Coming over the top: spot it on video, then fix it

At address, your club shaft sits on an angle. That angle is a rough guide to the plane the club should return on.

In an over-the-top move, the start of the downswing throws the club outside that plane. The hands and shaft move toward the ball line and up, instead of dropping slightly behind you. From there the club tends to travel across the ball from outside to in.

What happens to the ball depends on the clubface:

• Face open to that path: the ball starts left of target (for a right-hander) and curves right. That's the classic over-the-top slice.
• Face square or closed to the path: the ball starts left and stays left. That's the pull.

Ball flight alone doesn't tell you whether the path or the face is the bigger problem. Video lets you look at the club itself instead of guessing.

Over the top is a down-the-line fault. You need the camera behind you, looking at the target.

• Put the phone at about hand height.
• Aim it along your hand line, parallel to the target line. Not at the ball, and not at the flag from off to one side.
• Keep the whole club in frame at the top of the backswing.
• Use slow-motion mode if your phone has it, so the transition has more frames.

Camera position matters more than anything else here. If the phone sits too far left or right of your hands, the shaft angles look different and you can see a fault that isn't there. The filming guide covers setups for the range and home.

Line 1: the shaft plane at address

Pause on the address frame. Draw a line starting at the clubhead and running up along the shaft, through your hands, and on past your body. This is your reference plane.

Line 2 (optional): ball to trail shoulder

Draw a second line from the ball up through your trail shoulder. It gives you an upper boundary. The space between the two lines is a useful zone for the club in the downswing.

Now step into the downswing

Set playback to 0.25x and use the frame-step buttons. Go to the top of your backswing, then step forward one frame at a time until your hands are around hip height.

Look at two things on those frames:

• Where the shaft sits. On or just under line 1 is a good sign. Clearly above it, and steeper than it was at address, means the club has come outside.
• Where the hands go. If the hands move out toward the ball line in the first few frames, rather than down, that's the over-the-top move starting.

If the club climbs above line 2 as well, the move is a big one.

These are the explanations most coaches start with. You may have one or a mix.

The upper body starts the downswing. If the shoulders and arms fire first from the top, the trail shoulder pushes out toward the ball and drags the club with it. In a sound transition the lower body starts the move and the arms drop a little first.

Open shoulders at address. If your shoulders aim left of your feet at setup (for a right-hander), the club is already set up to swing across the ball. Check it with a line across both shoulders on a face-on or down-the-line frame.

Ball too far forward. With the ball well up in the stance, the shoulders tend to open to reach it, which encourages an out-to-in path.

Compensating for a slice. An open clubface sends the ball right. Many golfers then aim left and swing more left to keep it in play, which makes the path worse. The face and the path feed each other.

If your video shows over the top along with the wrist angle releasing early from the top, look at casting too. The two often show up together.

This drill gives you instant feedback on path.

1. Set up to a ball with a mid-iron.
2. Place a headcover just outside the ball (on the far side from you) and a few inches behind it, toward your trail foot.
3. Make slow half swings first, then build up.

An over-the-top path comes from outside and hits the headcover. To miss it, the club has to approach from inside. Start with soft swings and only speed up once you can miss it every time.

Re-film and re-check. After a bucket of balls, film a few swings from the same camera spot without the headcover. Draw the same shaft-plane line and compare the hip-height frame with your first video.

This one trains the first move down, which is where over the top starts.

1. Swing to the top and stop.
2. Pump down slowly to about hip height. Feel the hands drop and the trail elbow move in toward your trail hip, while your back stays turned to the target.
3. Go back to the top, pump once more, then swing through and hit the ball.

The point is to feel the club falling behind you, not being thrown out toward the ball. Do a few rehearsals for every ball you hit.

Re-film and re-check. Film down-the-line again and step to the first frames after the top. You are looking for the hands moving down rather than out, and the shaft staying on or under your address line.

The AI reads one paused frame, so pick the frame that shows the fault best. For over the top, that's the early downswing: a frame or two after the top, or with the hands around hip height.

1. Pause on that frame.
2. Tap AI on mobile or AI Coach on desktop, then Analyze Current Frame.
3. You get the swing phase it sees, up to three strengths, up to two fixes with a feel to try, and one drill.

If it flags a steep shaft or an outside path in the fixes, that backs up what your lines show. If it doesn't, trust the lines on your own video and re-check from a better camera spot. Only the paused frame is sent; your video stays on your device.

It helps to see what the same line looks like on a swing that doesn't come over the top. Open the Tiger Woods iron sample and scrub to a down-the-line swing (camera behind him, looking at the target). The clip runs several minutes with more than one camera angle; from about the two-minute mark it is split-screen, with down-the-line on the right. Draw the shaft-plane line at address and step into his downswing at 0.25x.

Then go back to your own swing and draw the line the same way. Don't try to copy every position. Just compare where the shaft sits relative to the address line in the first few frames down. The compare to a pro guide explains how to line up checkpoints between two swings.