This downswing move can wreck your swing unless you do these 3 things

Many golfers have swing tendencies that, no matter how hard they try, they can’t get rid of. That’s why in this Golf Digest+ series, Matchmakers, I’m teaching you how to play with what you’ve got. No matter what your tendency is, you can play well with it as long as you match it up with the right moves. I’ll show you how.

Sliding in the downswing is one of the most common tendencies I see in amateur golfers. When the body slides too far toward the target as you come down, you’ll struggle with lots of thin shots, heel strikes, pushes and quick hooks.

How do you know if you’re a slider? Video your swing from face-on, across from your chest at address. Imagine a line on your lead leg as you set up to the ball. In the backswing, you should create a small gap between your leg and that line as you load into your trail side. On the downswing, sliders will move their pelvis excessively toward the target and at impact, their hips will be well in front of that original line. I demonstrate this slide below.

It’s good to bump your hips slightly toward the target in the downswing, but if you overdo it, now you’re into a slide pattern. The good news is, you can still play good golf with a slide if you add these three moves.

1. Play the ball up

When you slide in the downswing, your body gets too far ahead of the ball, which is effectively making the ball really far back in your stance. This causes the path of the club as it approaches the ball to travel too far from inside the target line and then swinging outward. That’s why you’re hitting those pushes and hooks off the heel.

To counteract this, move your ball position up a few inches. If you typically play your iron shots in the middle of your stance, make sure your ball position is now forward of center, toward your lead foot. It might feel too far forward, but now when you slide, the ball position will be in the perfect spot.

2. Close the face early

You probably hear all the time that you need to lean the shaft toward the target with your irons and wedges. That’s usually good advice, but if you’re a slider, you will naturally have a lot of shaft lean simply because of moving forward. If you try to get more shaft lean, you’re going to hit lots of heel strikes and pushes.

Instead, sliders need to work on closing the clubface as they come into the ball. This will help turn that push into a baby draw and get the contact into the center of the face. To do this, focus on the logo on your glove. As you come down into impact, feel like your logo is pointing more toward the ground than the sky. That will help your clubface start closing earlier, as you can see me demonstrate above. Notice how the clubface is pointing more toward the ground as I approach impact.

3. Finish high

With your ball position more forward and your clubface closing, you’re almost ready to hit that perfect push-draw. The last step is to feel a full release of the club into a high finish position. As you swing through the ball, allow your trail forearm to roll over your lead forearm.

If you’re looking at your swing from down the line (behind the ball), feel like you’re swinging the club out to the target. Notice how when I demonstrate this below, the club reappears in the follow-through at neck height. This is that high finish you’re going for.

This release will get the club traveling from inside to out with a face that is slightly closed to the path: the perfect recipe for a baby draw.

Add these three moves, and you can keep on sliding.