Symptom: Slice, weak shots that tail off to the right AND you are a beginning golfer who seems to attract unsolicited advice.
Description: Swing such that your left elbow stays relatively straight, especially at impact and during the takeaway.
Why it works: "Keep your left arm straight" is perhaps the most famous (infamous?) golf tip on the planet. The tip must be understood in context. In a properly-executed swing, the left arm will stay fairly straight, and this is desirable. A bent left arm robs power from the shot, and will return the clubface to the ball inconsistently. But if you focus on keeping your elbow straight, you will introduce tension that restricts your turn and inhibits a powerful release of the club. If you are swinging and your left arm is bent, then forcibly keeping your left arm straight is unlikely to fix your problems -- you have much bigger problems that are best fixed by different drills, such as the underhand stick toss drill or the two ball drill.
I much prefer to phrase the "left arm straight" tip as "swing so that your left arm stays relatively straight throughout the swing" -- especially at the takeaway and at impact. This phrasing emphasizes the turn, the release, the lag, and so on, rather than focusing on your left elbow. Who wants to focus on the elbow anyway? You need to focus on the ball -- that's what you're trying to hit!
To prove that you don't need a straight left arm throughout your swing to hit great shots, let's watch Kenny Perry. Run the video to 0:16 and look at his left arm:
Let's also have a look at Angel Cabrera, a long hitter and great ball striker.
Run this video to 0:05 and have a look at his left elbow. You will see it is bent even a bit more than Kenny's!
Finally, have a look at the great Tom Watson. He has been a premier ball striker for decades, perhaps one of the best ball strikers ever to play the game. In the video below, notice how his left arm is quite straight during the takeaway and throughout much of the backswing, but not at the top (0:14). The left elbow is quite bent at the top, and stays so until just before impact. Have a look:
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| Perry, Cabrera, and Watson all bend their left arm on the backswing. |
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