How to Stop Coming Over the Top
Quick answer
Coming over the top happens when your shoulders spin open in transition before your arms drop the club into the slot, dragging it across the target line. Stop it by delaying the shoulder turn, letting your arms fall vertically first, and feeling the club approach from inside the ball-to-target line.
Over the top means your club swings across the target line from outside to inside instead of dropping into the slot and attacking from the inside. You'll see it in the downswing: the hands and shoulders lunge toward the ball first, dragging the clubhead outside the ideal path, then chopping down and across at impact.
The result is an out-to-in path that produces pulls, pull-slices, or a full slice depending on where the face points at impact, plus thin or fat contact when the low point of the swing shifts. It shows up most with the driver, where the longer shaft and shallower lie angle magnify any steepness, but the same fault can leak into your irons too.
It almost always starts with the upper body (shoulders spinning open before the arms and club drop into position), often triggered by a takeaway that pushes the club outside the hands or a rushed transition from the top. Because several different faults can create the same over-the-top symptom, an AI swing analysis of your own swing can help confirm which specific cause is driving yours before you spend a bucket of balls guessing.
Why it happens
Early Shoulder Turn (Sequencing Fault)
The downswing should fire from the ground up: hips, then torso, then arms, then club. When the shoulders spin open before the arms have dropped, the club gets thrown outward and across the line. This is the single biggest cause of an over-the-top move, which is why most fixes target the arm drop in transition rather than the arms themselves.
Steep, Outside Takeaway
If the clubhead gets pushed outside your hands in the first two feet of the backswing, you build a steep, across-the-line shaft position at the top. From there the only way back to the ball is to cut across it: the downswing is compensating for a path problem that started before the top of the backswing.
Weak Setup and Alignment
Ball position too far forward, open shoulders at address, or weight hung on the lead foot all point the swing's natural path toward out-to-in. These setup errors don't cause the over-the-top move on their own, but they make it far more likely and much harder to feel your way out of.
Open Clubface Compensation
If the face is open relative to the swing path at the top (often from a weak grip or a cupped, extended lead wrist), some golfers unconsciously pull the club across the line to try to square the face by impact. Fixing the face position removes the reason the body is cutting across in the first place.
Disconnected Trail Elbow
When the trail elbow flies behind the torso in transition instead of staying in front of the body, the shaft steepens immediately and the club has nowhere to go but out and over the top. This mechanical fault often travels together with the early shoulder turn.
How to fix it, step by step
- 1
Check your setup before you swing
Ball position too far forward or shoulders aimed left at address bakes in an out-to-in path before you ever move. Use the Trail Hand Slide Drill to set the correct spine tilt and shoulder closure at address, and confirm your ball position hasn't crept toward your lead foot.
- 2
Fix the first two feet of the takeaway
An outside takeaway sets a steep position at the top that forces you to cut across on the way down. Work the Hands IN Club OUT drill slowly, without a ball, until the clubhead stays just outside your hands instead of getting shoved away from your body.
- 3
Feel the arm drop before you turn
This is the core fix. From the top, feel your arms and hands fall vertically before your shoulders unwind. The Dropping Drill (Justin Rose Feel) and the Single-Arm Drop Drill both isolate this move by taking the shoulders out of the equation until the drop becomes automatic.
- 4
Build a physical boundary to swing against
Feel isn't proof: a constraint is. Set up the stick drill from GOLF: The Best Golf Drill I've Ever Seen or the Hovering Alignment Stick Drill and swing at half speed. If your path is still over the top, you'll hit the stick; shallow the club until you consistently miss it.
- 5
Groove the inside path at speed
Once the feel and the constraint agree, take it to full speed with the 5 O'Clock Arm Drop Drill or the drill from Slice Fix System: Closed Shoulders & 7 O'Clock Entry, both of which train the arms and path to work from inside the target line rather than across it.
- 6
Clean up the clubface if you're still leaking shots
If contact is still off after the path improves, check the face: a cupped lead wrist at the top leaves it open and can pull you back into old compensations. Steep Fix: Bowing the Lead Wrist and Steep Fix: Trail Elbow in Front both help square the face and keep the trail elbow connected through impact.
The best drills for this fault
Ranked by effectiveness. Each drill page includes step-by-step instructions and a video demonstration.
1The Dropping Drill (Justin Rose Feel)
by Scratch Golf Academy
2Single-Arm Drop Drill (Stop OTT)
by Mark Crossfield
3GOLF: The Best Golf Drill I've Ever Seen
by Eric Cogorno Golf
45 O'Clock Arm Drop Drill (Inside-Out Path)
by Chris Ryan Golf
5Hovering Alignment Stick Drill
by GolfPass
6Slice Fix System: Closed Shoulders & 7 O'Clock Entry
by Rick Shiels Golf
7Steep Fix: Trail Elbow in Front (Nunchuck/Ball)
by Tyler Ferrell
8Left Forearm Pronation (Steep to Shallow)
by Giles Gill Golf
9Steep Fix: Bowing the Lead Wrist
by Tyler Ferrell
10Hands IN Club OUT | Achieve The Perfect Golf Takeaway | Golf Tips
by David Leathem Golf
Frequently asked questions
Why do I slice with my driver but hit my irons fine?
Driver has a longer shaft and shallower lie angle, so any steepness in your downswing shows up more, and the ball is teed forward, which exaggerates an out-to-in path into a big slice. With irons, the descending strike partly hides the same path fault, so contact still looks decent even though the path hasn't actually changed.
How long does it take to fix an over-the-top swing?
Most golfers feel a real change within a few focused range sessions once they isolate the arm-drop feeling. Making it hold up on the course under pressure usually takes several weeks of deliberate practice, since the old sequence is what your body defaults to when you rush.
Is coming over the top the same thing as a slice?
No. Over the top describes the swing path: the club cutting across the ball from outside to inside. A slice is the ball-flight result of that path combined with an open clubface. You can come over the top and still hit a pull or even a pull-hook if the face is closed relative to that path.
Can changing my grip fix an over-the-top move?
A grip change alone rarely fixes the sequencing fault, but a weak grip that leaves the face open can be part of why your body is spinning across the ball to try to square it. Strengthening the grip slightly can support a path fix: it won't replace one.
Why does my over-the-top move get worse under pressure?
Tension and adrenaline speed up the transition, and the shoulders are the easiest muscles to fire fast. When you rush, the upper body beats the arms into the downswing even more than usual, exaggerating the exact fault you're trying to remove.