Nearly all right-handed golfers I work with are concerned only with their left arm during their golf swing.
The idea is to keep your left arm straight during your backswing. Though this is not bad advice, generic as it may be, it does not bring enough attention to what the right arm should be doing.
It’s time to start thinking more about your right arm during your swing. I like for my students to work on feeling their right arm stay longer as they initiate their backswing.
The idea of keeping a longer right arm prevents this arm from folding too much, which is a major cause for lack of distance in your shots.
A great exercise to demonstrate this feeling is to practice making some golf swings with your right arm only.
When you do this, you’ll notice how long your arm stays throughout most of your swing. Your swing will feel stronger, and much more natural.
By contrast, if you try making some swings by allowing your right arm to fold, your swing will feel much weaker.
By allowing your right arm to stay longer on your backswing, your hands will remain quieter while your turn will be generated by some larger muscles.
This is a good thing.
Another good thought for this exercise is to imagine swinging a golf club with a cast on your right arm. You would be forced to turn more with your larger muscles, and the rotation in the lower half of your golf swing would become much stronger.
You’ve probably heard the saying that “golf is a game of opposites.” What that means is that the correction in your golf swing is usually the opposite of what you might initially think.
Keeping your right arm straighter in your backswing is a great example of this. Rather than being so concerned with keeping your left arm straight, you should begin working on keeping your right arm straight.
If you can be patient and spend some quality time working on this, you will soon find your golf shots becoming longer and straighter.
