wrist hinge?

[Dr. Slice]

what is the proper "wrist hinge"

latley with my driver i have been slicing a lot and i think it could be from too much of a wrist hinge if thats even possible because i am not coming from inside out and when i swing i feel like i am getting my wrists through more than i need

so how should i be hinging my wrists?

[uttexas]

the proper wrist hinge is not natural for me. According to my instructor, at about half way back on the backswing you should lift up with the right wrist (for a righty) and at the same time-keep your forearms close together (to prevent the flying right elbow). Your left wrist just naturally cocks and goes along for the ride using this technique. This keeps the shaft on plane, and helps to maintain a flat left wrist.

Previously, I was consciously cocking (over cocking and extending=cupping) the left wrist.

Will try to find a good example of this and post it.

[uttexas]

[uttexas]

Appleby does a really nice job of keeping his forearms together. The way to practice this, is to make half and 3/4 swings holding a cantelope melon sized ball between your forearms.

[CG031]

the proper wrist hinge is not natural for me. According to my instructor, at about half way back on the backswing you should lift up with the right wrist (for a righty) and at the same time-keep your forearms close together (to prevent the flying right elbow). Your left wrist just naturally cocks and goes along for the ride using this technique. This keeps the shaft on plane, and helps to maintain a flat left wrist.

Same with me man. My instructor has been having me do the exact same thing because he said I was over-hinging my wrists too late at the top of the backswing, it needs to happen when you about half way (belt buckle) high on your backswing.

[Zeph]

You're right, a flat left wrist is not a natural position, which I think is why so many players out there with no instruction suffer from a slice. They may be coming over the top and stuff, but the biggest problem is that cupped left wrist along with holding off the release.

A flat left wrist is not a natural position, so you'll have to work on forcing it there. In that position, the wrists can't really hinge that much more at the top of the backswing. At address you already got a lot of the hinge, keep the left wrist flat going to the top and the weight of the club will pull down, causing the wrists to hinge a bit more.

I like this video. You see at the point where the club is parallell and going past parallell to the ground, they haven't conciously hinged the wrists at all, just kept the address position. Some like to hinge them early, and that's fine too as long as you do it right.
Back to the video. When the club reach perpendicular to the ground, the weight of it starts pulling down and hinging the wrists even more. At the top, it's not fully hinged until they start going down. Because of good movements here, they drop the arms without casting out the club. In fact, they hinge even more, creating lag on the club. At the top of the backswing, the club is somewhat 90º relative to the arms, but during the downswing, when the arms are parallell to the ground, that angle is less, closer to 60º.


There are different opinions on everything in golf, but I believe that a flat left wrist will help a lot on control. If it's slightly bowed or slightly cupped that's ok, makes it a bit harder to square up the club, but better than a severly cupped or bowed left wrist. If you get the wrist in that position, everything else should happen by gravity. You will have to work on keeping the wrist flat, but it should hinge naturally from the weight of the club. You can feel this by swinging around a club, how it control your wrists and lag behind.

Proper arm motion is needed to avoid casting, but that's another story.

[ks8829]

I think your slice is caused by your take away and it can be easy to fix.

1) putting a long ruler down on the ground pointing to the target line
2) get a 2 by 4 about at least 2 - 3 feet long
3) place the 2 x 4 along the outside of the ruler that is on the ground
4) now with the long ruler on the ground and the 2 x 4 along the outside of the club take the club back without hitting the board and along the line of the long ruler that is on the ground
5) practice this motion so that you are taking the club back on and inside the line of your ruler on the ground
6) this drill will help you prevent taking the club from the outside line
7) now practice hitting some chip shots only taking the club back hip high
8) when you take the club back the shaft should point down the line and the toe should be pointing up in the air
9) when you hit balls the balls should fly straight or from right to left slightly
and not left to right
10) make sure that your arm is relaxed but also extended to the ground
11) make sure that you have a slight tilt of your back shoulder down so that it is lower than your front shoulder
12) practice hitting 30-60 balls solid and consistently until your ball flight is straight and not slicing with only our wedges
13) your grip pressure should allow the hands to turn over so that the club will automatically turn over from toe pointing up on the backswing to the toe pointing up on the follow through

[Zeph]

Good post ks8829, I agree very much. Did some work on this on my own today. Finding the slot is an important part of wrist hinge and lag. I'm taking the club back too much on the outside, coming down the hands are so far out, It's impossible to get lag and still hit the ball.

[Dr. Slice]

hey thanks a lot guys there are a lot of good posts here. i found out that my left wrist was cocked a lot more than it needed to be. i will try that stuff out today at the golf course.

[MiniMoe]

I hate the manipulation of the wrists to make the swing good. The wrist are like back up singers, they follow the lead. The controlling force in the golf swing are the forearms. The wrists follow the lead, they don't take control.

Look at it this way, the club head is connected to the shaft that is connected to the grip, that is connected to the hands, that are connected the the arms, that are connected to the shoulders. The club starts back as one unit with the shoulders, arms and wrists working as one unit. Why would you want to break that unity my forcing the wrist to set before any other part of you body? The shoulders start to slow down and stop turning, after that, the arms can't move back any more, then the wrist set. It is all about sequence. Once everything is set, then the downswing starts with the shoulders and arms moving down to the ball. The wrists follow that. They don't lead the way. Coming over the top is from trying to use the hands too early in the down swing.

To make it really simple, in reality, the down swing in controlled by two arms working as one unit.