What goes wrong, and why
Over the top: what the move looks like on video
The over-the-top move is a picture, not a feeling: the club travels out toward the ball before it travels down. By the end you will know the single video frame that shows it, and what it does to your club path.
The one frame to look at
Film from behind, on the target line, and stop the video at the moment your lead arm comes back level with the ground on the way down. That frame settles it.
In a swing that stays inside, the shaft in that frame points at the ball or just inside it. Over the top, it points outside the ball and beyond the target line. Golf Distillery describes the same fault from the same angle: the clubhead coming down on top of the target line.
The second thing to watch is the trail shoulder, the right shoulder for a right-hander. From the top it moves out toward the ball instead of down and around, and the club follows it. Judge both against things that do not move, which means the ball and the target line on the ground.
The arms go first
TPI calls the move an overuse of the upper body on the downswing. What that looks like on your own video is plainer than the name. The trail shoulder and arm fire from the top, the club gets thrown outside the line it went up on, and the hands run out of room before they get anywhere near the ball.
TPI treats it as a physical problem as much as a timing one, listing hip mobility, core and glute strength, and separation, meaning the ability to turn the upper body independently of the lower. What should move first, and why the lower body starting before the arms is what separates good players, is the subject of the golf swing transition guide.
Hear it
Three clicks: takeaway, top, impact. Start at the tour beat and move to whichever one you can actually swing to.
What it does to the path
Club path is the direction the clubhead is travelling at impact. On Trackman's convention, zero is straight down the target line, positive is in-to-out and negative is out-to-in. The over-the-top move puts you on the negative side and keeps you there.
Path on its own does not curve the ball. TPI's split is the useful one: with the face square to that out-to-in path you get a pull, a fairly straight ball that starts left of target for a right-hander. With the face open to the path you get a slice, which the guide to why you slice takes apart.
The move also brings the club in steeper than you intended, which moves the bottom of the arc. That is the fat and thin shots guide's territory.
Make the fault audible
Put a headcover on the ground just behind the ball, on the outside of the target line, and hit shots without touching it. A club coming down from outside the line catches it. Set it close to the ball, because a swing that is only mildly out-to-in can miss a headcover placed wide.
You cannot watch your own downswing, so the drill turns a move you cannot see into a sound. Film it again from down the line afterwards. Where you stand and how high you hold the phone change the picture more than most golfers expect, and the guide to filming your golf swing covers that.
Questions
- Can I feel myself coming over the top?
- Not reliably. The downswing takes a fraction of a second, and what you feel is where the club finishes rather than where it started down. A down-the-line video or a headcover on the ground will tell you in one swing.
- Is coming over the top the same thing as slicing?
- No. Over the top describes the direction the club is travelling. A slice also needs the clubface to be open relative to that direction. The two turn up together often enough to be confused, but they are two different measurements.
- I hit a draw sometimes. Does that rule it out?
- A right-hander's draw needs the club travelling right of where the face is pointing, and Trackman scores that path as positive, in-to-out. The over-the-top move sits on the negative side of zero. Trust the frame over the ball flight, because hands can save a shot from a path you would rather not have.
Sources
Every number on this page comes from one of these.