The shaft of the club should point to the target when it’s in the correct swing plane.  Too far inside and the club will need to come over the top which results in another poor swing.

Proper alignment during your stance should help to correct this.  Are you stepped back enough from the ball when you line up?  Do you use your club as a gauge for this or do you stand where you feel “comfortable”?  You may need to unlearn some habits in this regard as many people crowd the ball far too often.

The golf club should not be pointed directly down at the ball but is typically best held at around a 45 degree angle.  Your arms and the club itself should be loose and comfortable away from your body, not held tightly close to it.  Make this a point of your practice swings, backing up more from your ball even if just a few inches.  See if you don’t lose that aspect of coming in too close to your body when you do this.  You may need to get comfortable with the extension but if done right, you’ll notice improvement to your entire swing.

The arms act like a hinge in order to keep the club in the correct swing plane.  Keeping it close to the body means that the body is going to work in harmony with the arms, not against them.  When you’re too closed during the backswing the swing is then too upright, so keep the dominant elbow close to the opposing elbow.  If the club is too steep, the elbow is probably not close enough.

If you see a picture of a golfer with a huge gap between elbows, you’ll notice quickly how nothing in their swing is working together – the body goes against the arms as they don’t hinge properly.  The body goes through something of a reverse pivot, leaning forward at the top of the backswing.  Often in cases like this their swing resembles that of a baseball player, not a golfer.  They will seem as if they’re smacking the ball hard, not swinging through smoothly.

Try to also pay attention to professional golfers and notice how their elbows are aligned.  Everything on their body seems to be working in harmony, not working against each other.  The elbows are crucial to this point.  When they’re out of alignment, the entire swing is off balance.  A few short practice swings will confirm this for most amateurs.

Problems with the follow-through are as common as problems with all other parts of the swing.  When the arms and the body are at odds and fighting with one another, the wrists get cocked too early in the follow-through.  The arms roll in order to square the club head at impact.  Typically in this type of scenario, the right shoulder is lower and the left shoulder is slightly raised.

When the swing plane is too upright, the body cannot unwind soon enough; this means the club can only go up and then back down over the right shoulder as you come into the follow-through.

Usually golfers compensate for not having an open clubface by employing manipulations during their steep forward swing.  They may push the club outside or flip the hands and wrists at the ball.  Commonly they will roll the arms; this makes them feel as if they are squaring the club because they are closing it.

Many instructors actually teach these manipulations to their clients but these are just inferior substitutes for handling the club correctly.

Usually an over the top motion is made to overcorrect a swing that is too steep.  The arms swing wide out when a golfer feels himself swinging too far inside.  Too often a golfer swings a club like a baseball player swings a bat.  In baseball, a wide outside swing will help with momentum in order to hit the ball as far as possible.  However golf is not played the same way that baseball is played.  There should be no need to “reach” for the ball or to build up that momentum with an overly wide swing.

Casting

A part of the over the top motion is casting, when the wrists come un-cocked too early.  This happens when the forward motion is not done correctly; when the forward swing is done correctly there is no motion made with the wrists this way.  The club head is back above the right shoulder.  Typically there’s not much you can do to fix casting except to fix your entire swing.

Most instructors claim to be teaching a release but in reality they’re just teaching a manipulation of one form or another.  While rolling the arms and un-cocking the wrists are both important, there are better ways of approaching the ball.

Many manipulations are overdone and exaggerated so that the clubface is closed at impact; this is just as bad as when it is open at impact.  A golfer will then no doubt hook rather than slice.

The way an arm swings around the body in golf is the biggest part of common mistakes made by golfers.  Usually they lift the club up high with their arms and then pull them down steeply, often trying to get as much power behind it as possible.  Anyone that slices is probably making this mistake.  When the arms are pulled up around and behind the body and then they swing back down steeply, this creates a huge curve or arc that the ball will naturally follow.  The arms swing across the body which in turn slides sideways.

The arms, body, and club all need to work together during a swing.  This will mean maximum power and control.  And if the swing is done correctly, this will not set the ball off course and into a slice.  Let’s go over a few more details about all those elements involved in the actual swing itself and you can see how this is true point by point.

~ Julius Boros, a U.S. Open and PGA champion

Obviously your success at the game of golf is going to be very dependent upon your swing.  It might seem like the pros have a natural ability when it comes to their golf swing and in some cases they do, but like so many other sports there are ways to improve your abilities.  In other words, if you know how to swing you’ll have a much better swing.  While general coordination is good and the ability to gage and “feel” the swing can help some golfers, for others it’s good to get instruction on how to actually swing and then worry about improving that swing as you learn the basics.

Typically mistakes made during the golf swing are made because the golfer hasn’t taken into account some basic laws of physics.  The golf ball is an inanimate object without a mind of its own; it will go where it’s pushed to go, and that pushing comes from the club, arms, and body of the golfer.  Understanding a few basic principles will enable anyone to improve their swing and correct where and how they push that ball forward, creating a better game.

Some golfers tend to shy away from this type of learning and understanding.  Usually they just want an instructor or pro to tell them where to put their hands and how to hold their arms when they swing, but this is somewhat shortsighted.  Everyone’s body is different, everyone’s natural swinging abilities are different, everyone’s level of physical strength is different.  An instructor that says “do this” or “don’t do that” to every student is not taking into account their natural abilities.  However, if you know what you’re trying to accomplish with a golf swing and how the many elements of that swing control the ball’s distance and direction, then you have freedom to make your own adjustments with your swing.  In other words, you can find things that work for you that might not work for another golfer, and this means your swing will improve naturally no matter what you do.  So if you understand how the different elements of a swing – the grip, the stance, the backswing, the follow-through, the curve of the shoulders and straightness of the arms – all affect the ball’s path, you can better understand how to improve that swing overall.

Let’s first go over some mistakes that many golfers make.  This is because sometimes with a golf swing, you need to eliminate the negative habits before you can bring in the positive pointers to help your swing improve.  If you don’t do this, you may be learning something wrong and making that a habit which then makes it that much more difficult to unlearn down the road.  Your swing becomes like a permanent program in your brain and every time you go through that swing, that program is becoming more deeply embedded.  So even if you learn tips and pointers for how to improve your swing in a positive way, if you don’t learn to get rid of the incorrect things you’re doing they may just become more permanent down the road.