How to Keep Your Arms Shallow for Consistent Golf Shots

This drill trains a very specific piece of the downswing: keeping your trail arm working underneath your lead arm so your arms stay shallow through impact and into the follow-through. If your arms tend to steepen, your swing often has to compensate with a flip, a chicken wing, or a stalled body rotation just to get the club on the ball. The Mo Norman arm drill helps you organize the arm motion so the club can approach from a better angle, your release can happen more naturally, and your follow-through can look much less forced.

How the Drill Works

The idea is simple: as you move down and through, your right elbow stays more underneath the left elbow for longer. That keeps the arms working on a shallower pitch instead of tipping steeply over the top.

If the trail arm gets on top of the lead arm too early, the club tends to steepen. From there, you usually need some kind of compensation to still hit functional shots. You might:

• Flip the wrists to save the strike
• Chicken wing through impact to manage the path
• Stall your body and throw the clubhead past your hands
• Struggle more with longer clubs, where steepness becomes harder to manage

In this drill, you exaggerate the opposite pattern. You feel the lead elbow working more up and the trail elbow working more down and under, while your chest and posture stay organized. That puts your arms more in line with your spine angle rather than crossing steeply across it.

One of the best parts of this drill is that it does not stop at transition. You carry the shallowing feel through the downswing and into the follow-through. That is what makes it so useful for players who can rehearse a shallow move in transition but lose it immediately through impact.

There is one important note: this type of shallowing often makes the clubface want to open. So if you do the arm motion correctly but do not match it with a proper wrist condition and continued body rotation, the ball may start right, or you may hit it thin or fat. That does not mean the drill is wrong. It usually means the arm motion is improving faster than your release pattern is adjusting.

Step-by-Step

1. Start without worrying about the club. Stand in your golf posture and hold your arms out in front of you. From there, feel your left elbow move slightly above the right while the right elbow works underneath. Keep your shoulders and posture stable rather than tilting wildly.

2. Match your arms to your spine angle. In the correct feel, your arms should seem more parallel to your spine angle, not crossing it at a steep angle. You are not lifting the arms independently. You are rotating them into a shallower relationship.

3. Preset the position at address. Take your normal setup with a short iron or wedge. Before making any motion, lightly preset the feeling that the trail elbow is under and the lead arm is more up. This exaggerated start helps you understand the pattern.

4. Make a small 9-to-3 style swing. Swing back to about waist high and then move through while trying to preserve that shallow arm relationship. The goal is not speed. The goal is to keep the arms from immediately steepening as you turn through.

5. Check the follow-through. Stop in a short finish. Your chest should be turning through, and your right side should still feel somewhat under the left. The club should remain more behind you rather than racing around and across your body too early.

6. Use the body to support the arm motion. If you keep the arms shallow, the club will feel like it wants to travel more out to the right unless your body keeps rotating. So as you move through, let your torso continue turning. This is not an arm-only release.

7. Add a clubface match if needed. If shots start leaking right, blend in a slight bowing or “motorcycle” feel in the lead wrist so the face does not stay too open. The shallower the arm motion, the more important this becomes for many players.

8. Repeat with dynamic rehearsals. Once the preset version feels clear, make a normal backswing and then create the same under-and-shallow relationship dynamically on the way down. After each rep, pause in the follow-through and confirm the arm structure.

9. Progress gradually. Start with mini-swings, then half swings, then three-quarter swings. Only move toward full speed when you can keep the arm pattern and still rotate through without stalling.

10. Let the crossover happen later, not earlier. Eventually the trail arm will pass over in the release and follow-through, especially at full speed. That is normal. The point of the drill is to make that happen later, not immediately after impact.

What You Should Feel

The best way to use this drill is to focus on a few clear sensations rather than trying to micromanage every body part.

Trail elbow under, not over

Your strongest feel should be that the right elbow stays underneath the left as you start down and continue through. For some players, that feels like the right arm is dropping. For others, it feels like the left arm is rising. Either feel can work.

Arms staying shallow through the strike

Instead of the arms pitching outward and steep, they should feel as if they are traveling on a flatter, more around-the-body path. This does not mean stuck behind you. It means they are not jumping on top of the plane.

Body rotation supporting the motion

If you do the arm move correctly, you should also feel that your torso must keep turning. If the body stops, the club can get trapped behind you or the face can stay open. Good shallowing and good rotation work together.

Club staying behind you longer

In a short follow-through check, the club should not look like it has whipped hard left around your body immediately. It should appear more organized, with the clubhead staying behind your hands and body for longer.

A more passive-looking release

When this drill is working, you may feel less need to throw the clubhead at the ball. That is a good sign. The release should seem more driven by the pivot and better arm structure rather than a last-second hand save.

Possible face-open tendencies at first

Do not be surprised if the first few shots start right. Many players have been relying on steepness and hand throw to square the face. Once the arms get shallower, that old timing no longer matches. A small wrist adjustment and better rotation usually clean this up.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Letting the trail arm jump on top too early. This is the exact pattern the drill is trying to fix. If your right elbow points outward quickly after impact, you are probably losing the shallowing too soon.
• Keeping the body too quiet. Shallow arms without body rotation often lead to blocks, fats, or thin shots. You still need to turn through.
• Early extending to find the ball. If your hips move toward the ball and your posture stands up, you will usually lose the clean arm relationship this drill is trying to build.
• Ignoring the clubface. A better arm plane often opens the face if your wrist conditions stay the same. If the ball keeps starting right, look at face control, not just path.
• Trying to hold the trail arm under forever. The trail arm will eventually rotate over in the release. The goal is not to freeze it underneath forever, only to delay the steepening pattern.
• Making the drill too big too soon. If you jump straight to full swings, you may lose the feel immediately. Build it with short swings first.
• Tilting your shoulders excessively. You want arm rotation, not a dramatic shoulder lean that changes your posture and low point.
• Confusing shallow with stuck. If the hands get too far behind you and the body stops, you may hit pushes or hooks. Proper shallow is paired with continued pivot.

How This Fits Your Swing

This drill is especially helpful if your downswing tends to be only slightly too steep from the arms. That may not sound like a big issue, but even a modest amount of arm steepness can create a chain reaction through impact.

When the arms steepen, you often need to make a compensation to deliver the club:

• The wrists may scoop or flip to add loft and square the face
• The lead arm may chicken wing to keep the club from crashing too far left
• The body may stall so the clubhead can catch up
• Strike quality may become inconsistent, especially with fairway woods, hybrids, and the driver

By keeping the arms shallower for longer, you improve the geometry of the release. That makes it easier to rotate through the ball, extend the arms more naturally, and let the club exit in a way that does not require so much manipulation.

This is why the drill connects several pieces of the swing at once:

It improves your release

A better shallow pattern gives you a cleaner route into impact, so the release can happen with less hand throw. You are not trying to rescue the strike at the last second.

It helps reduce flipping

If you normally square the face by throwing the clubhead, this drill can expose that habit. At first, the ball may go right because the old flip is no longer matching the new arm path. Once you blend in proper face control, you can get rid of the scoop and strike the ball more solidly.

It can clean up the chicken wing

Many players chicken wing because the club is arriving too steep and too left. Shallowing the arms and continuing to rotate gives you a better path and a more connected extension through the strike.

It improves your follow-through structure

A good follow-through is often the result of a good downswing. If the arms stay organized and the body keeps moving, the finish tends to look more balanced and less cramped.

Use this drill when you notice any of these patterns:

• Your divots get too deep or too left
• Your longer clubs feel hard to time
• Your right elbow works out in front too fast after impact
• You hit weak blocks, fats, or thin shots when trying to shallow
• Your follow-through looks narrow, bent, or disconnected

In the bigger picture, this is not just an “arm drill.” It is a way to train the relationship between your arms, clubface, and body rotation. When those pieces match up, you can deliver the club more consistently without relying on emergency corrections. That is what leads to cleaner contact, more stable direction, and a follow-through that reflects a swing working in the right order.