Avoid Common Backswing Mistakes with Turn Then Extend Drill

The turn then extend drill has been around for a long time because it can clean up a backswing that gets narrow, disconnected, or overly arm-driven. The basic idea is simple: place the club across your shoulders, make your backswing turn, then extend your arms into a top-of-swing checkpoint. Used well, it can help you feel more width and keep your arms better matched to your body turn. Used poorly, it can create the very problems you are trying to fix—sway, loss of posture, and a top position that looks more like baseball than golf. The key is understanding what this drill is supposed to teach, and just as importantly, what it can accidentally teach if you are not careful.

What the Turn Then Extend Drill Is Trying to Do

At its best, this drill helps you blend two important backswing pieces:

• A centered pivot that turns your torso without drifting excessively off the ball
• Arm extension that creates width and keeps the arms more in front of your chest

That combination matters because many golfers either:

• Turn too little and let the arms run behind them, or
• Turn a lot, but in a way that shifts the body and collapses the structure of the backswing

The drill gives you a simple checkpoint for the top of the swing. If your backswing tends to get cramped or your trail arm folds too much, extending the arms after the turn can help you feel a wider, more organized top position.

But this is not a universal cure-all. It is a tool, not a law of golf. If you do not understand the pivot that should happen before the extension, the drill can reinforce poor movement patterns.

The First Big Pitfall: Turning Like a Unit and Staying Too Bent Over

One of the most common mistakes in this drill is making a backswing turn where your pelvis and torso rotate together while you remain locked in your original forward bend. That often looks athletic at first, but it is usually the wrong kind of athletic—more like loading up to swing a baseball bat than making a golf backswing.

In golf, a good backswing pivot is not just a flat rotation. You also need:

• A little extension in your torso
• Some shoulder tilt
• A centered load rather than a big drift away from the target
• Subtle pelvic tilt changes, often helped by the trail leg straightening slightly

When you do this correctly, your chest will feel as if it points a little more upward rather than simply around. You are not standing up out of posture, but you are also not staying frozen in your address bend.

Why this matters

If you stay too bent over and just rotate everything level, your upper body tends to translate away from the ball. That creates a sway instead of a centered turn. Once that happens, your low point becomes harder to control, and your downswing has to make extra compensations just to get back to the ball.

This is one reason golfers who sway in the backswing often struggle with:

• Fat shots
• Thin shots
• Inconsistent contact
• Poor sequencing in transition

So if you use this drill, the first checkpoint is not your arms. It is your pivot. You want the turn to include some extension and side tilt, not just a flat spin.

A Better Pivot: Centered Turn, Slight Extension, and Proper Tilt

Before you ever extend your arms, you want to feel that your body has moved into a sound backswing structure.

A better version of the pivot includes:

• Your chest turning while feeling a bit more upward
• Your core staying engaged rather than collapsing
• Your trail leg straightening slightly, which helps create the right pelvic tilt
• Your shoulders tilting instead of turning too level
• Your center staying relatively stable rather than drifting far off the ball

This is subtle, but important. The backswing is not just a horizontal turn. It is a three-dimensional motion. If you ignore that and perform the drill too flat, you can end up rehearsing a top position that looks organized but is built on a poor pivot.

A useful comparison

If the movement feels like you are loading for baseball, that is a warning sign. A golf backswing usually needs more centeredness and more upward organization through the torso than that baseball-style turn.

Why the Arm Extension Part Can Be Helpful

The strongest feature of this drill is the extension phase. After a good pivot, extending the arms can help you maintain width and keep the arms from getting trapped too far behind your body.

This is especially useful if your backswing tends to look narrow at the top, with the trail arm folding too much and the hands disappearing behind you. In that pattern, your body often stops turning enough, and the arms keep moving independently. The result is a collapsed top position that is hard to recover from.

When you extend correctly, you can feel:

• More width in the backswing
• The arms staying more in front of the chest
• Better connection between body motion and arm motion
• A top position that is easier to sequence from

Why this matters

A wider top of swing gives you more room to deliver the club consistently. It also tends to improve your transition because the club and arms are not jammed behind you. That means fewer last-second reroutes and a better chance of delivering speed and solid contact together.

The Second Big Pitfall: Extending the Arms the Wrong Way

Not all arm extension is good extension. A common mistake is to push the arms out in a way that rotates them into a more internal position, with the elbows flaring and the club becoming too vertical. That creates a top position that again looks more like baseball than golf.

What you want instead is extension with better trail arm external rotation. That helps organize the arms and club in a way that fits a golf swing rather than a throwing or batting motion.

One useful feel is that the club should have some heaviness to it when you extend. If the club feels too balanced or too upright, there is a good chance you have lifted it into a more vertical, disconnected position.

A simple checkpoint

When the extension is correct, the club will tend to point more along the line of your lower rib cage rather than straight up and down with your spine. That gives you a better blend of width and arm rotation.

If the club points too vertically, it is often a sign that the arms have been extended in the wrong rotational pattern.

A Helpful Variation: Choke Up to Improve the Feel

If you struggle to sense the arm rotation correctly, try the drill while choking up on the club. Holding farther down the grip can make it easier to feel where the club is pointing and how the arms are rotating.

From there:

1. Place the club across your shoulders or begin from the drill setup.
2. Make your centered backswing pivot first.
3. Then extend the arms while monitoring where the club points.
4. Check that the club feels more aligned with the lower rib cage than straight up.

This variation often makes the difference between simply reaching your arms and actually organizing them correctly.

The Third Big Pitfall: Losing Posture During the Reach

Another mistake shows up when golfers try to “extend” by pushing from the shoulder blades instead of simply extending the arms in response to a good turn. In that version, the upper back rounds, the spine goes into more flexion, and the whole posture collapses.

Instead of maintaining structure, you end up with a hunched, pushed-out position at the top.

This is a classic form of loss of posture in the backswing.

What it looks like

• The upper back rounds
• The chest drops instead of staying organized
• The arms push away from the body through the shoulder blades
• The spine bends more forward rather than maintaining the proper extension pattern

Why this matters

When you round and push out this way, the club’s contact point tends to move too far behind the ball. That makes it much harder to strike the ground in the right place. The common result is a mix of fat and thin shots because your low point becomes unstable.

So even if the drill gives you more width, it is not helping if that width comes from a collapsing torso.

Who This Drill Helps Most

This drill can be especially useful if your backswing tends to have:

• Arms that get too far around you
• Not enough body rotation
• A narrow or collapsed top position
• Poor width going back

In those cases, the drill can give you a clearer sense of how the body should move first and how the arms should then extend without disconnecting.

It can also be useful if you benefit from a slight pause at the top. That pause can help you feel your backswing positions more clearly and improve your sequencing into the downswing.

Who should be careful with it

If you already sway, lose posture, or over-rotate your pelvis without proper torso extension, this drill can exaggerate those issues unless you monitor the pivot closely. Likewise, if you tend to lift the arms too vertically, the extension phase can reinforce that pattern if you do not match it with the proper arm rotation.

How to Practice the Drill Correctly

If you want to experiment with the turn then extend drill, keep it simple and use it as a checkpoint drill, not a mindless repetition drill.

1. Set up normally and place the club across your shoulders.
2. Make your backswing pivot first. Feel a centered turn, a little chest-up extension, and proper shoulder tilt.
3. Then extend the arms without rounding your spine or pushing from the shoulder blades.
4. Check the club orientation. It should not feel excessively vertical or too “balanced.”
5. Pause briefly at the top to confirm your position.
6. Hit short shots and compare the feel to your normal swing.

It can help to film yourself from face-on and down-the-line. On video, look for these checkpoints:

• Did your upper body stay relatively centered?
• Did your chest gain a little extension rather than staying flat and bent over?
• Did your arms stay in front of your torso?
• Did you maintain posture instead of rounding?
• Did the top position look wide without looking lifted or vertical?

How to Apply This Understanding to Your Swing

The turn then extend drill is best used with a clear purpose. If your backswing gets too narrow or your arms disappear behind you, it can be a very effective way to feel more width and better structure at the top. But the drill only works if the turn is correct before the extension happens.

So in practice, focus on this order:

• Build the pivot first
• Add the arm extension second
• Keep the arms in front without lifting them too vertically
• Maintain posture while staying centered

If you use the drill this way, it can help you create a top-of-swing position that is wider, more centered, and easier to transition from. That gives you a much better chance of making a clean, powerful downswing without relying on compensations. In other words, the drill is not valuable because it creates a pretty top position—it is valuable because a better top position makes the rest of the swing easier to deliver.