Tips for Her: Hold the finish

Editor's note: Each week, Megan Padua, a teaching professional at Maidstone Club (East Hampton, N.Y.) and Belfair Plantation (Bluffton, S.C.), and one of Golf Digest's Best Young Teachers, offers tips and advice for women golfers.

By Megan Padua

The finish of your golf swing is like a crime scene; it holds the evidence of what happened. So it's important to observe the finish position of your body and observe the flight of the ball.

For full swings, I always pick a target and focus on finishing with my "eyes at the target, belt buckle at the target, and back foot on my toe". Each shot should have a "statue finish" that you hold for two to three seconds. This opportunity to rest, relax, and reflect help you make more efficient golf swings and understand what happened when it goes wrong.

When it comes to shots that aren't full swings, such as pitches, chips and putts, many golfers fail to define their finish position. In a putting stroke, holding the finish means staying in posture by maintaining the alignment of your shoulders. For a chip, the arms and club will form the shape of a "Y" and the finish will be low.  When hitting a pitch shot, the length of the through swing should be a mirror image of the backswing (your arms, for example, should swing from a 9 o'clock position to a 3 o'clock position).

Ultimately, when you finish your swing, I want you to commit, stick it, and be confident.