Advice I Hate: "Release the Club"

[golfdad]

chas, since i am not a golf teacher, i can only relate my experience working and observing my kids who are getting better.

one thing you may want to try is to start with chipping.

in chipping, one strikes through the ball and maintain the wrist angle we have been talking about in this thread.

because the chipping motion is shorter, right under our eyes and slower, i think it may be easier to appreciate the "holding" feeling at the wrists.

i think once you feel comfortable with that chipping motion, it may be easier to translate into fuller swings.

in my experience one thing to watch out for is that in chipping, the weight shift is not that aggressive, so during the transition from chipping to full, there is a tendency to weight shift less properly, which may lead to more wrist "flipping" if you will...

[Chas]

Sounds like good advice. I'm working on getting that feeling of both arms staying fully extended, with the triangle maintained, for a microsecond right after contact. Erik's video clips show this very nicely. I haven't really got it yet, far from it - my left elbow still breaks too soon (right hander).

[Tom]

Erik - I didn't say "before impact" as you intimate.

[iacas]

Erik - I didn't say "before impact" as you intimate.

You said "through" impact and if you want to claim now that doesn't mean "before," go ahead. I won't stop you, but I will suggest in as friendly a manner as possible that you be more clear in the future. "Through" implies both before and after.

As for after, I've said a few times that what happens after impact is irrelevant - Lucas Glover rolls after impact like crazy (and is mad talented and practices the timing like it's his job, because it is). The average golfer hears this advice and starts rolling well before impact. 90-95% of slices are probably hit with a relatively square clubface. "Release the club" is bad advice for all golfers, as it will do little to nothing to help their already fairly decent clubface angle and do a lot to further screw up their swing path. A bit part of the reason why it's "advice I hate" because people do it wrong. Furthermore, the instruction is probably wrong because people are using the old ball flight laws.

I wouldn't argue with that. Let's say, "passive with respect to rolling the club over", which would feel very passive in the mind of the golfer since basal (tonal) muscle activity doesn't really register. Of course you are right that there is constant low level muscle action required to maintain posture etc, no doubt about that - else we would fall in a heap in the tee box.

Here's the thing, too: I'm not suggesting your right wrist doesn't change its relationship to the left one, too. I'm suggesting that actively rolling them is bad. For the clubface to stay square to the plane your right wrist will be even with the left wrist when viewed from face-on when your arms get slightly past horizontal on the follow-through. Yeah, that's pretty late, but at parallel on the follow-through the leading edge of the clubface should still not be toe-up, but should still be roughly the same as your inclination to the ground (commonly and incorrectly referred to as your "spine angle").

So you guys, how do I work to prevent any active rolling of the wrists before impact?

Maintain the angle between your right forearm and the club shaft. Use that Taly device. Feel as if you re-cock the club (increase lag) again after impact. Use an impact bag. Take a full swing but leave the clubhead in the ground or a foot into the follow-through at most. Lots of drills.

[Chas]

Thanks for the authoritative advice Erik, I'm sure I need it. I've been told by an instructor and others that I tend to finish low, which is partly because I don't "extend" properly as you indicate one should, i.e. I drop down below the plane on the follow-through because my left elbow (right hander) breaks too soon (and I prolly roll my hands early as well). What happens after contact is important only because it's a marker for what happened before and at contact, which is to say it's critical. I shall think about your many suggestions and look again and again at your video clips, and other videos, from this particular perspective. Of course it's tough to make the necessary changes because things are happening very fast at this point, you're really just thinking "fire away" if you're thinking at all. Well, nobody said golf was easy ....

[Parker0065]

I agree with iacas that this tip is basically worthless and does more harm than good to the average player. As far as controlling the ball flight by trying to control your amount of wrist/forearm rotation is a reciepy for wild shots and loss of distance. The so-called "Release" of the golf club is something that naturaly occurs in a proper golf swing after impact. I direct my ball flight with small changes in stance and clubface as I address the ball, not by trying to manipulate my forearms on the downswing. This would create all kinds of timing issues in my downswing and decrease my swing speed.

Rather than thinking about "Releasing the Clubhead" I prefer to concentrate on "Accelerating through the ball". An old drill that I use every time I practice is to turn my driver upside down and swing it gripping it from the clubhead end to get that swoosh sound. I'll swing with the idea of making the swoosh sound the loudest in the impact zone. This drill forces me to relax my hands and forearms to get the proper swoosh sound at impact. If I have tension I will not get the proper acceleration and the ball will go offline and a shorter distance.

I was at our golf dome the other day watching players hit. They were mostly average golfers and one espiring mini-tour player. This is subjective on my part because I didn't put them all on a launch monitor,lol, but you could really tell the difference in acceleration through the ball with the average swingers versus the mini-tour player. The average guy looked like they were just going through the motions of a golf swing with little increase in acceleration from the top of thier backswing to thier follow through. With the mini-tour player you could much more easily sense the change in swing speed as he swung through the ball to the finish.

For me, thinking of things like "Releasing the clubhead" are anti-productive and create tension that leads to slower swing speed and offline shots. One swing thought I have over the ball to relieve tension that isn't golf related but works for me is "Let Go, and Let God"!

[iacas]

What happens after contact is important only because it's a marker for what happened before and at contact, which is to say it's critical.

Not really true, no. It's often an indicator, but not always, and it diminishes greatly the further past impact you look. A good golfer can do things within the space/time immediately after impact but look exactly the same leading up to and through impact.

Impact is all that really matters (to paraphrase ), and second on the list is the stuff leading up to impact. Jim Furyk's swing looks goofy both before and after impact, but his impact position is fine and repeatable. Someone like Lucas Glover can roll his hands like crazy, but it's AFTER impact. Or Jim Thorpe's swing - that's not a marker for anything other than how he likes to follow through. Arnold Palmer. Long list here. What did Roy McAvoy say - every follow through is unique? And yeah, that's well after impact, but it still holds - a good golfer can do something after impact but look the same leading up to it. The problem is that the average golfer hears this advice and tries rolling his hands over BEFORE impact.

The so-called "Release" of the golf club is something that naturaly occurs in a proper golf swing after impact. I direct my ball flight with small changes in stance and clubface as I address the ball, not by trying to manipulate my forearms on the downswing. This would create all kinds of timing issues in my downswing and decrease my swing speed.

Agreed.

[Tom]

Right. And through impact is correct. You may debate this all you'd like. It's called "releasing the club." It is a key move in the golf shot... Look at the Hogan video I posted days ago... Debating me is debating Hogan. Again, if this is about stack and tilt, sorry... i don't stack or tilt...

[Zeph]

It's not about S&T;, haven't you read what has been posted?

You don't do any rolling before impact. Hogan does not do it, Tiger does not, no good player does. They roll differently after impact, but that doesn't matter as much.

Releasing the club means to release the lag, not flip the wrists. Lag is a cause of other things, so you should not try to conciously release the club.

[steve8820]

This has become quite a spirited thread. IMO, one should not have a swing thought that involves any manipulation of the clubface to square up at impact. With a connected swing and proper grip, the rotation of your body through shot squares the clubface. It is the big muscles that the pros rely on. Something like squaring up with your hands/wrists will never hold up under pressure. Sure there is a sensation that my right hand has crossed over the left, but this is AFTER impact and the result of a proper grip and body rotation.

[iacas]

It's not about S&T;, haven't you read what has been posted?

He doesn't seem to have, and because I've responded several times in several ways and they all seem to have been ignored, I've given up.

The rest of what you said, Zeph, I agree with.

[jamo]

You don't do any rolling before impact. Hogan does not do it, Tiger does not, no good player does. They roll differently after impact, but that doesn't matter as much.

Exactly. Put a club in your hands and try to roll your hands/wrists/forearms. You can't do it. At least it's awkward.

[Chas]

This has become quite a spirited thread. IMO, one should not have a swing thought that involves any manipulation of the clubface to square up at impact. With a connected swing and proper grip, the rotation of your body through shot squares the clubface. It is the big muscles that the pros rely on. Something like squaring up with your hands/wrists will never hold up under pressure. Sure there is a sensation that my right hand has crossed over the left, but this is AFTER impact and the result of a proper grip and body rotation.

Yes, and I think that is what can be a bit confusing to people, even halfway decent players - due to the pace of events at that part of the swing (contact/early follow-through). I think this is why some people dislike the advice so much, because it appears to encourage a mistaken notion. The better players keep the triangle going, with no wrist roll whatsoever, for a nanosecond after contact and get the feeling of "following the ball" towards the target with the clubhead (of course it starts to curve back inside again but we're talking about a feeling here, not precise head track) - I've heard more than one pro use this phrase when referring to achieving consistency, especially on a tight course. I like the "follow the ball" thought myself, it seems to help me keep things together right through the contact zone.

But for me, unlike some of you low handicappers, it's a real work-in-progress. Somehow I gotta hit more fairways (and get more GIRs) or I'll never shoot below 80 ........

[mdl]

This is funny. I'm with the couple people who've responded saying they interpret "releasing" as being more about the flow of the swing, and thinking about it that way actually really helps me. I spent a time bring it back inside and trying to get an inside out swing to get rid of the beginner's slice. One of the ways I did that was by making sure I kept my hands inside at the start of the downswing and then thinking about releasing to the outside. But I was never actively trying to roll my wrists or elbows through or push the club face square. It was more thinking like I was going to aim the firing of my hips and my follow through a bit right of my target.

In the past year I've fully ingrained not coming over the top and my problem hits are hooks. I've figured out that this comes from the fact that I've worked a lot of firing my lower body, but one of my natural reactions to this has been to also yank my front shoulder and stand up straighter. This leads to hooks and pull hooks, depending on how much I yank. Now if I think about "releasing" both the lower and upper body directly at the target, I get a nice slight draw, and "releasing" is the swing though that helps alleviate the shoulder yank for me.

So yeah, deliberately trying to push/roll through your wrists or elbows, or like placing the clubface down at the ball, is surely bad swing advice. But I feel like generally thinking of releasing as the flow of your swing can be helpful. Many high-handicappers post up or pull back with their body through the swing, and I think having the thought that you want your body and club to flow directly towards where you want the ball as you're swinging, even though the physics mean this isn't really quite what's happening, can be very useful.

[iacas]

mdl, your version of "release" is not the way in which the vast majority of average golfers seem to interpret this tip, which is the entire basis for this thread... that the way in which the average golfer tends to interpret this tip is a horrible, terrible way to swing the golf club.

Most average golfers - and I don't have a number obviously but I'd guess it to be over 90% - hear "release" and think "roll."

Now if I think about "releasing" both the lower and upper body directly at the target, I get a nice slight draw, and "releasing" is the swing though that helps alleviate the shoulder yank for me.

Completely different part of the body and a completely different tip than the one talked about here. It's right in the title: "release the club." It's not "release the lower and upper body."

So yeah, deliberately trying to push/roll through your wrists or elbows, or like placing the clubface down at the ball, is surely bad swing advice.

Exactly. So you agree with me - and that's the whole basis for this thread:

Advice I hate: " Release the Club " This topic isn't about other kinds of "release." It's about "release the club."

[mdl]

mdl, your version of "release" is not the way in which the vast majority of average golfers seem to interpret this tip, which is the entire basis for this thread... that the way in which the average golfer tends to interpret this tip is a horrible, terrible way to swing the golf club.

Fair enough Erik. I wasn't implying that I think "release the club" is good advice. I was more pointing out that what I think of when I hear "release" is much different from what you're talking about (and as you pointed out, we agree that what you're talking about is terrible advice). I was just noting that because I think it's funny and sort of sad how common that problem is. There's lots of short catch-phrasey advice/sayings that people interpret in different ways, some of which are helpful, and others which are very bad, and none of which may be exactly what the originator of said advice meant.

I don't actually know that many serious golfers personally, so I fully believe your impression that this phrase is interpreted to support very bad practices the vast majority of the time.

[JaY_B]

As Iacas said earlier on 'releasing or rolling' the wrists makes absolutely no sense bio mechanically. Set up to ball and hinge your arms up from the elbow (keeping your upper arms in a constant position) and then unhinge
them downwards back towards the ball, that is the correct powerful release that is proven bio mechanically, the rolling of the wrists provides little to no power and constantly changes the accuracy of the club face throughout the swing.

[Yukari]

I had a tendency to dip my right shoulder in the downswing preventing proper release of the clubhead ie open clubhead at impact and lots of fades/slicing as a result.

I have the same problem with dipping my right shoulder once in awhile leading to slice. I would love to get a copy of that video to see what you mean. Any chance you can send me a copy or point me to a link?

Much appreciated. As for releasing the club, I think what the instructors are trying to say--although incorrectly--is to try to square the club face at impact. By trying to release the club you tend to square the club face whereas most slicers tend to hold that wrist position causing them to slice. Just my 2 cents.