The #1 Golf Swing Mistake Hockey Players Make (And How To Fix It)

Do you have a hockey background? If so, there's an excellent chance you're making one critical mistake in your golf swing that's costing you consistency and distance. While your hockey experience gives you some natural advantages on the golf course, it also creates one significant technical issue that we see in almost every hockey player who takes up golf.

The Hockey Player's Advantage in Golf

Hockey players typically bring several valuable skills to the golf course:

• Strong forearms and wrists from stick handling and shooting
• Excellent hand-eye coordination for ground-based objects
• Natural athletic ability and rotational power
• Good contact skills from years of handling a puck

These attributes give hockey players a head start when learning golf. The ability to generate power and make consistent contact often develops quickly compared to beginners without hockey experience.

The Critical Mistake: Too Much Forward Shaft Lean

Despite these advantages, there's one hockey habit that severely impacts your golf swing: excessive forward shaft lean at impact.

This happens because in hockey, a successful slap shot or wrist shot requires significant forward lean of the stick. This "delofts" the blade, keeping the puck low and powerful so it doesn't sail over the net. It's fundamental to good hockey shooting technique.

Unfortunately, this exact same movement pattern creates major problems in your golf swing:

• Too steep an attack angle into the ball
• Excessive digging into the turf after impact
• Loss of loft at impact, affecting trajectory
• Inconsistent strikes (particularly "chops" with fairway woods)

Why This Happens: Too Much Lag

In golf instruction circles, maintaining "lag" (the angle between your lead arm and the club shaft during the downswing) is often praised as a power source. Many amateurs are actually taught to increase lag.

However, for hockey players, excessive lag is already deeply ingrained from years of shooting pucks. The problem isn't creating lag—it's releasing it properly before impact.

When hockey players maintain too much lag through impact, the club continues traveling downward too steeply after striking the ball, often resulting in heavy strikes, thin shots, or inconsistent contact.

The Simple Fix: Earlier Release

The solution is straightforward but requires retraining your muscle memory:

1. Start the release earlier in your downswing
2. Feel the club handle moving upward before impact
3. Allow the clubhead to naturally shallow out

This might feel extremely counter-intuitive at first, as it's the opposite of what made you successful in hockey. But this adjustment is crucial for converting your hockey power into golf power.

The Drill: Feel the Handle Rise

Try this simple exercise to ingrain the proper feeling:

1. Take your normal setup position
2. Make a short backswing (your natural hockey-style swing length is fine)
3. As the handle passes your right leg (for right-handed golfers)
4. Feel your wrists begin to unhinge, allowing the club handle to rise
5. The clubhead will naturally swing down while the handle moves up
6. This creates a more neutral shaft position at impact

Start with short, slow-motion swings focusing exclusively on this feeling. You might top a few balls at first or hit some pulls, but stick with it. This fundamental change will dramatically improve your ball striking.

Start With Wedges

While this fix applies to all clubs, start implementing it with wedge shots around 50 yards. The slower swing and shorter distance make it easier to focus on the feeling of the handle rising through impact. Once comfortable, gradually work your way up through the bag.

Expected Results

When hockey players make this adjustment successfully, they typically experience:

• More consistent turf interaction
• Improved trajectory with better loft
• Less "choppy" strikes with fairway woods
• More solid contact with irons
• Better overall consistency

Key Takeaways

1. Recognize the hockey habit of too much forward shaft lean
2. Start the release earlier in your downswing
3. Feel the handle rising through impact
4. Practice with slow-motion swings until it becomes natural
5. Begin with short wedge shots before progressing to longer clubs

By making this one critical adjustment, you'll maintain all the advantages your hockey background brings to golf while eliminating the one technical flaw that might be holding back your game.