Below I describe four of the more common finishes I see when giving golf lessons, possible causes of the finish, and ideas on how to eliminate, the swing faults that cause them.

High Finish

The high finish position is among the most common. Hands held high and a flying left elbow (for right handers) characterize the position, associated with pushes, thins shots, and shots struck toward the clubface&’s heel. High finishers tend to swing on an in to out path that&’s extreme, with the club traveling to the right of the target, minimizing control.

If you read my golf tips, you&’ll find that the in-to-out swing is my preferred approach; however, in this case, it&’s extreme. When the inside-out move becomes severe, you push the shot. When club comes too far inside with a closed clubface, you pull the shot. Also, swinging too far inside delivers the club below the swing plane, preventing the club from striking the ball on a descending path. The key is not to exaggerate the move too much.

Low Finish

The low finish stems from an overly out-to-in swing path, caused by a downswing motion initiated by the arms instead of the body. Players developing this finish come over the top of the plane, as I&’ve explained in my golf tips, causing the clubhead to cut across the ball through the impact zone. The position is associated with pull slices, pull hooks, and shots off the toe. Since the club is moving steeply and across the ball, none of the shots are well struck. Nor do they fly toward the intended target.

If you freeze this finish, you&’ll notice that the player&’s hands and arms seemed to be all jammed up. That&’s because the arms have moved earlier than the body, impeding the arm&’s movement and limiting their extension. To fix this problem, you obviously need to work on the body/arm synchronization, so your arms don&’t out race your body on the downswing.

Lunge Finish
I don&’t know how popular this finish is statistically, but I often see it in my golf lessons. With this type of finish, the player&’s head is in front of his or her left leg, or the golfer feels himself or herself falling forward. It stems from a poor rotation of the lower body through the hitting zone, causing the upper body to get ahead of the ball. The end result: the player fails to stay behind the ball during the swing.

To correct this fault, you need to work on your hip rotation. Try leading the down swing with your hips instead of your body. Try placing a chair to your front side, with the back of the chair just touching your hips. Take a few practice swings being careful to stay in contact with the chair&’s back as you turn through impact. Also, try finishing with your head over your left leg.

Reverse C Finish

The Reverse C Finish, in many golf instruction courses, was thought of as the perfect finish&’ that is, up until a few years ago. Now, it&’s not as highly regarded. With the reverse C, the golfer slides his legs and body laterally to the left (for right-handers) and too fast through impact. The weight, however, remains on the back foot. A reverse pivot&’which occurs when you fail to transfer your weight from the front foot to the back foot&’also produces a Reverse C finish configuration.

To correct this fault, you need more hip rotation and less slide. To cure the reverse pivot, you need more weight transfer. If your problem is the reverse pivot, try making your ordinary swing while lifting your front foot of the ground on your back swing, then replant it on the downswing. This helps transfer the weight from the front foot to the back foot, as it should. If you want to build more hip rotation in the swing, try taking practice swings with a shaft placed on right side of your hips. Your hips should rotate so that they never touch the shafts. If they touch, you slid.

The reverse C finish is one of the more prominent finishes. But like the lunge, low, or high finishes, it can indicate hidden swing faults that need correcting. The sooner you start working on correcting the swing faults discussed here, the sooner you&’ll start lowering your golf handicap.

Most professionals consider the absolute best way to lower a handicap to be the method of simply improving your putting as well as wedge skills. If you are able to drive the ball appropriately but fall dramatically short on the putting then you are going to be looking at a very high handicap for the rest of your life. Simply taking the time to focus heavily upon a good putting strategy can really help you shave a few points off of your handicap and improve your game. Between an emphasis on the wedge or putting you should generally focus more on your putting since virtually all holes are going to need to be putted while not all will need a wedge shot.

Most players also typically tend to find that by improving their putting and wedge skills that their long drive skills tend to improve as well. While this is not always possible, the general idea is that improving your shorter shots will gradually work to improve your long shots as well. As long as you are using proper form for your short shots, you should start to see a dramatic improvement in your score, which will ultimate help to improve those long shots as well. This can overall make a huge impact on your handicap since you can see a huge difference in your rating.

Another consideration that you should keep in mind is your confidence. Have you ever noticed that someone who is not very confident tends to make more mistakes no matter what they are doing? They may be an expert in their field, but without confidence, they usually make small mistakes just because they are nervous, if you discover that you are nervous on the field and are making these small mistakes you may need to work on boosting your own self confidence before you can really improve your overall handicap.

You should focus on what you are good at and improve your concentration and you are sure to improve your confidence. While you know that you are going to make mistakes, you should always strive to accept it is a learning process. This will allow you to slowly and carefully learn exactly what you can do to improve while still keeping a high confidence level. This combined with the other tips outlined above will work together beautifully to allow you to streamline your golf handicap and improve your whole game. These strategies can be used no matter how long you have been playing golf, even those players who have played for years can always use a bit of improvement.

Most professionals consider the absolute best way to lower a handicap to be the method of simply improving your putting as well as wedge skills. If you are able to drive the ball appropriately but fall dramatically short on the putting then you are going to be looking at a very high handicap for the rest of your life. Simply taking the time to focus heavily upon a good putting strategy can really help you shave a few points off of your handicap and improve your game. Between an emphasis on the wedge or putting you should generally focus more on your putting since virtually all holes are going to need to be putted while not all will need a wedge shot.

Most players also typically tend to find that by improving their putting and wedge skills that their long drive skills tend to improve as well. While this is not always possible, the general idea is that improving your shorter shots will gradually work to improve your long shots as well. As long as you are using proper form for your short shots, you should start to see a dramatic improvement in your score, which will ultimate help to improve those long shots as well. This can overall make a huge impact on your handicap since you can see a huge difference in your rating.

Another consideration that you should keep in mind is your confidence. Have you ever noticed that someone who is not very confident tends to make more mistakes no matter what they are doing? They may be an expert in their field, but without confidence, they usually make small mistakes just because they are nervous, if you discover that you are nervous on the field and are making these small mistakes you may need to work on boosting your own self-confidence before you can really improve your overall handicap.

You should focus on what you are good at and improve your concentration and you are sure to improve your confidence. While you know that you are going to make mistakes, you should always strive to accept it is a learning process. This will allow you to slowly and carefully learn exactly what you can do to improve while still keeping a high confidence level. This combined with the other tips outlined above will work together beautifully to allow you to streamline your golf handicap and improve your whole game. These strategies can be used no matter how long you have been playing golf, even those players who have played for years can always use a bit of improvement.