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In this video I take a look at the way the right arm functions in different players, and discuss my reasons for preferring one method over the other. We start with Tiger Woods and Henrik Stenson, both of whom have great looking lines in their swings when watching from down the line. There is a major difference, however, in the way they use their right arm in during the swing to produce those lines. Stenson flares his arm in the backswing (as I would prefer and as I teach) but then leaves it back when the body changes direction so that his upper arm lies against his side halfway through the downswing. Tiger, on the other hand, pinches his arm more inward in the backswing, and then drives it even more in front of him coming down. He uses pivot compression (the TV talking heads would call it “dipping”) to create space for the upper arm to get in front of his rib cage, and thus is able to get his hands more forward leaned at impact and more sustained past impact. I also show Jeff Maggert and Ben Hogan as examples of the right arm inward move, and Martin Laird and Rory McIlroy as examples of the right arm back move. Of course, I see Hogan’s overall action as the ideal, with the right elbow flaring in the backswing then stopping and reversing in transition, as I feel it is the most naturally athletic move and is most closely analogous with throwing a ball with a low sidearm motion. I have focused on the “hands out” move in transition as I see it as an essential part of this right arm action, and the students I have gotten to move in this direction (from hands down to hands out) have mostly experienced better ball striking as a result due to the better path and attack angle (less inside out and more downward).
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