Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro

Here we are going to look at what an arms-only golf swing is and how to correct that from the issues that it’s causing you. So an arms-only golf swing is basically a golf swing wherein your backswing, you are not making a full rotation with the upper part of your body, you are just using your arms to lift the golf club up to the top of the backswing. So the shoulders aren’t rotating 90 degree to the right on your backswing. The problem this is going to give us is first of all, because you are using your arms, you are making a very awkward movement, you are going to get a very awkward and steep movement in the club head.

Now that’s going to give you a very steep movement back down to the ball and because you are making this steep movement back down to the ball, you are more likely to hit the top of the golf ball, so you are going to have issues with connection. If you don’t hit the top of the golf ball, if you are just slightly to the right of the golf ball, you are going to hit the ground and really take a big divot. So you are not going to hit the ball as far as you could possibly could, so your action will be very arms up, arms down, so it’s a very chopping action, the club dropping straight down on top of the golf club. The other issue that you have got there is you are only going to hit with the strength in your arms. So if you think how you throw a golf ball, if you throw a golf ball and you throw the golf ball just with your arm, the golf ball, that will get thrown from the driving range, but it’s never going to go as far as if you actually rotate your body into that throw. You are going to generate a lot more force by rotating your body into the throw.

So the same is true with the golf club, if you are only swinging the golf club with your arms you are only going to have the strength of your arms to create club head speed to get the ball to move forward. However, if you are rotating your body, and you are making a much more rotation movement, as the club comes back in, you will have both the strength of your arm and the rotation in your body to fire the club, to create club head speed and to get that ball fired out and into the air. So let's look at how to improve the arms only swing. The first thing I would suggest is I want you to notice what you are actually moving the club away from the ball with. So to do this, put some resistance on the right side of the golf club, if you are a right-handed golfer.

Here I am just going to step off the edge of the mat here, just to get so that the club head now has the mat as resistance to the back of it. And all I am going to do is start to work on moving the club, trying to move the club away. And I am noticing, am I moving from my shoulder or am I moving more from my hands, if I am moving off from the hands, it’s going to lead me to get a very armsy backswing. I should correctly be moving from my left shoulder rotating my upper body to move that flow. So you could work on that at home without even being at the range to get the golf swing actually starting from your shoulders rather than your hands.

The other tip that I would give you, if you place a golf bag next to you, so about a foot to your right, it sits in line with you, and then I want you to imagine, you have got a friend or someone that you are meeting on the other side of that bag. If you go into a position without your golf club, so you are setting up already to hit, and then I want you to work on it with your left hand, imagine that you are going to shake hands with the person over that golf bag. Okay, that’s going to get you, so that from this position, you have to rotate and stretch your arm over that golf bag to shake hands. And that’s the correct movement, that we want to see in your golf swing, rather than this movement, where you won’t have reached over the golf bag. So that’s another good exercise to do to help you learn how to rotate your upper body, and to get your shoulders being used in the golf swing in your upper body rather than just swinging with your arms. If you work on doing that, you will start to hit much better golf shots, you will have much better consistency with the connection and the distance that you can hit will massively improve.