Yours lead wing bends on impact. Your elbow bends. Your wrist cups. You are stacking instead of compressing. So-called “chicken wing” is not a swing flaw that you can fix by trying harder. It is a compensation for something else that is wrong in your movement. Fix the root cause and the chicken wing goes away.
What is a “chicken wing” in golf?
A chicken wing occurs when your lead arm bends and your lead elbow moves away from your body through impact. Your lead arm collapses instead of extending. Your hands slow down. The club head crosses your hands. You are adding loft and losing compression.
The chicken wing is an offset. Your body is trying to avoid something worse. Until you fix what’s causing it, you can’t stop it.
Cause 1: Your path is too far inward
The most common cause of a chicken wing is a in-out swing path this is too extreme. You’re swinging so far to the right that you can’t square the face without manipulating something. Your body compensates by bending the lead arm to pull the club back to the left.
The solution is to shallow your way. Work on your fall sequence. Let your arms drop before your body rotates. This shallows the club naturally without forcing it so far in that you have to go to the chicken wing to recover.
Cause 2: Your grip is too weak
A weak grip makes it difficult to square the club face. If your hands are rotated too far to the left on the club, the face wants to stay open through impact. Your body compensates by rotating your wrists or flexing your lead arm.
Check your check. You should see at least two knots in your lead hand at address. If you see only one or none, rotate your hands slightly to the right on the club. This stronger grip makes it easier to square the face without manipulating it. Give the new grip time to feel normal. Once that happens, the chicken wing is gone.
If your weight is on your back foot through the kick, you can’t roll properly. The only way to make contact is to catch it. Your lead arm bends. your wrists roll.
The solution is to feel like you are covering the ball with your chest through the shot. Your upper body should be over or slightly in front of the ball at the moment of impact. This requires you to shift your weight forward and rotate your hips through the stroke. When you do this, your arms can naturally extend because your body is in position to support that extension.
Practice hitting balls with 70 percent of your weight on your front foot. Make your swing where you feel like you’re catching the ball on the ground, not helping it up.
Cause 4: You are trying to hold your delay too long
Some golfers chicken-wing because they’ve been told to maintain lag and keep their wrist angles deep into the swing. They carry it, carry it, carry it, and then at the last second, they have to do something to get the club head on the ball. That something is a chicken wing.
Latency is good, but it’s not something you hold onto. It’s something that happens naturally when you sequence your fall correctly. Your wrists automatically disengage as you roll through the shot. If you’re consciously trying to stay procrastinating, stop. Focus on rolling your body through impact and let your arms and wrists respond naturally.
The workout that fixes it
Get your setup with a mid iron. Do a backflip, then stop at the top. From there, feel like you’re pulling the grip end of the club down toward the ball with your lead arm as your body rotates. Your lead arm should feel like it’s extending down and down, not bending and pulling.
Hit balls with this feeling. Focus on outreach through influence. Extension happens when your path is good, your control is right, your weight is forward and you are spinning the ball.
The simple truth
You can’t fix a chicken wing by trying to keep the wing straight. It is a compensation for something else. Adjust the path if it is too inward. Strengthen your grip if it’s too weak. Lift your weight forward if you are hanging. Stop trying to hold back if you’re over-controlling your release. Address the root cause and the chicken wing disappears.
