have moved earlier than the body and their action tends to be impeded by the body. As a result, you have no other choice but to bunch up in the finish and at impact, sapping power from the swing and decreasing control.

Lunge Finish
A common flaw fuels the lunge finish: a severe breakdown of the lower body through the hitting zone. You know you've achieved this finish when your head is in front of your lead leg at the end of the swing or you sense you're in danger of falling forward. Lungers hit a lot of thin shots or shots that travel unusually low. Generally speaking, all's well with the swing until the hips stop rotating through impact, causing the upper body (including the head) to get ahead of the ball and violating the golden rule of staying behind the ball when you hit.

The key to eliminating this flaw is getting your hips to work properly, you need to work on your downswing hip rotation. In other words, try leading your downswing with your hips instead of your upper body. To do this, try this drill: Place a chair in front of your lead leg with the back just touching you at the side of the leg. Now take some practice swings, being careful to remain in contact with the chair as you turn through impact. Finish with your head directly over your lead leg.

Swing flaws can creep into our swing undetected, affecting how well we hit the ball. If you're determined to lower your golf handicap, you need to find and fix the hidden swing flaws that can invade your swing. Analyzing how you finish your swing is a good way to spot and eliminate these hidden flaws. But first you need some golf tips on what to look for in your finish and why you finished the way you did. Next week, we'll look at three more common finishes and see what golf lessons they provide.

Copyright (c) 2007 Jack Moorehouse