Unfortunately, it is a little easier said than done to relax your arms in the downswing. It is natural to get tense right before striking the ball, and that tension will cause your body to tighten everything up – including your arms. The only way to get around this natural tendency is to practice. Once you have mastered your swing technique on the range by allowing your lower body to control the downswing, you should be able to go out onto the course with enough confidence to swing without tension. There is really no other way to get the job done, because without practice you will always lack the necessary confidence to make a relaxed arm swing down into the ball.

Maintaining relaxed arms is as much a mental challenge as it is a physical one. While you have to have your body mechanics under control in order to swing in a relaxed state, you also need your mind to be in the right place. If you are feeling exceptionally nervous about a particular shot, for example, it is unlikely that you will be able to keep your body relaxed all the way through the swing. Again, this is why confidence is so important. Building confidence on the practice tee will help you to navigate your way around the course with a relaxed swing, even when you are faced with some intimidating shots.

On the surface, it might seem like the role of your arms in the golf swing is pretty simple – they swing the club! While you will need to use your arms to move the club back and forth, the actual role they play is a bit complicated. And, that role will change quite dramatically from shot to shot, depending on the club you are using and the situation at hand. So, with so much to talk about on this topic, we’ve dedicated this article to getting it all sorted out.

When first getting started in this game, many golfers use their arms alone as the main source of power for the swing. They allow their lower body, and even their torso, to be mostly an idle bystander while the arms whip around to move the club. It’s possible to hit a few decent shots this way, but you’ll never get far. Only when the rest of the body starts to join in the party will the really exciting results begin to appear. It is learning how to blend the movement of your arms with the movement of the rest of your body that will be such an important step toward reaching your goals on the course.

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.

— The Basics

With such a big topic to cover, the best way for us to get started in this discussion is to simply outline some of the basics that govern how you will use your arms in the golf swing. We should note that everything we cover in this section – and the next couple of sections – will relate specifically to your full swing. Later, we will dedicate a section to how the arms work in the short game, since that is a completely different discussion from the full swing.

To get started, please take a moment to review the points below –

• Arms work together with your body. Ideally, your arms will work in concert with the rest of your body during the golf swing. Professional golfers and other accomplished players often refer to this as being ‘connected’. When the arms and the body work together nicely, the swing is connected, and the results tend to be spot on. The problems start to creep in when your arms move significantly faster than your body, or your body moves significantly faster than your arms. There is a lot of timing involved in hitting good shots, and that timing gets a lot easier when your arms are in sync with your body rotation. So, as you work on improving how your arms work in the swing, never lose sight of the fact that they should work together beautifully with the rest of your body.
• Your arms play a role in alignment. When you think about topics like aim and alignment in the golf swing, you probably think mostly about the club face and your feet. The club face needs to aim accurately down the target line, and your feet need to match up on a line parallel to the left of the target line. However, your arms actually have a role to play here too. When viewed from the down the line position, you want your arms to mimic the line that is created by your feet at address. In other words, an imaginary line running across your forearms should be roughly parallel with the other lines you are creating in your address position. If you have your right arm too high, that line will point to the left, and you may tend to cut across the ball at impact. With a right arm that is too low, you may attack too far from the inside, leading to pushed or hooked shots.
• Left arm stays straight, right arm folds. In general terms, you can think of the way your arms work in the backswing as this – your left arm is going to stay mostly straight, while your right arm is going to fold up. While that is the basic idea, it does need to be said that your left arm doesn’t have to stay perfectly straight to hit good shots. Some players like to play with a firm left arm in the backswing and downswing, while others allow the left elbow to be soft with a bit of flex up near the top of the swing. You’ll need to figure out what kind of left arm position works best for you. Also, while you don’t really need to think about it, we should note that your arm action in the follow through will be just the opposite of what it was in the backswing. Once the ball is gone, your left arm will start to fold up while your right arm extends.

There are plenty of ways to go wrong with your arm action in the golf swing. Of course, that’s nothing new to you as a golfer – there are plenty of ways for lots of different parts of your swing to go wrong. As we move through the rest of this article, we will provide some insight as you how you can avoid common mistakes and how you can work on improving the way your arms perform in the swing.

— Arm Mistakes

Learning about mistakes is one of the best ways to take a step forward in this game. By understand what can go wrong, and why it is a problem, you’ll have more direction in your practice sessions. You’ll be able to spot things you are currently doing wrong, and you will also know what to watch out for down the line when your swing gives you trouble.

The following points highlight some of the common arm swing mistakes in the game of golf.

• Letting the arm swing go too long. We talked earlier in the article about the importance of connection between your body swing and your arm swing. It’s not too hard to maintain this connection early in the backswing, but things get trickier as you get to the top and into the transition. Specifically, many players let the arm swing carry on too long, feeling like they will add power if they swing back as far as they can. Unfortunately, a long arm swing will often make it hard to achieve a clean strike at the bottom. As a good rule of thumb, your arm swing going back should come to a stop roughly at the same time that your shoulders stop turning. This will lead to a connected transition where everything turns back together and starts forward together, as well.
• Too much tension. When you take your stance and prepare to make a swing, your arms should be in a relatively relaxed, comfortable position. They should be hanging down freely from your shoulders, and tension should be at a minimum. Many players, unfortunately, get it all wrong on this point. Instead of being relaxed in their arms, they tighten up, squeeze the club aggressively, and add far too much tension to their address position. All of that tension is going to make it hard to swing the club freely back and through. Even with a good body turn, it’s likely that your swing will be stiff and awkward when you are tense from your shoulders down to your fingers. To work on improving this piece of the puzzle, practice using relaxed arms while hitting short chip shots. It should be easier to stay relaxed over some practice chips than full swings, since you aren’t trying to hit the ball very hard or far. Then, as you gain comfort and confidence, gradually work your way up into bigger and bigger swings, still keeping your arms relaxed at address.

• An arms-only downswing. There is no doubt that the arms play an important role in the golf swing, as the part of your body that is actually connected to the club. However, the arms can’t do it alone, and allowing them to take over the downswing action is a recipe for big trouble. To optimize your downswing, make sure that your lower body is leading the way, out in front of your arms. Your hips should initiate the downswing action, and the whole lower body should keep turning through impact and into the finish. If you can get your lower body to lead the way and allow your arms guide the club through the ball as they follow along, it may be possible to add significant power to your game. This process of using the lower body for power ahead of the arms swinging down is how professional golfers are able to produce such effortless distance. While you might not quite hit it out there as far as the pros, you can still pick up some speed if you learn how to sequence your swing just right.
• Trying to help the ball off the ground. One thing your arms absolutely do not need to do in the golf swing is attempt to help the ball up off the ground at impact. This is an extremely common mistake, and a costly one, at that. As you swing down toward the ball, you should trust that the loft of the club is going to get the shot off the ground and up into the air. The height of the shot will vary on a number of factors, of course, including which club you are using, the lie of the ball, your swing speed, and on an on. If you try to ‘help’ the ball up by using your hands and arms excessively through impact, a number of negative outcomes are possible. For one thing, you probably won’t make very good contact with the ball. And, even if you do make solid contact, your swing speed will be reduced because you interrupted your turn in order to lift the club with your hands and arms. The key to getting out of your own way on this point is trust. If you can trust the loft of the club to get the shot off the ground, you can simply swing down through impact and let the rest happen on its own.

Are you currently making any of the mistakes listed above? Take a look at a recording of your swing on video and think about the errors you usually make on the course, to determine if any of these issues are getting in your way.

— Practicing Your Arm Action

Let’s move on from talking about mistakes with your arm swing and start talking about how we can get you on the right track. Practice is the cornerstone of all improvement in golf, so it should be no surprise that you are going to need to work on how your arms are used if you hope to actually improve.

The points below highlight some keys for you to work on when you make time for golf practice.

• Improve hip tilt. Believe it or not, improving the way you tilt from your hips at address can actually go a long way toward improving your arm swing. Here’s how that works – when you tilt forward from your hips properly at address, you will create room between yourself and the ball. That room is where your arms are going to swing. If you fail to tilt your upper body forward from the hips – as would be the case if you flexed your knees but kept your upper body vertical – you’d have trouble swinging your arms through freely. To build a quality stance, flex your knees and then use your hips to tilt your upper body forward toward the ball, while keeping your back straight. Use a mirror to help yourself find this kind of address position. Once in the right spot, you should notice that your arms are able to freely hang down from the shoulders and grab onto the handle of the club. Not only that, but you should feel less tension in your arms, which is something we mentioned above as an important issue. Everything is connected in the golf swing, so improving your stance and your hip tilt can easily lead to a better arm swing.
• Arms-only pitch shots. It’s true that your whole body needs to work together to hit quality full swing shots, but sometimes it’s a good idea to use only your arms for some practice shots just to feel how they swing through. Find the short game practice area at your local course, or just use the driving range, and hit some 30-yard (or so) pitch shots using only your arms. Stand with your feet relatively close together and just swing your arms back and through to send the ball on its way. Your main focus here should be on the rhythm of the swing. Try to develop a feeling of swinging the club back and through at a smooth, even pace. As you get into a nice rhythm and start to feel good about your arm swing, slowly add some speed by incorporating more body action to make the swing bigger and bigger (you’ll need to be on the range at this point, of course). This is a good drill to use anytime you feel like your swing has gotten out of rhythm. Just boil it down to an arms-only pitching action, make a few practice swings, and gradually work it back up to a full swing.
• Experiment on the range. Too many golfers fall into the trap of just trying to hit the same shots time after time on the range. It’s good to have a go-to shot, and you want to be comfortable with your standard swing, but golf is a game that requires variety and creativity. A practice session on the range is the perfect opportunity to try new shots, experiment with your swing, and evaluate the results. Are all of these shots going to work out? Absolutely not – but that’s the point. Test them out on the range so you can see what works and what doesn’t before you try anything new on the course. As it relates specifically to your arm swing, vary the length of your arm swing and the pace that you use through the ball to see how the results of each shot are impacted. For instance, if you shorten your backswing just a bit, you might produce a lower ball flight with a reduced spin rate – a useful shot on a windy day. Or, if you try to use a little more speed through impact with your arm swing, it might be easier to turn the ball over and hit a draw. However it ends up working out for you, experimenting on the range can lead you to discover shots that you never previously had available in your arsenal.

Don’t look at practicing your golf swing as a chore that you have to get out of the way. Instead, do your best to see it as a positive – an opportunity to get better and get even more enjoyment out of the game. Progress in golf might not come quickly in most cases, but it is exciting when it does arrive.

— The Role of Your Arms in the Short Game

We are going to finish up this article with a discussion of how your arms should behave in the short game. The story here is quite a bit different than it is in the long game, so you will want to be sure to understand clearly how your arms are supposed to behave on and around the greens in order to make good progress.

The three points below discuss how your arms are going to work in the three main phases of the short game – putting, chipping/pitching, and bunker play.

• Putting: Simply put, your arms shouldn’t be doing anything when you are putting. Are they going to move? Of course – they are attached to the putter and will be swinging back and forth. However, they aren’t actively going to do anything during the stroke, because you should be rocking your shoulders back and through to move the putter and send the ball on its way. Keep your arms comfortable, relaxed, and passive when rolling putts and you will be impressed with the results.
• Chipping/pitching: The role of your arms here is much the same as when putting, as you want to allow your shoulders to control most of the action on chip and pitch shots. The only difference is you can allow for a bit of hand/wrist action through the ball in order to provide a little extra speed through the hitting area. Your arms are going to be more active on shots you want to hit high than they will on low shots like a bump and run.
• Bunker shots: This is where you are going to need the most arm action out of any of the short game shots. You need a lot of speed to hit a standard explosion shot out of a greenside bunker, so feel free to use your arms aggressively when in the sand (along with a good shoulder turn). Specifically, you are going to be active with your arms down through impact, propelling the clubhead into the sand and under the ball. Remember, to blast the ball out of the trap, you aren’t actually trying to hit the ball. Instead, you are trying to swing through the sand under the ball, which will lift the ball out and up toward the hole.

To say that your arms don’t have anything to do with the success of your golf swing would not be accurate. At the same time, to say that your arms alone are responsible for the success or failure of your swing would not be accurate, either. The golf swing is a whole-body action, and the arms need to play their role in concert with everything else that needs to happen. We hope the information in this article will point you in the right direction as you attempt to improve the quality of your golf game from tee to green. Good luck!