How to Make a Swing Change 'Stick' Properly

One of the most frustrating parts of golf improvement is feeling like you know what you need to change, yet seeing very little progress when you actually try to do it. This is especially common with players who are trying to change a long-standing movement pattern. They might understand what is going wrong, they might even know what the swing should look like instead, but when they start practising, nothing seems to change enough to create a better result.

A big reason for that is simple. Most golfers do not exaggerate enough.

When you are trying to make a genuine swing change, the feeling often has to be far more extreme than you are comfortable with. That does not mean you are trying to build a technically poor swing. It means you are trying to create enough difference in the movement for your body to actually produce a new pattern.

This is where so many golfers get stuck. They make a tiny adjustment, it feels strange, they look at the video, panic because it does not look perfect, and immediately pull back towards what feels safe. The problem is that what feels safe is usually the same pattern that created the issue in the first place.

At My Golf Matters, this is something we see all the time. A player may need to improve their transition, change the way the club is delivered into impact, or create a more functional strike pattern. But instead of focusing on the outcome they are trying to achieve, they become fixated on making the backswing look textbook straight away. In many cases, that actually slows progress down.

Sometimes the quickest route to improving a downswing or impact movement is to make an earlier part of the swing feel more exaggerated than normal. That could mean feeling much flatter in the backswing, steeper in the takeaway, more across the line, more laid off, or anything else that helps shift the movement pattern in the right direction. During that stage, the swing might not look neat or neutral on camera, but that does not necessarily mean it is wrong for the process.

That is an important distinction golfers need to understand. There is a big difference between the movement you need to feel in order to change something, and the finished version of the swing you ultimately want to own. The feeling is not always supposed to be the final look. Quite often, it is simply the exaggeration required to move you away from the old habit.

This is why video can sometimes be both helpful and misleading. Used properly, it gives you feedback and clarity. Used poorly, it makes you judge the swing too early. If you are constantly checking whether the movement already looks perfect while you are still trying to build it, you can end up abandoning the very exaggeration that would have created the change.

For example, a golfer might need to shallow the club better in transition or arrive at impact in a stronger, more organised position. If exaggerating the backswing in a way that looks a little unusual helps produce that improved delivery, then that exaggerated rehearsal is doing its job. In that moment, the improved impact is more important than whether the backswing looks exactly how you would want it to look long term.

This is also why proper coaching can speed things up massively. When a golfer practises alone, they often default to chasing aesthetics instead of function. They try to make the swing look pretty instead of making it work better. In a coaching environment, the process is more efficient because the focus stays on what the exaggeration is there to achieve. If the exaggerated feel improves the strike, the face control, the low point, the path or the impact pattern, then it is a useful step.

Over time, once that new movement starts to become more natural and less conscious, the exaggeration can be reduced. The player no longer needs such an extreme rehearsal because the improved pattern has started to settle in. That is usually the point where the swing begins to look more neutral again, but now it is backed up by a better movement through the ball rather than just a nicer appearance on camera.

This is the part many golfers never reach, simply because they give up too early. They spend months trying to make a change, but because they never exaggerate enough to create a true difference, they stay stuck between the old movement and the new one. The result is lots of effort, lots of thought, and very little progress.

If you are working on a swing change right now, the biggest thing to remember is this. Do not be afraid of a feel that seems too much. Do not be too quick to judge a movement just because it looks unusual at first. And do not assume that the first stage of making a change should look polished. If the exaggerated feeling helps you move closer to the impact position and ball flight you want, it is often exactly what you need.

Real change in golf rarely comes from making a movement feel slightly different. It usually comes from being open-minded enough to exaggerate, repeat it properly, and trust the process long enough for the new pattern to become yours.