Dreaded Chicken Wing

I took some video of my swing the other day to see what is going on. I didn't notice this, but my friend pointed out my chicken wing with my left arm right after impact. DOH!

Any former wingers that can give me advice?

Stick a towel or headcover under your left armpit and don't drop it when you swing. Chicken Wing solved

Then if you're like me you have to learn not to hook it :D

Great. I just fixed my hook too. LOL. I guess I did it by incorporating a chicken wing.

Sounds familiar!!

I put my swing on video about 1 year ago and this was the first thing I noticed. Been working hard to correct it but man it's not easy. For me, I was "quitting" on the shot right at impact. I wasn't turning through the ball, basically my lower body stopped turning and then my hands/arms would catch up and there was no way to get through the ball unless I kind of contracted my arms, causing the chicken wing. I'm getting there but still needs work. Just think about clearing your hips through the ball, which will naturally pull your arms through with full extension. I was told that the problem isn't the arms, don't concentrate on what your arms are doing because that will just lead to an armsy swing of course. Just make sure everything else is on point: maintain posture, full shoulder turn back, turning to a full finish, etc. The rest *should* fall in place (easier said than done of course).

Update: I made a few dozen practice swings after work yesterday with a glove tucked under my left armpit to get the feeling. I went to the par 3 and, although I snap hooked my first shot, most of my iron shots were high and on line. Many were coming up short since the trajectory seemed higher than before. I don't know if this is coming from loosing the wing or the recent bending of my irons to correct the lie angle.

I emailed my instructor and asked if he ever noticed this tendency and he said no, so I somehow invented this in the last few weeks. Maybe because I haven't had Buffalo Wings for a while (guess what I am having for lunch). Good news is, I caught it before it became highly ingrained in my swing.

I went through this when I battled the chicken wing so I'll give you the swing thought that helped me keep from "flipping" my wrists. I think about my right shoulder going down (to keep it under my left) and then through the ball (forward). I've gained effortless power and consistency out of it.

Side Note: I also weakened my grip some which helped me release the club on follow through better and kept the hooks away

Oddly enough, I've been working on turning my right shoulder through at impact in some recent practice sessions. I think I was focusing thoughts there and didn't pay attention to the left side. What is weird, after my irons were bent last Saturday, I was hitting sweet shots into the net but it didn't follow me to the course on Sunday. Perhaps I was trying to steer the ball to the target on the course instead of swinging freely. I think the worse it got, the more I tried to steer the shots. Strange game this is.

Having video is a wonderful thing though so I think I will be doing this more often. I might just have to go to Golf Galaxy and get videoed on their good equipment. I am sending these videos to swing check incidentally.

This is something to watchout for - Good advice.

Can a very steep downswing coupled with overcompensating to "swing outward" cause a chicken wing? It looks like I suck both arms back into my body in an attempt to "swing out" and not go outside in, which used to be a big problem for me.

Ah ok, thank you. So my very steep swing would be lead to disastrous results but somehow I manage to compensate at the last second subconsciously in an effort to actually hit the ball and not the ground. If that's what you are saying that makes perfect sense to me. One of the reasons I think I have developed such an extreme angle is that I've never been able to figure out how to swing "inside to out" while swinging on a shallower plane. It felt so weird like it would be humanly impossible. But I just watched a video about the 5 swing keys and I noticed that I've been rotating my body incorrectly. I've been rotating parallel in an apparently mistaken belief that my right shoulder should remain parallel to my left shoulder. Doing that I couldn't keep my right elbow in while keeping an inside to out path. I think that is the main cause of my swing issues. It almost looks like the right shoulder is up and the left shoulder is down during the takeaway turn. Is that just an optical illusion or am I correct about that? If so, then that explains why I've never been able to feel a proper turn and why it always seemed impossible to hit or even see the ball on the pivot. If I allow my right shoulder to raise during the backswing I can keep my head steady and clear a path for a more inside angle to the ball.

MVMAC I am so giddy right now I want to hug you. I just had the best round of my life from simply turning the way we talked about last night on my backswing. I only hit two somewhat wayward drives the entire day and most were laser straight. I also attacked the hell out of the pins on 2 200 yard par threes. I had the best round of my life striking the ball playing at a difficult course from the blue tees and I just did this adjustment right before the round with about 20 balls.... It was a miracle. The only thing that surprised me was that I lost quite a bit of distance on my drives today. My irons went just as long as usual but I was hitting them even more crisply for the most part. The distance will come with the driver once I get to the range and let myself swing more freely with my new swing but for hitting 20 balls before a round and completely changing my rotation, it was a HUGE success. Thank you so much.

Apparently I was getting a lot of my driver speed from my over the top whipping motion coming down. On a good strike today I was only getting about 235 - 255 even though they were straight down the fairway. Admittedly I was not taking as big a backswing and just focusing on the turn, but I need to work on making a fuller swing with the turn now. Let me ask you this though: if a person swings around 105-107 and he was taking a much bigger, over the top swing with a 36.5 inch shafted driver and he hit it at least 275 to 300 when he hit the sweet spot....can that person develop enough club speed using the right form to equal or surpass that with a 45 inch shaft? I just wonder if my drastically over the top whip through the ball gave me more club speed in a type of cheating way that I won't ever be able to match with better form. I would assume once I get the proper coil that I should be hitting the ball straighter AND further than ever before, but I'm curious what you think.