You can swing left and still deliver a straight path
For a right-handed golfer hitting down with an iron, the swing’s overall direction can point left while the clubhead travels straight towards the target at impact. The club moves around a tilted arc; impact samples just one point on it. “Swing direction” and “club path” measure different things—which makes “swing straight” surprisingly slippery advice.
The tilted-arc explanation behind two different swing measurements
GolfSpark
Imagine the clubhead travelling around a hoop tilted towards the golfer. Before it reaches the bottom of that hoop, it is moving down and outward; after the bottom, it moves up and inward. Where the ball meets that arc affects the direction the clubhead is travelling at that instant.
That is why an iron struck on the descending part of the arc can have a club path pointing farther right than the overall swing direction, for a right-handed player. Orienting that overall direction somewhat left can bring the path at impact back towards neutral. The amount depends on the geometry and angle of attack; there is no single leftward number every golfer should copy.
Trackman separates these measurements for a reason. Swing direction describes the orientation of the wider motion, while club path describes impact. If a lesson or launch-monitor session uses the word “left”, ask which measurement it means. And a neutral path still does not guarantee a straight shot: the clubface delivered with it remains part of the explanation.