Why turning too soon on your downswing can hurt your golf swing

Talk to any coach, and they’ll tell you one of the trickiest things about making a change to your golf swing is how easy it is to overdo it. Too much of a good thing can very quickly become a bad thing in your golf swing, which you’ll need to set about fixing once again.

An example of this? Turning, or rotating, in your golf swing. You’ve probably heard about the benefits of making lots of rotation on the backswing or downswing, and indeed, the benefits are very real. But the trick is to turn at the right time, in the proper sequence. If you turn too much, too soon, things will get ugly fast.

As this GOLFTEC coach explains below.

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On the left is a problem he sees all the time among mid and higher handicap students: They get to the top of the backswing and start turning too soon on the downswing. This sends the club over the top, and often results in a big slice.

The golfer on the right, meanwhile, has started his downswing by shifting his weight towards the target before starting to rotate. You can tell that by the hip sway number above either player: The golfer on the right has moved his hips exactly five inches towards the target, while the golfer on the left has only shifted his hips less than an inch towards the target.

And that’s important, because while turning too soon on the downswing leads you to swing over the top, shifting towards the target serves the opposite effect: It allows you to deliver the club into the ball from the inside.

It’s why, rather than thinking of turning as fast as you can on the downswing, he suggests a different downswing swing thought: Bump and Jump. You want to bump your hips towards the target to start your downswing, and then jump through impact.

To learn how you can implement Bump and Jump into your game, watch the full video below or book your own lesson at GOLFTEC right here.

Luke Kerr-Dineen

Golf.com Contributor

Luke Kerr-Dineen is the Director of Service Journalism at GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com. In his role he oversees the brand’s game improvement content spanning instruction, equipment, health and fitness, across all of GOLF’s multimedia platforms.

An alumni of the International Junior Golf Academy and the University of South Carolina–Beaufort golf team, where he helped them to No. 1 in the national NAIA rankings, Luke moved to New York in 2012 to pursue his Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University and in 2017 was named News Media Alliance’s “Rising Star.” His work has also appeared in USA Today, Golf Digest, Newsweek and The Daily Beast.