How you finish often reveals what’s happening during your swing In fact, I often key on a player’s finish in my golf lessons to determine exactly how to help he or she can improve their game. You can do the same for yourself–if you know what to look for.

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.

Which do you prefer – golf swing tips or golf putting tips? If you are like most people, your answer would be “golf swing tips”. This is the flashiest part of the game of golf. This is what journalists report on TV and newspaper sports columns. They blare out “Tiger Woods changes his swing!” on their headlines but never mention anything about how effective and efficient his putts are.

The simple fact is that perfecting your putt is the simplest way you can consistently shave off one or two strokes from your game. This is by far the easiest way you can practice your golf – without the limitation of having to go to the golf course. All you really need is your putter, a ball, artificial mats and cups to simulate the green. Place the mats and cups in your backyard or wherever you have space and away you go. Just spend anywhere from 5 minutes to half-an-hour every evening after dinner and you will notice the results in your game.

Here is another golf putting tip – close your eyes. Apparently some pros have been seen closing their eyes when putting. Basically, they know where the ball is and where the hole is. When they close their eyes, they just allow their body to take over – stroking the ball into the hole. Conventional wisdom has it that some people just cannot co-ordinate all the signals between their eyes and their arms because they have too much eye movement, especially when under stress. So closing their eyes changes the state of their whole nervous system, helping it to come under control again. A less extreme version of this technique is to keep your eyes fixed on the hole rather than the ball. Colin Montgomerie has been caught using this technique. Obviously, both versions of the technique require a lot of private practice before you trot it out in public.

Did you know that there are three different kinds of putter? The type most often used is called a conventional putter. It gives most golfers the best combination of sensitivity and mechanical precision. This is what most golf instructors will teach you to use. The problem is that people who cannot control their nerves or wrist action well usually mess up their shots.

To fix this problem, belly putters and long putters were invented. Golfers who use the belly putter anchor the handle to their abdomen. This reduces wrist action but also reduces control over the club and ball. The long putter, on the other hand, allows you to take a vertical stance and you swing the putter without any wrist action. It is great if you have a bad back, but it reduces your control even worse than the belly putter. Despite their flaws, you may want to test out the belly putter and long putter if you cannot get good results with the conventional putters. So what if your golf buddies laugh at you? The chance to take a few strokes off your handicap should be more than adequate compensation for their laughter.