Right-handed golf clubs are designed for the vast majority of golfers, but confirming they’re the right choice for you is about much more than which hand you sign your name with. Your natural swing motion, athletic background, and what feels most powerful will ultimately decide your golfing orientation. This guide will walk you through exactly what makes a golf club right-handed, how to determine if you are a right-handed golfer, and why getting this fundamental choice correct is one of the most important first steps you can take in your golf journey.
At its core, a right-handed golf club is engineered for a golfer who stands on the left side of the ball (when facing the target) and swings the club across their body from right to left. All the design elements of the club - from the head to the grip - are optimized to make this specific motion as efficient and powerful as possible. If you were to pick one up at a golf shop, here are the defining characteristics you would notice.
This is the most obvious and important difference. When you place a right-handed golf club on the floor in its natural playing position (called "at address"), the clubface - the grooved part that strikes the ball - will point to the left. The entire assembly of the head is built on this foundation.
While subtle, the grip also offers clues. Most modern grips feature alignment aids, patterns, or brand logos. These are intentionally positioned to be facing up or be correctly aligned when a right-handed player takes their hold. With your left hand on top and right hand below, the logos will appear straight and serve as a subtle guide to ensure your hands are positioned correctly on the club.
Here’s where many new players get stuck. They assume that if they are right-handed in daily life, they must be a right-handed golfer. While this is true about 90% of the time, it's not a guarantee. Some people game the opposite way due to influences from other sports or simply what feels natural. The golf swing is a two-handed, full-body athletic motion, and your dominant side for power might surprise you.
Forget about writing or throwing for a second. Let's find your golfing stance with a simple test.
This is a classic coaching drill because it reveals your natural, instinctive athletic motion without the pressure of a golf club.
If you instinctively set up on the left side of the object, preparing to swing the broom from your right side across your body, then you are almost certainly a right-handed golfer. This motion feels natural because your right hand and arm (your trail arm) are in a prime position to generate force through the impact zone, while your left arm (your lead arm) guides the arc of the swing.
To highlight that it's all about comfort and performance, look at PGA TOUR star Phil Mickelson. He signs autographs with his right hand because he is naturally right-handed. However, he has played golf left-handed his entire life, allegedly from mirroring his right-handed father's swing as a young child. It proves that the "correct" orientation is the one that allows you to feel comfortable and produce a powerful, repeatable swing.
Imagine you're at a garage sale or browsing used clubs online. How can you be 100% sure you're grabbing a right-handed set? Follow these foolproof visual checks.
This is the quickest and most reliable method. Set the club down on the turf as if you were about to hit a ball. Let it rest on its sole (the bottom of the clubhead).
This single check will give you the answer 99% of the time.
As a backup, look more closely at the clubhead. Find the hosel, the small piece that connects the shaft to the head. On a right-handed club, the hosel will be located at the right-most end of the face (the side closest to you when you address the ball). The face itself extends out to the left, toward the toe of the club.
For drivers, fairway woods, and hybrids, manufacturers typically print the club number (e.g., '3', '5') and loft on the sole of the club. When looking at the bottom of a right-handed club, with the face pointed away from you, this text will be oriented for easy reading. The number stamping on irons will also be on the sole and clearly readable from a standing position.
Yes. Absolutely. In fact, it might be the single biggest decision you make about your equipment. Choosing the wrong-handed clubs isn't just a minor inconvenience, it makes the game practically unplayable.
A golf club is a piece of precision-engineered equipment. The loft angle built into the face is what gets the ball airborne. A right-handed 7-iron, for example, might have around 30-34 degrees of loft. This angle is designed to be presented to the ball from a right-handed swing path.
If you were to try and swing that same club as a left-handed player (approaching from the ball's right side), you wouldn't be hitting the ball with the face. You would be hitting it with the rounded back of the clubhead, which has zero loft. The result? A topped, dribbling shot that barely moves. You would have no way of getting the ball into the air as the tool was not intended for that motion.
Even if you could make some kind of glancing contact, your body would have to contort in unnatural ways to make it happen. You'd be starting your golf journey by teaching your body a set of flawed, inefficient movements that would be incredibly difficult to fix later. As a coach, my goal is always to make golf simpler and more enjoyable. Starting with the correct equipment is the foundational block for doing just that.
In short, right-handed clubs are built for golfers who swing from the right side, with a clubface that points left at address. Determining your golfing orientation is a simple but vital first step, best figured out by what feels most natural rather than just your writing hand. Getting this right from the start removes a massive barrier and puts you on the immediate path to making proper contact and truly enjoying the game.
Once you are confident you have the right clubs in your hand, you will undoubtedly still have questions about how best to use them. This is where we aimed to help with Caddie AI. We designed it to act as your pocket-sized golf coach, available 24/7 to answer anything from "what's the real yardage difference between my 8-iron and 9-iron?" to giving you a clear strategy for the tough par 5 you're standing on. Our whole goal is to strip away the uncertainty from golf so you can step up to every shot with confidence and clarity.
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