left wrist keeping clubface open...

[senorchipotle]

for some reason or other, i've got a huge problem with my left wrist not rolling over in my downswing and blocking off my shots. my clubface is squaring up, but it's putting left to right sidespin on the ball. i think perhaps it is my thumb that's the cause, but i wanted to get some other opinions on the matter. i'm trying not to firm up my wrists so much, but it's proving to be easier said than done. any advice on how i can cure this?

[14ledo81]

You could do what I try to do. On my backswing I try not to let the club ever fan open, this way I do not have to close it on the downswing. When I first tried this move it felt almost like I was counter rotating my wrists compared to what I was used to doing.

[saevel25]

concentrate on shoulder turn only, and your left arm. If you want to get a good idea as to how the hands work in the swing in the backswing. Swing with one hand only, the left hand. Just shoulder turn and bring your left arm up to the top position, then put your right hand back on the club. You will be at a pretty good position at the top.

[iacas]

for some reason or other, i've got a huge problem with my left wrist not rolling over in my downswing and blocking off my shots. my clubface is squaring up, but it's putting left to right sidespin on the ball. i think perhaps it is my thumb that's the cause, but i wanted to get some other opinions on the matter. i'm trying not to firm up my wrists so much, but it's proving to be easier said than done. any advice on how i can cure this?

Huh?

Blocks come from a clubface that isn't square. Left to right spin comes from a swing path that's from outside to in relative to the clubface. So which is it - are you blocking your shots (open clubface, path square to it) are are you fading/slicing them (square-ish clubface, path outside-in)?

[senorchipotle]

Huh?

well, ok, perhaps i mis-phrased that. my swing path is inside out as it always is. i come down on plane and my clubface is square cause the ball is starting out a little right of my target, which is where i'm aiming, but i have trouble getting my left wrist to bend and turn over naturally like it should. my wrist is tensing up at impact and i'm not able to get right to left spin on it. and when i try to manipulate the position i end up pulling it.

[muggs]

my main flaw is that from time to time, I cup my left wrist at the top of my swing. That opens the face. If you can videotape your swing, take some video from a down the line angle. I have a feeling you're probably cupping your wrist.

in my case, since my left wrist was cupped and the face was open at the top, I subconsciously had to really try to square it back up prior to impact and it was making me very inconsistent. If I got too handsy I'd hook it, if I wasn't able to square it up in time I was blocking/pushing it out to the right. It was really hard for me to correct this, but a few weeks of going to the range 4x per got me over it for the most part. I've been a lot more accurate with my irons now.

i'm by no means an instructor, or that great of a player...so take this with a grain of salt, but your problem sounds similar to mine, so you might want to at least take a look at your left wrist at the top of your backswing.

[iacas]

well, ok, perhaps i mis-phrased that. my swing path is inside out as it always is. i come down on plane and my clubface is square cause the ball is starting out a little right of my target, which is where i'm aiming, but i have trouble getting my left wrist to bend and turn over naturally like it should. my wrist is tensing up at impact and i'm not able to get right to left spin on it. and when i try to manipulate the position i end up pulling it.

You don't need to "turn over" your left wrist to create a draw. The ball's on the clubface for half a millisecond - turning the clubface over in that time isn't going to have any effect on spin.

You can hit draws holding off the clubface (vertical hinging) if you want, and certainly without rotating the clubface to anything but square to the plane (angled hinging). I don't think you're coming down from the inside nearly as much as you seem to think. If you pull shots, those are from outside-in with a closed clubface (to the target).

[shortstop20]

This happens to me sometimes, but I don't hit pulls. I hit pushes and push-fades.

[golfrnut]

Same here,

I also have noticed that my left arm kinds of stays locked out so I can never finish the arc. Not so much the chicken-wing effect, but my left arm becomes a flyer and doesn't want to rotate aroudn the body.