Hingeless Swing

[Taggsy]

I was out on the course the other day, scoring rather poorly when I decided to see what would happen if I completely locked my wrists in place for the whole swing.

I was pleasantly surprised! My last three holes were all parred thanks to this new technique. I'd basically taken the usual address position and started of the backswing as normal, but instead of allowing the wrists to rotate clockwise, and for the wrists to hinge, loading lag in the usual manner, I locked my wrists in place.

This meant at the top of the backswing, the shaft was more upright than horizontal, and the club face was actually facing away from the target. The wrists were in a perfect position for impact.
From there I simply rotated my shoulders as fast as possible (I'm a one-planer), kept the wrists locked and the arms passive.

My drives were dead straight, and around 240 yards (I'm happy with anything over 200), and with the irons I'd used there was no loss of distance at all, and again they were dead straight.

I was just wondering if anyone had ever tried / heard of this before, and whether or not it's worth pursuing?

[saevel25]

What do you mean by locking your wrist? Post a video of you doing this, i can't visualize what your talking about. The only reason i have concerncs about this is because its hard to lock your wrist, its not like your knees, its a different type of joint structure. The only way i can think of locking my wrist is by contracting the muscles in my forearms which leads to my bicep and triceps contracting a bit. I don't like this because it add muscle tension.

[KimboSlice]

Yes, but only with my wedges and short irons. My instructor told us to do this because it's one less thing you have to worry about when trying to square the club face. When I started doing this, it helped me in becoming more consistent when about 120 yards and in.

[nlowplacez]

haha i used to try this when i was first learning to play and thought i had found the holy grail. well that happened with every new swing idea but this was one of em. check yourself in a mirror or on video. you're not locking your wrists i bet. when i thought i was i was actually putting the club in a pretty good spot at the top. just not parallel to the ground. dunno, go with it for a while or forever if it works

[pherg]

I essentially do this to varying degrees with all my clubs. There's a video on the Golf Channel YouTube Channel The Golf Fix - "Wrist or Reward". He basically says that because of the way the hands and wrists attach to the club in the set-up position, there is already wrist hinge so you don't need to add any more. Added a lot of consistency to my game.

[The Recreational Golfer]

I do this with shots in the 30-60 yard range sometimes. Hit 'em with an 8-iron, like it's a giant chip. I get clean contact, the ball flies low, and bites. Much safer than a mini-pitch with a wedge.