How to Fix Your Swing Plane and Over the Top Move


Published: February 20, 2026

Pretty good over the top move. Do you know what causes it? And more importantly, do you know how to fix your swing plane?

Swing plane

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Is all about understanding how to fix the inside stuff, not the outside stuff you see.

When most golfers have a golf swing that comes over the top and produces those giant pull-slices, the way they're typically taught to fix it is with some sort of visual or mental cue. The one you've probably heard most often — and probably paid good money for — is: "You're swinging over the top, so just pretend you're swinging down the first baseline."

If that worked, everybody would be fixed already. But of course it doesn't work, because it doesn't change anything in your actual swing mechanics. It doesn't address what's fundamentally broken.

All that tip accomplishes is getting you to take the club way outside and then try to drop it inside, manipulate it with your hands and wrists, and then produce a big flip at the bottom. None of that works to fix swing plane. You have to fix what's actually broken. We've talked about pushing versus pulling and how that causes you to come over the top, but there's another critical factor: understanding the true fundamentals of swing plane correction. When working on your swing, never try to take the club away outside and loop it under. You'll never get real results from that approach — you'll just be learning how to time a big hand-flip at the bottom.

The right way to fix swing plane is to understand the inside determinant of swing plane. Remember: everything with rotary swing starts from the inside out. We have to look at how the body is moving first — not the club. Here's the secret: as soon as you fix your body, the club fixes itself. You'll never be out there practicing drills trying to put the club on a certain plane or path ever again. Instead, you'll make tiny adjustments with just your body, and that will fix swing plane automatically. Use an AI swing analyzer to see exactly where your body positions are breaking down and causing the over the top move — the data removes all the guesswork.

The first thing to address is your spine angle. At address, you need what's called axis tilt. All that means is: if you held a club up through your sternum and belt buckle, and slid your hips toward the target until the club touches your lead knee, that's tilt. You're simply tilting your spine angle away from the target. What that does is immediately preset a predetermined swing plane before you even start moving. Most golfers set up with no axis tilt — or even reverse tilt — because they're so trail-side dominant. They want to get the trail hand on top of the club in a powerful position, so they get their head in front of the ball at address. The ball goes way back in the stance, the hands are forward, the head is forward, and the spine is upright. This is an incredibly common setup position — and I guarantee you, no matter how much you try to manipulate that golf club, you're still going to swing over the top.

But watch what happens when you add axis tilt: your swing plane changes immediately. As you start the downswing with proper tilt maintained, the shaft automatically drops into a shallower, more powerful path. All you're doing is changing the angle of your spine. Remove that tilt and the shaft steepens — you come over the top. Add it back and the plane corrects itself without any conscious club manipulation.

So as you change the angle of your spine by shifting your weight correctly, the club responds. The hands and arms don't need to move independently — they stay in the same position relative to the chest. The only thing that changes is the spine angle, driven by a correct weight shift.

The first fundamental you'll learn is how to properly shift your weight, because weight shift doesn't just build power and momentum — it creates the swing plane. As you learn to shift your weight and understand the position your spine should be in, you'll never swing over the top again. You'll never chase random tips about swinging down the first baseline or looping the club inside on the way down. That approach is broken. Fix your body first, and the club takes care of itself. The GOAT Drill system gives you a structured, rep-by-rep framework for ingraining the correct body rotation and weight shift sequence — the foundation for a proper swing plane that holds up under pressure.

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Watch part 2 now to see how you're moving your body in the opposite direction of the pros!

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