How To Fix The Chicken Wing In Golf Swing

The chicken wing can be soul destroying and is all too common among amateur golfers. Improving your impact position and follow-through will make the game so much easier and more enjoyable.

What Is A Chicken Wing Golf Swing?

A chicken wing in golf is when your left arm (for a right-hander) starts to bend during your impact and follow through. This can cause a loss of distance and accuracy. To avoid this, keep your left arm straight and your elbow close to your body. For right-handed golfers, this would be the lead arm. The arm shouldn’t start to fold until well after impact. Don’t let your left elbow start drifting away from your rib cage through impact.

You may be wondering why you should worry about your swing AFTER impact? Well that’s because what happens after impact is a result of what happened before and during. Se let’s see how to cure the chicken wing in your golf swing.

Does A Chicken Wing Cause A Slice In Golf?

A chicken wing is when your lead elbow breaks down and bends through and just after impact. It is a common cause of misses to the right for many golfers. It can be caused by gripping the club too tightly or making a conscious effort to hit at the ball rather than working on a free-wheeling swing through the ball. It will tend to cause you to cut across the ball leading to a sliced shot.

Over-the-top moves can also cause a slice. Find out how to fix your over-the-top swing.

How Do You Get Rid Of A Chicken Wing In The Golf Swing?

You need to train yourself to fully extend your arms through the hitting area only allowing your elbow to fold well after the ball has left the club face. Remember that you are swinging a golf club not hitting a golf ball. I know that sounds like the same thing but you should consider the ball an obstacle in the path of your overall swing rather than the end goal.

Drills To Get Rid Of The Chicken Wing

Improve Connection Between Lead Arm And Body

A great drill that was used by Sir Nick Faldo was to place a towel or head cover into your armpit to help you maintain connection between your lead arm and upper body.

Make some three-quarter swings trying to keep your arm and body close together without it dropping. Obviously on a full-out swing you would see some separation as you finish your follow through but practicing three-quarter swings should help you get a feel for it.

If you continue to make a chicken wing swing then the towel will drop during or just after you hit the ball.

Bicep Hold

Address the golf ball normally but instead of holding the club in your right hand place it on your left bicep. Make some half swings to get a feel of your right hand keeping your left arm close to your chest. This will stop you separating your lead arm from your chest.

Use A Weaker Grip

If you think your grip is too tight then this drill will help you. When gripping the club take the little fingers of both hands off the grip and point them straight out. This should immediately release some of the tension in your grip allowing you to better release the club through impact.

Work on three-quarter swings allowing your wrists to hinge on the back swing and re-hinge on the follow through.

Rotate The Glove

If you are doing the chicken wing follow through then yo will notice the logo on your glove is probably pointing toward the sky. If you want to get rid of that tucked follow-through then you need to feel like you are rotating your arms so that the glove is pointing more behind you or downwards after impact. This will be difficult to achieve if you let your elbow bend.

Baseball Swing

Imagine you were swinging the club around you more like a baseball swing keeping the clubhead on the same plane as you swing around your body. You will find your arms and wrists are likely to work in a more natural fashion. You can then transfer this motion to your golf swing.

Follow-through Drill

This exercise is trying to get you focusing on where you need to be post impact and through to the finish. Start from your normal address and swing smoothly through to a full finish focusing on the rotation of your left arm to make sure the elbow isn’t pointing up but is pointing down.

Once you have got the feel for this start hitting shots with a short backswing and through to a full finish.

Get rid of that chicken wing