Eliminate Your Golf Swing Takeaway Trouble With 3 Expert Tips

Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach Neil Marr demonstrating an inside takeaway golf swing (left) and the correct technique (right)

Cure your inside takeaway troubles with these expert tips and drills...

(Image credit: Kenny Smith)

published 5 April 2024

An inside takeaway in your golf swing is one of a number of common faults for amateur golfers, and without the best golf tips it can lead to big scores and plenty of frustration.

Fortunately, Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach Neil Marr has three expert tips and drills to cure your takeaway troubles...

Eliminate Your Golf Swing Takeaway Troubles

Far more people take the club back too far inside the line (image below) than outside. Taking it away too far inside will often, though not always, lead to throwing the club outside and across the line from the top.

Check your takeaway by setting another club on the ground at 8 o’clock relative to you and then getting your takeaway to mirror that. Practise the takeaway first before trying to hit balls, and use this as an important part of your pre-shot routine.

Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach demonstrating an inside takeaway in golf swing

Drill 1

Another great way to help cure an inside takeaway is to hold the club about a foot from the head, with the grip resting against your right side.

This drill helps to improve your first move away as you get the feeling for the clubhead remaining outside your hands – they can’t go anywhere else as the grip end is pressing against your right side. Then replicate the move holding the club properly.

Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach demonstrating an inside takeaway drill

Drill 2

Those who take it away too far outside the line are likely to have very little hip movement, so I have a different drill to encourage them to rotate their hips more as they take the club away, rather than starting with a largely arms-based move. Stick the butt of the club into your belly, as here, and then try to move it to the right with your stomach.

Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach demonstrating an inside takeaway drill involving using your stomach and the butt of the club

Want To Read More Brilliant Golf Instruction Tips?

The Golf Monthly archive is a gold mine of brilliant reads, documenting a journey through the history of golf dating back to our first issue in 1911. Take advantage of over 100 years of invaluable tips from the best tour professionals and coaches in world golf, by subscribing to the online Golf Monthly Archive.

Location: Meldrum House

Neil turned professional in 1989, the same year he was Rookie of the Year on Scotland’s Tartan Tour. From 1991, he was Head Teaching Professional at Braid Hills, and in 2000 was appointed Head Teaching Professional at Meldrum House Country Hotel and Golf Course. Alongside his work as a teaching professional, for some 15 years Neil was the Scottish National Under-16 Boys’ coach, and later the Under-18 National Boys’ coach.

Advice for practice:

Go between working on technique, if that is part of your programme, and then on your whole game, hitting towards targets while simulating game conditions. For example, try to 'play' the first few holes of your golf course; for 'fairways' pick two targets to hit between, and on your next shot assess whether it hits the green or not. Score yourself to try and add some pressure.

Most common problem:

Students can be unaware what part of the clubface they are hitting with and how that can influence their shots. You can’t overstate the value of foot spray to monitor this. For example, you may be hitting toe hooks but with a good swing, and you could have had perfectly good results if you had hit with the middle of the clubface.

Biggest challenge:

I am constantly looking for different ways to tell my pupils what I want them to do, in a way that 'clicks' with them. It could be a words thing, or a visual thing, or a drill, or using an accessory. I approach it from every angle, looking for the thing that will 'click'.