Early extension kills your ball-striking. Here’s how to fix it

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

One of the most common swing ailments among recreational golfers is early extension. Yet despite its prevalence, most have no idea it even exists.

If you fall in that camp, he’s a quick explainer. Early extension occurs when the pelvis shifts toward the ball (forward) during the downswing. When this happens, you reduce the space for your hands and arms to swing freely through the hitting zone, causing inconsistent contact and a lack of power. Suffice to say, when you’ve got early extension in your swing, you are leaving susceptible to all sorts of ball-striking woes.

I myself fall into the camp of those who struggle with early extension from time to time. To help with that, I enlisted the help of GOLF Top 100 Teacher Tony Ruggiero to help me eliminate the ailment for good. Check it out in the video below.

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Setup flaws that cause early extension

Like many ball-striking woes, many of the root causes of early extension come from poor setup.

“One of the things that is important and often overlooked is the base of your spine,” Tony said. “Folks get the base of their spine too much [away from the target] at address which makes them slide out from under it and then they slide [toward the target]. As a result, they stand to try to get the club on the ball.”

To fix this, Tony suggests feeling like you are getting the base of your spine underneath the top of your spine. To do this, it will feel like your lead hip is bumped slightly toward the target at address.

It’s also important that you get the correct amount of hip hinge when you address the ball, feeling like your shoulders are over your toes when you set up.

“If you’ll take the club and put it across your waist and then push your rear end back,” Tony said. “Now let your hands come down to your knees. That would be a pretty good, athletic balance posture.”

If you struggle with early extension, check your setup fundamentals first. You may be able to correct the issue without even changing anything in your swing, but rather slightly adjusting how your body sits at address.

3 exercises to fix early extension

If adjusting your setup fundamentals doesn’t do the trick, it may be time to change how your body moves during the swing. This can be a challenge when going full speed, because your body is so used to moving in a certain way. That’s where using drills to ingrain the new feel come in.

During my lesson, Tony showed me three different exercise-band drills that help ingrain the feel of turning through the ball without early extending.

1. Punch exercise

The first drill Tony showed me is what I’m calling the punch exercise. To set up, he asked me to get into my golf posture and then drop my trail foot back away from the ball. Next, he had me grab an exercise band that was tethered behind me and then pull it across my chest with my trail arm. From there, he asked me to reach around my body and punch toward the target as I turned my body turned through.

“That’s pure rotation,” Tony said. “That’s your ribcage rotating through and over to your left leg. When you do that and isolate your weight over your left leg, it’s helping build stability.”

2. Rowing exercise

The next drill was the rowing exercise. For this exercise, I once again go into my golf posture, but this time I grabbed either end of the exercise band in each hand with the center of the band tethered on the ground in front of me. From there, I made a rowing motion going back with my trail hand, and then as I turned through to my lead side, I made a rowing motion going back with my lead hand.

“There you should actually feel with this resistance having to push off the ground a little,” Tony said.

3. Hinge exercise

For the final exercise, Tony had me get into my golf posture once again with my trail foot dropped back behind me. This time, though, he instructed me to hold the shaft of the club across my shoulders. From there, he asked me to rotate fully toward the target, posting up on my lead leg.

“A lot of people when they do that the first time, they’ll feel that their foot is fighting to hold the ground,” Tony said. “That’s your body figuring out how to stabilize itself. Everybody talks about mobility and strength, but I think one thing that is often overlooked is stability. If you’re not stable enough in that leg, you’re gonna want to stand.”

How to practice without early extension

After going through some exercises to train my body to stabilize itself, Tony showed me a great drill to use on the range when hitting balls to eliminate early extenstion.

For this drill, he asked me to wrap a thick exercise band around my legs just above the knees. Then, he told me to put pressure on the outsides of my legs, feeling like I was pushing against the resistance the band provided.

“It engages your core which stabilizes your lower body,” Tony says. “If you keep the tension and pressure on that band going through, it’s very difficult to stand up.”

This is a great drill to practice on the range when you are actually hitting golf balls. After a while, you can take the band off and try to maintain that feel when you swing. If you can continue to feel that pressure on the outside of your legs, you will stabilize your core and make it extremely difficult to early extend.

“This is a great plan for improvement for a person that’s trying to get rid of early extension,” Tony says. “You’ve got a few exercises you can do away from the range that you can combine that with your practice. And then you’ve got a drill you can do when you actually do hit balls. Then you just have to take that out on the golf course.”