How to check if you have a chicken wing

The Chicken Wing is a loss of extension or breakdown of the lead elbow through the impact area. This makes it difficult to develop speed or power and tends to put excessive force on the outside of the elbow joint.  If a golfer suffers from high weak shots, or they tend to develop tennis elbow on the lead side, they probably have the Chicken Wing swing characteristic.

What TPI have to say about the Chicken Wing:

Chicken Winging is an excessive breakdown of the upper body through impact, but it is the lower body that usually causes this common swing characteristic. Whenever the lower body does not generate efficient speed or does not transfer that speed to the upper body, the arms and hands will try to make up for that loss in power. Many times, power and strength deficits in the lower body will lead to Chicken Winging. Also, when the lower body does not initiate the sequence on the downswing, the swing path can become steep or Over-the-Top. Any steepening of the swing plane on the downswing can also lead to Chicken Winging through impact. Loss of external rotation in the lead shoulder can also cause Chicken Winging. External rotation is required for the lead arm to release and rotate normally through impact.

If you suffer from chicken wing, focus on articles and tips based on;

Transition

Downswing Sequence

Weight Transfer

Ground Force

Grip

Steep Downswing

Transcript

The chicken swing fault. This occurs when there’s a loss of extension in the lead arm, in my case, the left arm in the down swing. And it’s through to impact and after impact. Normally with a chicken wing it’s very difficult to release the club, so we often get high weak shots to the right. The test is quite simple. I want you to take your swing through to impact and draw a line from your left shoulder through to your wrist. What we should see is this line bisecting your arm. If the elbow is outside that line, you’ve got a chicken wing swing fault.