Putts and short chip shots are mainly played without any body movement from the golfers body, but most or the other golf shots such as drives are played using parts of the full golf swing. A full swing is a extremely complex rotation of the body aimed at accelerating the golf club head to a great speed and keep it acurate. very few golfers play with their left hand, with even players who are strongly left-handed in their daily life preferring the right-handed golf swing. The downswing is roughly a backswing reversed. After the ball is hit, the follow-through stage consists of a continued rotation to the left.

At the end of the golf swing, the bodys weight has shifted almost entirely to the left foot, the body is fully turned to the left and the hands are above the golfers left shoulder with the club hanging down over the players' back. For a right-handed golfer, it consists of a backswing to the right, a downswing to the left, and a follow through. At address, the player stands with the left shoulder pointing in the intensional direction of ball flight, with the ball before the feet. The club is held with both hands, the clubhead resting on the ground behind the ball, hips and knees somewhat flexed, and the arms hanging from the shoulders. The backswing is a rotation to the right, consisting of a shifting of the player's body weight to the right side, a turning of the pelvis and shoulders, lifting of the arms and flexing of the elbows and wrists. In the past, this may have been due to the difficulty of finding left-handed golf clubs.

Today, more manufacturers provide left handed variations of their club lines, and the clubs are more readily purchased from mail-order and Internet catalogues. Even the best professional golfers sometimes succumb to this pressure, such as getting the "yips" and being unable to make short putts, or having collapses of their full swing.