If you are not already preparing your arms and elbows like this before you setup, your swing is about to improve a lot. This question came to me this morning in an email and here is my reply:
Question – How tight are your elbows pointing at each other and how tight on chest?
Great question … I think the easies way to know, is to hold the club straight out in front of you from the shoulders with your arms fully extended, shaft in line with the front arm, elbows pointing down and towards each other. This is a critical. If the arms are not extended, they will elongate during the swing (changing the radius). Now keeping a little tension at the elbows, allow the arms to drop down on top of your chest (not pinching your chest, on top). This gives a radius that can be maintained but freedom to be controlled by the shoulders. I call this the “Template”. Now with the template hanging, we can use this as a guide for setup that is repeatable. One key point for all this is the elbows pointing back towards the hips as a recurring relationship. They start that way and realign as the hips pull the arms back down in front of the body turning through impact… here is a video that will help The Ross Move
All great players somehow before they hit, got their arms in this position. Hogan had a picture in his book with string winding around the arms to hold them close together. I see many tour players (subconsciously) stretch and lengthen their arms just before they take the club back to get into this same setup. We need a constant continuity through the arms that does not break down during the swing so the shoulders can take over and rely on the arms to stay the same… thanks for the nice comments… please let me know if you need more help… Ross