Get more rotation in your golf swing for better control

If your elbows are all over the place in the golf swing, then your club path is, too.

Ben Hogan was the man for keeping the elbows close together, and it was something that he talked about regularly. He loved to see his swing as tight as possible.

In a famous video, he said: “Clutch your sides with your elbows and visualise your elbows being attached to your body… holding your elbows into your side.”

• 3 things I learned from playing the Scottish Amateur

• Aaron Rai’s putting routine is incredibly thorough 

The main swing thought here, if you like, is to try and keep the feeling of having your elbows close together. This is something a lot of players do currently, Bryson DeChambeau being one of them. When you keep the elbows close together, you’ll feel the upper arms – your tricep and your pec – will form a better relationship.

By that I mean, your swing will be better off rotationally with less moving parts. The less moving parts, the less that can go wrong. Look at Eamon Darcy and Jim Furyk, they did the same thing every single time so it worked for them – but you wouldn’t necessarily teach that kind of movement.

Hogan liked to keep things together, and simple, and this is why thinking about your elbows this way is the easiest way to work on your swing path. Tom Watson used to talk about ‘swinging in a barrel’, which is very similar to this. It is essentially all about connection and body rotation.

When you have both elbows working together, the path of the golf club is much easier to control, because your upper body and arms are connected. If your elbows are flailing out during the backswing or downswing, you’re disconnected.

• 8 secrets to Brian Harman’s success at the Open

• Control your irons better with Mav’ McNealy

How to work on rotation in your golf swing

If you do practice drills with your elbows close in to your right side, you’ll get the feeling of being ‘as one’. Hogan put his right elbow to his right hip and his left elbow to his left hip and that kept both of his elbows close together. That was his swing thought at address. He wanted his swing to work as a rotational action with no moving parts.

It’s not just the full swing this works for, either. The same theory can apply to putting. Look at what Justin Rose does when he putts. He puts his shirt sleeve under his arm as trigger to stay more connected.

Steve Johnston is a long-time member of the bunkered Performance Panel and is Scotland’s leading golf YouTube star. He coaches out of Peebles Golf Club and is available in virtual format here.