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Striving for improvement in your game is addictive. When you’ve got the golf bug, all you can do is think about the game.

As a golf addict for going on 20 years, the feeling is all to familiar. I’m the guy that rehearses my swing any chance I get. In the living room. On the subway platform. At the bar. Heck, sometimes I even dream about my swing thoughts. What can I say, it’s a sickness.

Since last summer, I’ve been militant about improving my swing. I’ve always known how to score, but now it’s my mission to build a consistent, technically sound swing. That includes practicing two to three days a week, and learning all I can about how my swing works.

I’m fortunate to have plenty of top golf-instruction minds at my disposal, but sometimes, diagnosing my swing comes from other sources. For example, the app Sportsbox AI has become my go-to for quick swing diagnoses.

How Sportsbox AI is helping fix my swing

Sportsbox AI is an app that uses motion-analysis kinetic software to convert videos of your swing (taken on your smartphone) into 3D models to provide real-time, corrective feedback. The app has the backing of some of the brightest teaching minds in the game, and was recently acquired by a group led by Bryson DeChambeau. The two-time major champ himself even utilizes the app to work on his own game, if that tells you anything about its swing-nerdiness.

Over the past few months, I’ve been using Sportsbox AI to analyze my swing after every practice session — and it exposed a couple of glaring flaws in my swing.

Too much hip rotation

One of the cool things about Sportsbox AI is that it provides a generally acceptable range for just about every movement in the swing. One such movement is called “Pelvis Turn,” which measures how much your hips rotate during the swing.

Early on in using Sportsbox, I noticed that my pelvis turn numbers were always in the red when I reached the top of the backswing. Upon further inspection, it turned out that my hips were turning too much, too early in the swing.

Now, a big hip turn may sound like something good, but it is easy to overdo it. When you turn your trail hip too much early in the backswing, it reaches the end of its range of motion. And if this happens before you finish turning your upper body to the top of the swing, you have to lift your arms to complete the backswing.

This is a problem that many recreational golfers have — and it was killing my swing. Sportsbox AI flags the issue in my swing every time it happens, letting me know when I need to watch how much I am turning my hips during the backswing.

When I first started using Sportsbox, my hip-turn number was as much as -51 degrees (negative is turn away from the target). But now, when I am swinging my best, I am closer to -39 degrees, keeping my pelvis turn numbers in the green.

Early extension

I’ve always had a bit of early extension in my swing, and Sportsbox caught it right away. One of the features of the app is its “Swing Flaws” feature which tells you if it catches a common flaw in your swing.

One way you can monitor for early extension is the “Chest Bend” number. When you bend at your hips and your chest gets closer to the ground, it helps keep your pelvis back and out of the way, reducing early extension and allowing room for your arms to swing freely.

With my old swing, my chest-bend number at the top of the swing was around -6 degrees, which is right at the edge of the range for the top of the swing. After seeing that, I made sure to bend at my hips more to initiate the downswing, and my chest bend number is now around +2 degrees.

This number is great for me to keep an eye on throughout the swing, as it tells me if I am early extending during the downswing. In my experience thus far, so long as I keep the chest bend numbers in the green, I do not early extend nearly as much.

If you’re someone who wants high-level analysis of your swing, Sportsxbox AI is a great option. The amount of data it throws at you can be intimidating at first, but once you begin to interperate what all the numbers mean, you’ll understand your swing like never before.

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Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

Early extension is a golf-swing killer.

We’ve covered this topic ad nauseam on this site — but for good reason. When you thrust your hips toward the ball too early in the downswing, you eliminate the space needed to effectively turn through the ball. When that happens, your ball striking always suffers.

Understanding the proper technique to eliminate early extension is extremely important. However, for some golfers, understanding the issue is only half the battle. Because of physical limitations in their bodies, they simply can’t execute the technique that eliminates early extension.

“Everybody talks about mobility and strength, but I think one thing that is often overlooked is stability,” says GOLF Top 100 Teacher Tony Ruggiero. “If you’re not stable enough in that [front] leg, you’re gonna want to stand.”

If you’re someone who suffers from early extension, check out the video below. In it, Tony shares three different exercises you can do to strengthen your body so you can move in a way that doesn’t result in early extension.

3 exercises to fix early extension

What I love about the exercises Tony showed me is that they incorporate the movements of a golf swing. They don’t simply target the necessary muscle groups; they also force your body to move in the same way that they do during the golf swing.

1. Punch exercise

The first drill is what I call the punch exercise. To set up, get into your golf posture and then drop your trail foot back away from the ball. Next, grab an exercise band that is tethered behind you and pull it across your chest with your trail arm. From there, reach around your body and punch toward the target as you turn your body through.

“That’s pure rotation,” Ruggiero says. “That’s your ribcage rotating through and over to your left leg. When you do that and isolate your weight over your left leg, it’s helping build stability.”

2. Rowing exercise

The next drill is the rowing exercise. For this exercise, get into your golf posture. This time, grab either end of the exercise band in each hand with the center of the band tethered on the ground in front of you. From there, make a rowing motion going back with your trail hand, and then as you turn through to your lead side, make a rowing motion going back with your lead hand.

“There you should actually feel with this resistance having to push off the ground a little,” Ruggiero says.

3. Hinge exercise

For the final exercise, get into your golf posture once again with your trail foot dropped back behind you. This time, hold the shaft of the club across your shoulders. From there, rotate fully toward the target, posting up on your lead leg.

“A lot of people when they do that the first time, they’ll feel that their foot is fighting to hold the ground,” Ruggiero says.

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Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

One of the most common swing ailments among recreational golfers is early extension. Yet despite its prevalence, most have no idea it even exists.

If you fall in that camp, he’s a quick explainer. Early extension occurs when the pelvis shifts toward the ball (forward) during the downswing. When this happens, you reduce the space for your hands and arms to swing freely through the hitting zone, causing inconsistent contact and a lack of power. Suffice to say, when you’ve got early extension in your swing, you are leaving susceptible to all sorts of ball-striking woes.

I myself fall into the camp of those who struggle with early extension from time to time. To help with that, I enlisted the help of GOLF Top 100 Teacher Tony Ruggiero to help me eliminate the ailment for good. Check it out in the video below.

Setup flaws that cause early extension

Like many ball-striking woes, many of the root causes of early extension come from poor setup.

“One of the things that is important and often overlooked is the base of your spine,” Tony said. “Folks get the base of their spine too much [away from the target] at address which makes them slide out from under it and then they slide [toward the target]. As a result, they stand to try to get the club on the ball.”

To fix this, Tony suggests feeling like you are getting the base of your spine underneath the top of your spine. To do this, it will feel like your lead hip is bumped slightly toward the target at address.

It’s also important that you get the correct amount of hip hinge when you address the ball, feeling like your shoulders are over your toes when you set up.

“If you’ll take the club and put it across your waist and then push your rear end back,” Tony said. “Now let your hands come down to your knees. That would be a pretty good, athletic balance posture.”

If you struggle with early extension, check your setup fundamentals first. You may be able to correct the issue without even changing anything in your swing, but rather slightly adjusting how your body sits at address.

3 exercises to fix early extension

If adjusting your setup fundamentals doesn’t do the trick, it may be time to change how your body moves during the swing. This can be a challenge when going full speed, because your body is so used to moving in a certain way. That’s where using drills to ingrain the new feel come in.

During my lesson, Tony showed me three different exercise-band drills that help ingrain the feel of turning through the ball without early extending.

1. Punch exercise

The first drill Tony showed me is what I’m calling the punch exercise. To set up, he asked me to get into my golf posture and then drop my trail foot back away from the ball. Next, he had me grab an exercise band that was tethered behind me and then pull it across my chest with my trail arm. From there, he asked me to reach around my body and punch toward the target as I turned my body turned through.

“That’s pure rotation,” Tony said. “That’s your ribcage rotating through and over to your left leg. When you do that and isolate your weight over your left leg, it’s helping build stability.”

2. Rowing exercise

The next drill was the rowing exercise. For this exercise, I once again go into my golf posture, but this time I grabbed either end of the exercise band in each hand with the center of the band tethered on the ground in front of me. From there, I made a rowing motion going back with my trail hand, and then as I turned through to my lead side, I made a rowing motion going back with my lead hand.

“There you should actually feel with this resistance having to push off the ground a little,” Tony said.

3. Hinge exercise

For the final exercise, Tony had me get into my golf posture once again with my trail foot dropped back behind me. This time, though, he instructed me to hold the shaft of the club across my shoulders. From there, he asked me to rotate fully toward the target, posting up on my lead leg.

“A lot of people when they do that the first time, they’ll feel that their foot is fighting to hold the ground,” Tony said. “That’s your body figuring out how to stabilize itself. Everybody talks about mobility and strength, but I think one thing that is often overlooked is stability. If you’re not stable enough in that leg, you’re gonna want to stand.”

How to practice without early extension

After going through some exercises to train my body to stabilize itself, Tony showed me a great drill to use on the range when hitting balls to eliminate early extenstion.

For this drill, he asked me to wrap a thick exercise band around my legs just above the knees. Then, he told me to put pressure on the outsides of my legs, feeling like I was pushing against the resistance the band provided.

“It engages your core which stabilizes your lower body,” Tony says. “If you keep the tension and pressure on that band going through, it’s very difficult to stand up.”

This is a great drill to practice on the range when you are actually hitting golf balls. After a while, you can take the band off and try to maintain that feel when you swing. If you can continue to feel that pressure on the outside of your legs, you will stabilize your core and make it extremely difficult to early extend.

“This is a great plan for improvement for a person that’s trying to get rid of early extension,” Tony says. “You’ve got a few exercises you can do away from the range that you can combine that with your practice. And then you’ve got a drill you can do when you actually do hit balls. Then you just have to take that out on the golf course.”

Warm-Up Band, Black – Yobow Golf Recovery

Features: Warm up your lower body in less than a minute. Activates glutes, hamstrings and quads. Regular use leads to stronger and more stable hips which is essential in most sports Builds core and glute strength Helps with Injury prevention Will not snap or pull on skin Strength: Blue = Medium, Black=Strong

$25.00 from PGA TOUR Superstore

View Product

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Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

Every golfer knows how far they hit their driver (or at least has a general idea). But did you know that environmental factors can have a huge impact on how far the ball flies? Wind, temperature and elevation are all factors that can influence how your golf ball flies — and if you don’t know how these things affect your ball, it can have a huge impact on your game.

If you play a majority of your golf in one place, this may come as a surprise. When you are hitting your driver at your home course every day, the conditions will likely be fairly uniform from day to day. But when you take your game on the road, the conditions tend to be different, and you need to adjust your game accordingly.

Elevation is a particular environmental factor that can have a huge impact on how far your ball flies. So, how much does elevation affect your distance? For more on that, we dive into the Arccos Annual Driving Distance Report.

How elevation affects driving distance

You’ve probably heard that playing golf at higher elevations means your drives will fly farther — but by how much exactly? It’s probably more than you think.

According to Arccos’ data, 10 handicaps hit their driver just over 220 yards on average at sea level. However, when playing at over 5,000 feet of altitude (think Denver), that number jumps up to 239.7 yards. That’s a nearly 20 yard jump simply by virtue of higher altitude.

“Most golfers who play in Denver, Albuquerque, or anywhere in the Mountain West have experienced this intuitively,” Arccos wrote. “But 19.2 yards is not intuition — it is a precise, real-world figure derived from millions of actual shots at elevation, and it changes club selection in ways most golfers never fully account for.”

If you’re a golfer who plays a majority of your golf at sea level, this can be a huge boon for your game when you head to higher altitudes. Conversely, if you’re typically a mountain golfer, playing at sea level will make courses play a heck of a lot longer.

Next time you play golf in a new locale, be sure to take note of the elevation. It can have a huge impact on how far your drives fly.

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Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

Hitting longer drives off the tee doesn’t always require you to swing harder. Sure, it helps to put more force into the ball, but there’s another way to belt it past your playing partners without swinging out of your shoes — and it all starts with optimizing your launch conditions.

One of the best ways to hit the ball longer is by increasing your attack angle. If you can hit more “up” on the ball, you can launch it higher and with less spin, which is crucial for hitting longer drives.

So, how can you increase your attack angle angle? One easy way is by adjusting the way you set up to the ball.

Fundamentals like setup are often overlooked by recreational golfers, but they can have a huge impact on how you strike the ball. A poor setup can lead to all sorts of issues in the swing, which leads to compensations that can have negative long-term consequences. But if you set up to the ball correctly, you will put yourself into the best possible position to strike it consistently.

If you want to increase you attack angle (and set yourself up for a solid strike on every drive), it’s important you learn how to set up to the ball correctly with a driver. I recently learned how to do this from GOLF Top 100 Teacher Jason Baile, and it has helped me hit the driver longer than ever before.

Increase attack angle with a setup tweak

One problem I have when setting up to the driver is that my shoulders and hips are too level at setup. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing when hitting irons and wedges, but for clubs that demand a more positive angle of attack (like the driver), it causes some issues. Namely, it creates conditions for a negative attack angle.

A negative attack angle isn’t necessarily a death knell when hitting the driver, but when you are a slower swing speed player, it can sap you of distance. When you hit down on the ball, it increases spin. This is great for control, but robs you of distance. So if you want to hit the ball longer, you’re better off hitting up on it.

If you watch LPGA pros, you’ll notice that they don’t swing especially hard at the ball, but they still get plenty of distance on their drives. This is a direct result of optimizing their attack angles and hitting up on the ball, allowing them to maximize their distance without swinging harder.

In my lesson with Jason Baile, we made it a goal to get my attack angle up to not only help me get more distance, but also put me in a better position for a consistent strike. This all started with adjusting my setup.

The first thing he asked me to do was slightly “bump” my lead hip toward the target at address. This movement slightly raised my lead hip and lowered my trail hip.

“I’d rather see you get the proper tilts at address with your lower body than your upper body,” Jason said.

The next thing he fixed was the orientation on my arms at address. Before, I had a tendency to get my trail arm too high, which covered up my lead arm when looking at my swing from down the line. To fix it, he had me think about pointing my trail elbow more at my trail hip when I gripped the club.

By tweaking these two simple setup mistakes, I instantly increased my angle of attack and got into a better position to make swings that didn’t have so many compensations built in.

If you are someone who needs more distance with the driver, check out the attack angle numbers of your driver on a launch monitor. Chance are, you need a little more positive angle of attack to launch the ball higher. For that, all you need to do is make a few small setup tweaks.

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Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

Everyone wants to get better at golf. Even the best players in the world are always looking for any edge they can find to shoot lower scores.

The problem with most recreational golfers is that they don’t fully understand why they shoot higher scores than better players. Sure, they recognize the macro-level differences — longer drives, closer approaches, fewer putts — but they don’t always understand how better golfers consistently put themselves in position for success.

The latest Arccos Annual Distance Report shed light on this topic, and it all starts with accuracy off the tee.

1 big difference between good and bad golf

As you might expect, low-handicap golfers are more accurate off the tee than their high-handicap counterparts. But the gap between the two is smaller than you might think.

According to Arccos’ data, low single-digit handicaps (0–5) hit 50 percent of fairways across all age groups, while high-handicap players (30+) hit 40 percent. So, over the course of an average round, a low-handicap player will hit only one or two more fairways than a high-handicap playing partner.

That’s likely a much smaller discrepancy than you expected (it certainly surprised me). But if you dig a little deeper into the data, you’ll see the biggest difference between these groups comes from the severity of their misses.

Wayward drive percentage

The table above charts the percentage of wayward drives across handicap groups, and it highlights one of the clearest differences between good and bad golfers.

According to Arccos, a “wayward drive” is any tee shot that results in either a penalty stroke or a recovery situation, such as a punch-out or layup. And as the chart shows, better golfers hit far fewer wayward drives than higher-handicap players.

A low-handicap golfer hits only about 12 percent of tee shots into this wayward category, while high-handicap golfers hit 45 percent of their drives wayward. Over a typical round, that means a low-handicap player hits only one or two drives into serious trouble. A high-handicap player, on the other hand, hits six or seven wayward drives — nearly half of all tee shots.

So what does this mean for you? If you want to shoot scores like a low-handicap golfer, you need to drive the ball like one — and that means keeping the ball in play. You don’t need to hit every fairway, but you do need to avoid the big miss. Do that consistently, and lower scores will follow.

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Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

Driving distance can be a delicate subject in some corners of the golf world. Some argue that distance has gotten out of control and guardrails need to be implemented to slow the trend. Others say that this worry is much ado about nothing and that longer drives are actually good for the game.

No matter where you land on this spectrum, one thing is certain: hitting the ball longer makes the game much easier. You get the idea: When you hit less club into greens, the number of birdies you make is sure to go up, and with more birdies on the card, your scores will be lower.

So pros and amateurs are searching for any way they can increase their driving distance. But how successful have they been in this pursuit? Thanks to Arccos’ latest Annual Driving Distance report, we can see exactly how far recreational players are hitting their drives — and how this number has changed over the years.

How far golfers hit driver

Arccos’ shot-tracking system has amassed over a billion data points from an assortment of golfers of all skill levels. This is not only useful on the micro level to help amateur golfer improve, but it can also tell us a lot about the game in the macro sense. One such insight comes from their Annual Driving Distance report.

According to this year’s report, the average men’s golfer — across all handicaps — drives the ball 224.1 yards, which is actually 0.6 yards less than they did a year ago. For women, that number is 175.7 yards, which is 0.5 yards less than the year prior. This is the second consecutive year that driving distance has decreased in the recreational game, although over the course of eight years Arccos has tracked this data, the number has remained relatively flat.

While it’s true that pro golfers get longer and longer every year, the same cannot be said for the recreational game. That’s good news for you because it represents an opportunity. So get in the gym or start speed training: If you do, you’re sure to pick up gains over your playing competitors.

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Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

WEST CALDWELL, N.J. — I’ve been on-site at two professional golf events over the course of the last five days. First, I got out to the Cadillac Championship at Doral, and today, I’m taking in the practice rounds at Mountain Ridge Country Club ahead of the LPGA’s Mizuho Americas Open. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work.

When I’m at these sorts of high-level events, I like to spend my time studying the pros. Specifically, how they practice. These are the best of the best in their field, so watching how they hone their craft is invaluable.

Although during my latest foray at these events, I noticed something that just about every pro does the same when they practice putting — and it’s all focused on the simplest fundamentals.

All pros do this on the practice green

Every golfer has their own unique approach to how they practice, but if you pay attention you’ll notice some trends. One is how much attention they pay to aim and alignment.

At both the Cadillac and Mizuho, I spent a considerable amount of time around the practice putting green. And at both locations, almost every pro started their putting practice the same way: by setting up some sort of station to practice their aim and alignment.

Some pros use training aids (putting mirrors or gates) to work on these fundamentals, while others use tees or alignment sticks. In the end, the goal remains constant: controlling variables. If you can set up the same way before every putt, you’ll be able to put a much more predictable roll on the ball — and hopefully make more putts.

“When I have to make an important putt I try to keep it so simple. I really focus on aiming correctly,” Rory McIlroy said earlier this year. “I think half the battle is just making sure you’re aiming in the right spot with the putter.”

If it works for McIlroy (and a host of other pros), it should work for you. So, next time you go to the putting green to practice putting, take some time to work on your aim and alignment. If you do, you’re sure to make more putts when it counts.

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Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

If you’ve ever watched Jon Rahm play golf, you’ll know that he has a unique swing. With an extremely bowed wrist and short backswing, his move is hard to miss. But while his swing may look unorthodox, it’s extremely effective — evidenced by an impressive CV that includes a U.S. Open title and a green jacket from the Masters.

“Just swing your swing,” Rahm once said. “Do what you can do. That’s the best thing.”

Back in 2021, Rahm revealed that the reason for his short backswing is a birth defect that left him born with a club foot. Because of the ailment, doctors “pretty much broke every bone in [his] ankle and [he] was casted within 20 minutes of being born from the knee down.” He continued receiving treatment throughout childhood, and it left him with limited mobility in his right ankle.

This also caused Rahm to lose stability in his right ankle, which meant that taking a long backswing would leave him off-balance on the downswing.

“As a kid, I had a strong grip, I would over-swing and just try to hook hammer everything,” Rahm said. “[So] my swing coach in Spain, Eduardo [Celles], forced me to never get past shoulder height.”

Hence, the short backswing was born. Check out the video below for more insight into Rahm’s short backswing, and read on to learn how it can help your swing.

How to stop over-swinging

Taking the club back past parallel may make it feel easier to generate more clubhead speed, but often times, it can actually cause you to lose power and create poor contact. This is something that I struggle with from time to time and can attest that making a backswing past parallel introduces some disastrous shots.

If that is something that you struggle with, try the drill Rahm worked on as a kid.

“[Celles] loved having me feel like I was taking the club [to parallel],” Rahm said. “And then swing as hard as I could.”

By doing this, it forced Rahm to use his big muscles to drive the swing. It also created a more compact move, better face control and more consistent contact.

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Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

As a high schooler, I didn’t have regular access to a driving range, but I did have access to a short-game area and putting facility. That was a big reason I became a pretty nifty player inside of 100 yards.

Now, as an adult living in New York City, the opposite is true. I can go bang balls in the simulator any time I want, but I don’t have access to any short-game practice facilities. As such, my ball striking has improved at the cost of my wedge play.

Funny how that works.

However, at the beginning of every season, I make an effort to map my wedge distances on a launch monitor, which always gives me a boost on the course. And it’s something that all recreational golfers should be doing if they want to dial in their scoring clubs.

How to map your wedge distances

When you pull a wedge from the bag on the course, do you know how far the ball is going to fly? Most shots with these scoring clubs aren’t going to be full swings, so it’s crucial that you know how far these partial swings go.

Most recreational golfers have no idea what their numbers are on these partial swings. They may know their full-swing numbers, but for anything less, they rely entirely on feel.

I’ve been guilty of this in the past, too. And when I get on the course, it always costs me. That’s why each season I make an effort to map out my distances with my wedges.

You can be as detailed as you want with your mapping, but for me, I go to the simulator and get numbers for three different swings (what feels to me like a full swing, three-quarter swing and half swing) with each wedge. I hit five balls with each swing which gave me a good idea of my carry number for each variation. You can see my results below.

My method is far from scientific, but it does supply me with a nice baseline yardage for each wedge and swing type. And now when I’m on the course, I have a much better understanding of how far my ball will fly for each shot.

If you struggle to control your distances with wedges on the course, I’d recommend you do something similar with your wedges. Once you dial in these numbers, it becomes much easier to wedge it close on the course — and save strokes in the process.

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