Lifting your head, or being told to keep it down

Where this can come from

These are the causes this symptom resolves to, in the order they turn up most often. That order is not a diagnosis and it is not your answer: two of them can produce a shot that looks identical from behind. Each has a fix you can read now, whether or not you answer anything.

1. 1

   Early extension

   The hips push toward the ball through the downswing and the body stands up out of its address posture. The hands and club are forced up and away with it, which moves the low point of the swing arc backwards and upwards. The result is a club that is still rising when it reaches the ball, which is why the strike catches the ball above its equator.

   Read the fix

2. 2

   Trying to lift the ball into the air

   An instinct to scoop the ball upward adds loft through impact and moves the low point behind the ball. Height comes from the loft already built into the club and from a descending strike, so the attempt to help the ball up produces the opposite: a thin or topped shot that never climbs.

   Read the fix

3. 3

   Weight hanging on the trail foot

   Pressure stays on the trail foot through impact instead of moving toward the target. The low point of the arc sits behind the ball, so the club either bottoms out early and takes turf first, or is travelling upward by the time it arrives. Both misses come from the same cause, which is why fat and thin so often alternate.

   Read the fix

4. 4

   Reverse pivot

   Weight moves toward the lead side going back and returns to the trail side coming down, the opposite of the order the swing needs. The low point ends up behind the ball and the club is rising at impact, so the strike is thin and the flight is weak.

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5. 5

   Swaying off the ball

   The body slides away from the target in the backswing instead of turning around a stable centre, carrying the middle of the arc with it. Unless exactly that much slide comes back at exactly the right moment, the low point arrives in the wrong place.

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Related symptoms

These are not here because they sound similar. Each one can come from a cause on the list above, which is why fixing one sometimes quietly fixes another. The closest matches are first.

• Topping the ballThe club catches the top of the ball and it scuttles along the ground instead of climbing.Shares early extension
• Hitting it thinThe leading edge catches the ball near its middle instead of the face meeting the back of it, so the shot comes out low and hot and stings your hands.Shares early extension
• Missing the ball completelyThe swing goes past the ball without touching it, and the ball is left sitting where it was or topples off the tee.Shares early extension
• Losing posture: standing up or dipping in the swingYour body does not finish the swing at the height it started it: you rise up out of your address posture, or sink down toward the ball, and the strike moves between thin, topped, heeled and fat as the bottom of the arc moves with you.Shares early extension
• Fine off a tee, hopeless off the turfThe same club is playable when teed up but gets topped, thinned or chunked from a fairway lie, and the longer the club, the worse it gets.Shares trying to lift the ball into the air
• Blading chips across the greenThe leading edge catches the middle of the ball on a chip or pitch and it shoots off low and hot, running across the green and well past the hole.Shares trying to lift the ball into the air

What this rests on

• The Physics of GolfTheodore P. Jorgensen, University of Nebraska, 1999, second edition; Springer reprint 2013
• 40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026