This ‘mistake’ happens just as swing starts, top teacher says. Here’s his fix

Bryce Cope begins his swing, and faster than you can say ‘mistake,’ the top teacher has committed a sin. The move’s intentional, of course — he’s teaching a lesson — but this point remains:

Swing blunders can happen quickly — and he says one in particular is common. 

Cope was talking on a video posted to his Instagram account, and the swing area he was focusing on was the takeaway. There are right ways to initiate the swing, and then there’s the move he sees frequently — and can lead to disaster. 

Players, he said on the video, shouldn’t push their hands away from their body on the takeaway. 

“Usually from here to get the club behind them,” Cope said on the video, “players roll it to the inside, which opens a face and makes them come over the top.” 

So what should players do instead?

Keep the hands low and inside, Cope said. On the video, clips of Viktor Hovland, Nelly Korda and Justin Thomas were shown. 

And how best can you keep the hands low and inside?

“Feel like your back hand [right hand if you’re a righty] goes over your back shoelaces as the palm stays down,” Cope said on the video, “not push away from you and roll the palm up to the sky. This will keep the hands in and the face square, getting that club into a position where it can shallow more effectively.”

Below is the video, and below that are some additional thoughts. 

For convenience, here is what Cope said on the video:

“One of the most common takeaway mistakes I see is pushing the hands away from the body. Usually from here to get the club behind them, players roll it to the inside, which opens a face and makes them come over the top. Instead, we want to keep those hands low and inside like you’re going to see from most of the top players in the world. Feel like your back hand goes over your back shoelaces as the palm stays down, not push away from you and roll the palm up to the sky. This will keep the hands in and the face square, getting that club into a position where it can shallow more effectively.”

Also on the Instagram post, there were answers to a few questions, and those helpful exchanges are below, with the questions written in italics.

— “Goes for irons, too?”

“Yessir,” Cope said. 

— “Is there a reason why I only see myself doing this with my driver? It’s not an issue with my irons or even my 3-wood. Only with driver, which drives me nuts.”

“That’s a tough one,” Cope said. “It’s possible with it being the longest and heaviest club, you may be trying to help it around you.”

— “Is this only for driver? I always try not to bring my hands too far in on the takeaway. Always heard to keep the clubhead outside the hands.”

“This goes for all clubs,” Cope said. “I’d say it’s just a different way of thinking about it, but same end goal of hands not pushing away and club staying outside the hands. It’s not a mandatory rule, of course — there are many ways to do it and you’ll see some great players with that club slightly inside; just more so trying to avoid the extremes of way in or way out.”

— “I was told to think long and wide arc.”

“It’s not a bad thought, but it’s very player specific,” Cope said. “I see that thought get more players in trouble, as they tend to overdo it by locking out the wrists and shoving the arms out and away from the body. Also will see this cause players to sway off the golf ball as the arms stay overly extended. Not bad info; just very player dependent.”

— “What’s a tip for doing that with the hands but not dragging the club inside with it?”

“The mental cue of ‘hands in, club out’ is one I give to players that seems to click,” Cope said.

— “Definitely how to draw it; not hit straight.”

“JT, Nelly and Hovland in the examples aren’t big drawers of the ball,” Cope said. 

“Tried this and every shot is a pretty aggressive draw.”

“Grip may be strong,” Cope said. “Also possible that if you had the move of pushing away and rolling the club open off the start, you’d flip the hands through impact to square it. So now if you do this and the club stays more square off the start but you keep the same amount of flip through impact, the ball will go more left.”

— “Tiger [Woods] says to push your right hand out and if you can kiss your hands on your backswing, you’re doing it wrong. I now do what Tiger says and have put 50 to 60 yards on my drive. Also does not show the full swings on the pros. Not good advice, in my opinion.”

“You can keep the hands low and inside while keeping them wide,” Cope said. “Width of the arms isn’t only achieved from pushing them out and away from the start of the swing. I can keep my arms extended but still have them work around the body.”

Editor’s note: To help further the conversation, below is a story written in March by GOLF’s Zephyr Melton that was headlined “This cheat code will help you make a perfect takeaway every time.” You can also read it by clicking here.

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The takeaway is one of the most important elements of the swing. It’s the first movement you make and thus dictates how the rest of your move will play out. If something is off in the takeaway, you’ll be making compensations for the rest of the swing. That’s why it’s so important that you nail your takeaway.

Despite the takeaway’s importance, many recreational players don’t emphasize it enough. They’re too busy focusing on the results of their shots rather than the reasons for them. Often, the root cause comes back to a faulty takeaway.

If you want some reinforcement of the importance of the takeaway, watch Justin Thomas or Xander Schauffele go through their pre-shot routines. You’ll see that both of them rehearse the takeaway as they prepare to hit every shot.

If the pros are putting a premium on the takeaway, then you should be, too. Here’s how, courtesy of instructor Brian Mogg.

One of the most common faults in the takeaway for amateur golfers is the tendency to suck the clubhead way inside during the backswing. This causes the club to get stuck behind you at the top, and the only way to correct it is to come over the top and get steep during the downswing. This robs you of tons of power and often results in an ugly slice.

The fix for this is simple — and all you need to focus on is keeping the clubhead outside your hands when the shaft gets parallel to the ground during the backswing.

To drill this feeling into your swing, take an alignment stick and grasp it on your grip near the butt of the club. The alignment stick should extend up toward your body, and you want the end of the stick touching your lead hip. Next, get into your swing posture and begin to make a swing to the top.

When you make your takeaway, you’ll want to hinge your wrists so that the alignment stick drags down your lead side so that it’s touching your lead knee.

“What you’ll see is, if you do this correctly while adding turn, the clubhead gets above my hands and on the outside,” Mogg says. “And from there, we turn and lift our arms up to the top.”

Once you start drilling the feeling of the correct takeaway, remove the alignment stick and keep the same feeling in your arms and hands. If you do this, you’ll find that you can groove the perfect takeaway every time.

Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.