Move Your Right Arm Like This To Hit Driver Straight

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Transcript Summary- When I’m teaching my students how to hit the driver straight or strike their irons better off the fairway, I always try to give them something incredibly simple—something they can take straight onto the golf course. Just yesterday, I was working with one of my students, Richard, who was unbelievably inconsistent. He’d tried all the classic simple tips, but nothing was giving him effortless power or consistency. The moment I looked at his swing, I spotted the issue immediately—his trail arm, the right arm, was moving in a stiff, wooden way. It was creating all sorts of problems, pulling his swing around in the backswing and causing him to throw his body through impact. Now, you may not be doing that exact same thing, but I find that so many problems in the golf swing stem from how that right arm moves—both at setup and during the swing.

So in this video, I want to share the exact drill I gave Richard that made a massive difference to his consistency. Once we did it, his swing became so much more repeatable and effortless, and crucially, something he could take straight to the course. And to bring it to life for you, we’re going to play a little hole together. I’ll walk you through how the drill works with driver off the tee, then with irons from the fairway, and finally how it can even help your short game when pitching onto the green. But before we dive in, if you’re new here, consider subscribing—I release videos like this every week to help you improve, and I always include a free download or practice guide in the description below so you never have to remember a thing.

Now, Richard’s swing was full of loops and compensations. What we did was simplify everything by teaching him how to move his right arm correctly. At setup, I had him slightly soften his arm—not keep it rigid. I told him to imagine doing a bicep curl with that trail arm over the shoulder, allowing it to fold naturally in the backswing. The key was turning the right arm inward so the elbow crease faces forward, and then positioning the hand so it points toward the target. This setup allows the arm to fold cleanly and create a nice, consistent arc on the backswing.

On the downswing, most people either throw the club or rotate too early. I told Richard, and now I’m telling you—forget turning. Just allow the trail arm to unfold naturally, almost like you’re letting gravity drop the club back into the ball. This motion naturally encourages the turn as a result, not something you have to force. It’s one of the biggest mistakes I see: people turning too soon, staying stuck on the back leg, and losing ball-first contact. If you just fold on the way up and let it unfold on the way down, you’ll trace a beautiful path into the ball—simple, repeatable, and effective.

As we play the hole, I want to introduce you to something I got from my mentor Graeme Walker—the Three C’s: Correct, Comfortable, Confident. Step one is to make sure your setup and movements are correct, so I always do a little rehearsal swing first. Then, I shuffle in and rehearse again with rhythm to make it feel comfortable. Only then do I step up to the ball, ready to hit with confidence. This whole process builds a consistent pre-shot routine you can rely on.

For iron shots, the same principles apply, but it becomes even more important. We want ball-then-ground contact, and that happens naturally when you don’t spin out. Let the arm unfold and trust that your body will move through the shot as a result, not because you’re forcing a turn. It’s a subtle but powerful change.

And when I missed the green short and left, it gave me the perfect opportunity to show you how the same trail arm technique helps with chipping. Again, soften the right arm, keep it connected to your body, and just let the club fall—no flicking, no forced turning, just connected rhythm. Stick to the same Three C’s: get the motion correct, make it comfortable with some practice swings, and then step up with confidence.

So if you want a repeatable swing that feels effortless and delivers better ball striking across your game, focus on how that right arm folds and unfolds. I hope you enjoyed the video—if you did, give it a thumbs up and maybe share it with a friend. And if you’re keen to learn how to build even more effortless power and gain extra yards, check out the next video right here. Until next time, have a great golfing week!

Full Transcript- when I'm teaching my students how to hit driver straight or strike their irons a little bit better off the fairway I always love to give them something incredibly simple that they can take straight to the golf course and just yesterday I was with one of my students Richard who ultimately was unbelievably inconsistent he tried all the simple golf tips I'm sure you can imagine but nothing was giving him any effortless power wasn't giving any consistency and as soon as I looked at his golf swing I saw immediately what was the problem and I see this a lot he was he was completely unsure about how to move this right arm this trail arm in the golf swing he would basically move it in almost quite a stiff and wooden manner this would force loads of problems in the back so he'd pull it around the corner here and then he would throw his body at it through the impact area it was incredibly inconsistent now you might not do specifically that but what I see is most problems in a in a golfer's swing stem from this position of their right arm at the start of the swing but also during the golf swing they don't know how to fold it in the backswing and they're really really important unfold in the downswing in this golf video I want to share with you the drill that I gave Richard because once we've done it it really simplified his golf swing to such a degree that gave him so much more consistency more importantly he can take it to the golf course so today what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to play a little hole i want you to join me to play a hole with me and we're going to start on the tea and show you how it works with driver show the subtle differences that and how it's going to work with your iron shots but also show you how it can really really help your short game or pitching onto the green before I do though look if you're new to the channel it's one of your first lessons of mine please consider subscribing i release videos just like this one every single week to try and help you improve your game plus you never have to remember a thing everything we do here I'll put into a free download or practice guide in that description box below okay so I think you're going to really really enjoy this one because it is very very simple so a lot of players like I say are incredibly inconsistent richard was definitely one of those where you have very basic lots of different loops in the swing some people going here and then come over some people lift the arms up and move it in here there's a whole array of that i want to kind of simplify the whole lot for you so all I did with Richard was simply this i taught him how the right arm is supposed to move in the golf swing if the right arm moves correctly we can create a simple arc on the way back we can bring it beautifully back down on the on the way through look and it's just repeatable time and time again to do that we need to make sure that we understand um how to set up right so when we're setting up to the ball your right arm has got to be in a position to fold correctly right so I want you to imagine this if your right arm which I see a lot of the time is bent this way it's very very hard look to fold it right if I just soften it like this I can now look naturally fold the right arm beautifully it's just basically folding really naturally on the way back now all I do to do this and this is important is I just turn it inwards so this section here look is facing you and then I turn this is also important I just turn my hand look to face the target because this is how I hit the ball straight i don't want the hand facing in that direction because that's going to get more likely a path to go to the right and I don't want my hand on top of the club because that's going to get my path going to the left so I simply turn this to face you that gives it ability to fold i make sure my hand goes on the golf club facing the target simple as that isn't it right now from here all I did with Richard here was he was instinctly wanted to do this keep it really wooden and stiff and under control i said "No just relax it let it naturally look fold backwards almost like I'm just doing a bicep curl over my trail shoulder so I'm allowing it to fold and what do you notice here it's just following a beautiful arc up to the top of the swing so we've got setup we're allowing this natural folding of the trail arm on the way back and then the one thing I would say once you've done that which I would say is probably one of the faults I see a lot with players is what do you do how do you start that down swing well when you're coming down most PL people they don't not just let it unfold what they do is they throw the club they start to turn towards their target i said to Richard I don't want any form of turn at all get rid of turn never turn on the way through i'll show you what I mean by that all we do we let this naturally fold and as I'm coming down I'm unfolding it like this i'm unfolding it until look it naturally falls back down to the golf ball and as you do this if you do this with momentum here look it will naturally drag you through into the turn what I don't want is what most people doing which is driving and pulling the club around there getting it over the top or the the better players would pull and get it stuck underneath all I want you to do is fold the right arm up like a bicep curl on the way up and let it unfold and f look at this i'm almost like the club's falling with gravity i'm almost throwing the club look down here and then look back into the golf ball this helps you trace look this beautiful downward motion into that golf ball time and time again so I promised we'd play a little hole and just play this hole and show you how this applies to all your shots going down now I got a wonderful process from one of my mentors Graeme Walker and he calls it the three C's so correct comfortable confident this is how I want you to approach your shots on a golf course so how do you do this correct well we make sure first of all we're standing away from the golf ball we we get in position and we take our time look and we get this correct with a simple rehearsal then what we do is shuffle a bit closer to the golf ball to and we start to make that feel comfortable so I'm now adding some rhythm to that motion then what I do is I go to the golf ball i don't waste any time i got myself

set and that's just absolutely effortless right so and data from Shot Scope shows us that if you can hit the ball just a little bit further you will naturally lower your handicap because what we found is that data shows us that doesn't matter how what your handicap is everyone hits roughly the same amount of fairways but if you can gain effortless yards this will make a big difference let's go and play that second shot so I've got 197 to the middle of green 185 to the front and the flag is on the front edge of that green so what I've done is I've got a six second shot of the day so um but how do I apply this trail arm or this right arm to an iron shot unbelievably exact almost exactly the same thing however just remember when you're doing this when this is folding up here and it comes down never turn just trust that ultimate the turn is going to happen and why this is important even more so with your irions is we want to strike the ball than the ground a lot of time people they get to the top of the back swing and they start turning and they're all the weight still on their right leg that spins them behind the golf ball they fat it thin it you name it by ultimately here just in a sense staying this way not turning it allows your weight naturally to kind of move towards that golf ball whilst this naturally unfolds like this now what this does is it gets you to strike the ball then the ground you can see here if I rotate I'm going to spin out and hit the ground potentially behind the golf ball simple as that so just get to the top allow this to naturally unfold like this back down to the golf ball here look and hey Presto that is how we're going to get that repeatable swing so let's go back to the free C's so we got to get it correct so I'll do a little rehearsal my rehearsal might be as simple as this out in front of me here feel the trillam folding unfolding folding unfolding and then look I move a little bit closer just get the rhythm with that don't waste too much time and away we

go a little left side of the green I think but let's go find out so as you can see look I've just missed a green short and left which gives me a great opportunity to show you how the right arm your trail arm can actually help your chipping too so chipping should be pretty straightforward but we make it complicated when this arm gets into kind of strange positions so soften it here let it just soften into your body here now from here all you're going to do is you're going to keep it connected all the way back and all the way through we're not going to kind of disconnect it here we're not going to drive the handle here we're not going to start flicking like this we just keep it connected so we then go to the three C's what Graeme was talking about which is correct comfortable confidence so we're going to get uh correct first trail arm is in there i'm going to make a swing and now what I'm doing look I'm letting the club just fall i am not driving it i am not turning i'm allowing it to to fall to the ground yeah i'm connected feel that motion then I get a rhythm with it to make that feel comfortable yeah then I get to the golf ball now look at this i'm getting into the target now looking at my flag i'm going to try and hold this for eagle get myself set make it feel comfortable not too bad not too bad so it makes sense so follow this simple process trail arm controls what you do in that back swing also makes everything start to feel so much more effortless and easy and helps you create a much more repeatable swing i hope you enjoyed the video if you did give it a thumbs up maybe share it with one of your friends and now if you'd love to learn how to create some more effortless power in that game and ramp up that yardage even more check this video out right here but until next week have a wonderful golfing.