If you are a right-handed golfer, you probably think that your right hand should play a very active role in the swing.

After all, that is your dominant hand, so it should be in charge, right? Not necessarily. In fact, many right-handed golfers get into trouble specifically because they allow their right hand to do too much work during the swing. If you can manage to reduce the role that your right hand plays in your swinging motion, it’s almost certain that your game will take a big step in the right direction.

We should point out right from the start that saying your right hand isn’t going to play a big role in the swing is not the same thing as saying that it will be left out of the action completely. There certainly is work that your right hand needs to do, and we will cover that later in the article. The idea here is that your right hand should not take over the swing. A good golf swing involves input from a variety of different parts of the body. Some golfers wind up using their right hand far too actively, making it difficult for those other important parts to get involved successfully. With this article, we hope to help you strike a nice balance.

All of the content below is based on a right-handed golfer. If you happen to play left-handed, please take a moment to reverse the directions as necessary.

Why Is This a Problem?

Before you get to work on preventing your right hand from taking so much control during the golf swing, it will be worthwhile to take a moment to explain why this is a problematic way to play the game. You may get decent results from time to time using your right-hand controlled golf swing, so you might think that it’s just a matter of time before it all comes together. Unfortunately, that’s probably not going to be the case. More likely, you’ll continue to struggle with consistency, and you’ll never quite reach your goals on the course.

We feel that it is important to explain the problems with a right-hand dominant swing because these points will provide you with motivation during practice. If you start to struggle during a practice session and you doubt whether it’s worth continuing, you can think about this list and realize that there are great gains to be made if you just stick with it.

Players who use their right hand too actively during the golf swing are likely to run into at least some, if not all, of the problems below.

• The slice. Let’s get the big one out of the way right from the start. If you use your right hand too actively during your golf swing, there is a good chance that you are going to wind up with a slice. This is a piece of information which surprises many golfers, so let’s walk through why this is the case.
• A slice is going to be the result of your swing when you cut across the ball from outside-in through the hitting area, and you combine that swing path with an open club face. Many golfers grab onto the ‘open clubface’ part of that description, and they think that using their right hand actively will help them square up or close the face by the time it reaches the ball. Unfortunately, that’s just not how it works. Players who let their right hands dominate the swing tend to allow this to happen from the very start of the swing.
• That means the right hand is going to be active in the takeaway, which will force the club well to the inside of the ideal swing path. Then, at the top of the swing, the player will be forced to push the club up and away from the body, since there will be no room to swing down from the inside. In the end, the club cuts across the ball badly at impact, and a slice is the likely outcome.
• Even if you do manage to close down the club face in order to avoid the slice, the shot you hit will wind up being a big pull to the left of the target. Either way, you won’t have hit a good shot, and your right hand will be mostly to blame. If you have been struggling for some time with the slice, look to your right hand as a potential cause of the trouble.
• Loss of power. Depending on when you allow your right hand to enter the picture during the swing, you may wind up robbing yourself of a significant amount of your potential power. Some golfers fall into the habit of using the right hand to move the club down toward the ball from the top of the swing. If you run into this issue, you’ll be losing your ‘angle’ early in the downswing and you won’t have much power stored up to use at impact when you reach the ball.
• The players who are able to launch powerful shots well down the fairway tend to be those who hold the angle between the left arm and the shaft of the club for as long as possible into the downswing. Resist the temptation to give up your angle early in the downswing and you should see an immediate jump in your swing speed.
• High launch angle. Most of the time, you want to launch the ball on a relatively low trajectory with enough spin to cause the shot to climb high into the sky as it travels. For instance, picture a seven-iron shot played from the fairway by a professional. Most likely, the pro will hit down into the ball, taking a large divot after contact. As a result of the downward hit, the ball will start out low to the ground, before the backspin takes over and causes the ball to rise.
• This is a great ball flight because it results in a shot that lands softly on the green and stays relatively close to where it came down. Pros love to hit these kinds of shots because they are easy to stick close to the hole for makeable birdie putts.
• With all of that said, you’ll likely ruin your chance to achieve this type of trajectory if you use your right hand too much at the bottom of the swing. Depending on the way you involve your right hand, you might ‘scoop’ the club through impact, adding loft and launching the ball quite high. This type of shot is usually hard to control, and it will make it difficult for you to hit fairways and greens with regularity.
• Struggles under pressure. If you spend enough time on the range, you may work out the timing well enough to coax reasonable results out of your right-hand dominant golf swing. That may feel like an accomplishment in practice, but it’s likely that you’ll wind up disappointed with the results of that swing when you head out onto the course.
• Why the difference between the range and the course? Pressure, plain and simple. A right-hand dominant golf swing is going to be reliant on excellent timing to produce good results. When your timing is a bit off – as it is likely to be when you are a little nervous – the swing will fall apart, and the results will get ugly. If you can take the extra hand action out of your technique, it’s nearly certain that you will become a better player when the nerves settle in.

As you can see, there are plenty of issues to worry about with regard to a right-hand dominant golf swing. It will be plenty of work to make changes in this part of your technique, but those changes will be worth it in the long run.

Three Trouble Spots

In this section, we are going to identify three ‘trouble spots’ where you will need to make sure your right hand isn’t taking too much control over the swing. We have touched on these points a bit earlier in the article, but we will talk about them again here, so you can understand what it is you’re trying to avoid. If you can make it through your swing without having your right hand do too much work at any of these three points, you should be in good shape for a solid strike.

• The takeaway. It is extremely important that you manage to make it through this phase of the swing without letting your right hand do too much work. For many golfers, it is quite tempting to use the right hand to make the first move back away from the ball.
• That might feel like a good way to start the swing, but it is going to set you up for all kinds of problems later on. Specifically, you’ll be at risk of hitting a slice, which we discussed in the previous section.
• Also, using your right hand actively in the takeaway is going to cause you to move too quickly through that part of the swing, potentially throwing off your tempo from that point forward. Instead of using your right hand to get started, try turning your shoulders away from the target slowly while your hands and wrists just go along for the ride. This type of ‘quiet’ takeaway is a great start to the swing, and it should help you stay in a nice rhythm all the way through impact.
• The first move down. Another danger point during the swing is the moment when you transition from backswing to downswing. This first move down should be controlled by the big muscles in your body, not your right hand. You should be turning toward the target with your lower body, allowing your upper body – and the club – to hang back and follow along once the lower body has moved out of the way.
• This is a move which is difficult for some golfers to master. Any players wind up using their hands, rather than their lower body, to start the downswing. Not only does this move make it difficult to swing with much power, but you’ll also struggle to strike the ball cleanly. One of the biggest differences between amateur golfers and their professional counterparts is the way pros are able to use their lower bodies effectively. Learn how to start the downswing with your hips rather than your hands and you’ll be on the track toward improved play.
• Swinging through impact. This last point is the most difficult one to explain. It’s tricky because you do want to use your right hand to an extent as you move through impact – just not too much. It’s important to balance the release just right in order to deliver a powerful blow without adding loft to the club and forcing the ball to launch too high. The line that you don’t want to cross here is allowing your swing to turn into a ‘scoop’ at the bottom.
• To make sure you are staying out of scoop territory, the best thing you can do is actually monitor the position of your left wrist at impact. Ideally, your left wrist will be in a mostly flat position when you strike the ball. If you notice that your left wrist is cupped when you hit the ball, that’s a sure sign that your right hand has worked too hard through the hitting area. Try to take a little bit of the right hand action out of your move until you can establish a firm and flat left wrist time after time.

It’s not going to be particularly easy to avoid running into trouble at one of these three points. Golf is a difficult game, after all, and you’ll be tempted to let your right hand do too much at some point along the way. Work at it on the range, pay attention to signs of progress, and be patient until the results finally fall into place.

Working Toward Better Balance

When talking about balance in golf, we are usually talking about controlling your body weight in such a way that allows you to make a clean and aggressive swing through the ball. In this case, however, we aren’t talking about your body weight at all. Rather, the balance we are referencing here is the act of trying to find just the right amount of right hand action to use in your swing.

If you use too much, you are likely to run into the problems listed earlier in the article. However, if you use too little, you won’t have much of a release through the ball and your shots will lack authority. Striking a balance between those two ends of the spectrum is certainly no bargain.

Believe it or not, a good way to find the balance you need is to start out by going too far in the other direction. Assuming your current swing uses too much right hand, head to the range and try to hit some shots with nearly no right hand involvement at all. Of course, your right hand will still be on the club, and it will still be helping to keep the club under control, but it is not going to play an active role in the swing. Hit a few shots this way and see what you learn.

Most likely, you’ll have a couple of things to take away from this experience. First, you will find that you are able to make clean contact with very little trouble. It’s pretty easy to find the sweet spot when you don’t really let your right hand get involved. At the same time, these shots aren’t going to come off the club with much authority. They are going to lack speed, and you’ll feel like you are dragging the club through the hitting area.

The idea here is that you are going to learn what it feels like to hit shots without any help from your right hand so you can then add right hand action back in a bit at a time. Once you’ve hit some shots with a completely passive right hand, start to let your right hand work a bit at impact on the next few swings.

Then, let the right hand help to set the club on the way back. Gradually let your right hand play more and more of a roll until you feel like you’ve landed on a good balance. Remember, even as you add right hand action back into the swing, you still want to keep it completely out of the takeaway.

It’s going to come down to trial and error if you are going to have success on this point. You’ll have to spend some time on the range trying to find just the right amount of right hand input to provide in your swing. This is sure to be frustrating at times, but those shots where it all comes together just right will be hard to forget.

The Right Hand in the Short Game

At this point, we are going to move from the full swing down to the short game. Even though the swings you make in the short game are much smaller than those you make in the long game, it’s still possible for the right hand to take over. Don’t let that happen. While your right hand does have a job to do on some short game shots, it certainly shouldn’t dominate the action on or around the greens.

• Putting. When hitting putts, you want to keep your right hand completely out of the action. It will hold onto the putter throughout the stroke, but that’s about it. The goal during a putting stroke is to move the club with your shoulders while keeping the rest of your body as quiet as possible.
• If you let your right hand get involved, it is only going to get in the way of what you are trying to accomplish. The only exception to this general rule comes when you are facing an extremely long putt across a big green. In that case, you might need to let your right hand get involved through the hitting area just to strike the ball hard enough to reach the hole. Other than these very long putts, leave your right hand out of it when making a stroke.
• Chipping/pitching. There is a little more for your right hand to do when hitting chip and pitch shots. Basically, you’ll want to let your right hand set the club slightly going back, and then release the club slightly going through. These aren’t going to be big movements – just enough to help the club strike the ball cleanly and send it on its way. As you practice, consider hitting a few right-hand-only chips to get a feel for these movements. Then, put your left hand back on the club and bring it all together.
• Sand shots. This is where your right hand really does have a job to do. When playing an explosion shot from a greenside bunker, you want to use your right hand aggressively through the hitting area to propel the club head through the sand. Don’t hold anything back here – fire with the right hand and create as much speed as possible to cut through the sand successfully. Many amateur golfers are hesitant to turn their right hand loose in this way, and they struggle with bunker shots as a result.

It’s hard to play quality golf if your right hand is doing too much during the swing. It has a job to do, of course, but you need to avoid letting it get too involved from start to finish. Strike the right balance and you will have a great chance of improving your ball striking as time moves along. Good luck!

If I’m teaching a right handed golfer, it’s one of the first things I asked him is, what’s your background of playing any other sport, and what do you do for a living? But what I’m looking for here with a right handed golfer is, how many times does he use his right hand to whack something? If I’m teaching someone who’s played a lot of tennis, or maybe is a carpenter for a living,

I know that that right hand is going to be very dominant and very strong in the golf swing. And it will work the same for a left-handed golfer, just the opposite way around, you're looking for the dominant hand and how much they do with that hand. So if we see a golfer who’s very dominant with his right hand maybe he hits a few bad shots because of it, we can assess what that hand is doing and how and why we can slow it down.

So for a right-handed guy as he sets up to the ball, instinctively he’s going to want to use the most powerful side of his body. So he works his right hand a lot of people they get the right hand too far underneath the club. This hand and pulls the club away very quickly, slams it down back on top of the ball, could cause some low to the left-hand side pull shots.

If a golfer is conscious of that, they might actually have their hand underneath and then refrain from using it, and actually push the right hand from underneath leading with the heel pad that can cause the club face to open and they can slice it. So what we would expect is a strong right hand would hook, but I probably see as many strong right-handed slices as I do hooks just the way the hands work in unison together.

So the important thing to note is if you are a strong right-handed player, is to make sure that right hand is in a neutral position right from the start. Now a neutral position for the right hand is having the V of the right thumb and forefinger pointing up at your chin. And a good way of checking that also is to take the hand off and just relax it, and as it relaxes it sits nicely to the side and then comes on the grip.

We don’t want it to be shoved in underneath with the fingers round and round knuckle to knuckle. We’ll let right hand coming in on top. Then during the back swing from a neutral grip position, the right hand now can’t dominate too much. The shoulders are going to work the club back nicely rather than the right hand ripping that away. As the shoulders turn the club away nicely then lift that up from the top, and from the top, the right hand needs to work in a pulling down fashion not a pushing forwards fashion. If the right hand can pull down you will bring the club in on the right line.

If the right hand flips over the top, you’ll tend to swing over the top and outside the line resulting in pulls and slices as you come back through the ball. One other area where the right hand can dominate too much is coming through the impact face, if the hips aren’t doing enough work the hands will have to overtake the hips too early and again cause the ball to get pulled down the left hand side. So coming through the hitting face, the right hand works too much, that could pull you down the left side.

So if you can feel the ball going left and your hands are doing too much work, you need to be a little bit more active with your hips, push your hips more leftwards, turn your hips faster through the ball, that will actually delay the right hand a little bit, leaving the face more open and hitting straighter golf shots. So let’s make sure that our strong right-handed dominance in life doesn’t lead to strong right dominance in golf.