Flipping the wrist

[blagrange]

I have started doing this right before/at impact with the ball and it has eliminated my slice.

What is the proper terminology for flipping the wrist and or who else uses this technique with their golf swing?

I think this is going to be a game breaker for me.

[CG031]

  blagrange said:

I have started doing this right before/at impact with the ball and it has eliminated my slice.

I think what your basically doing is turning your wrists over which keeping the clubface squared at impact..

[sonicblue]

Like Harvey Penick said, changes to your swing are like aspirin: a couple may be good, the whole bottle may kill you. Sounds like your wrists were blocked out before and the clubface wouldn't close, so now you're getting your hands to square up. However, I would imagine if you continue to think of it as "flipping" your hands over, you'll eventually end up with the opposite problem. Ingrain that feeling as "turning them over to square" and make sure you don't eventually start rolling past that.

[blagrange]

Yes that is what I am doing. My glove hand is below my right hand right after impact. This is my only swing thought and I am hitting the ball further and straighter than I ever have.

Let me preface this by saying I have played more rounds this summer and hit more balls at the range than I ever have in my life. I cought the bug!. But the frustrating thing has been trying to figure out my swing flaws since my handicap has pretty much stayed the same even after almost 40 rounds this summer. The only thing I have become moticably better at playing as much as I have is Putting and Chipping.

I have had a terrible banana ball all summer, I even played a round teeing off with my 2 iron this year just trying to eliminate the 3 stroke tee off. After reading endless magazine artcles and this forum I realized that I did not rotate my wrists at all either during the backswing and follow thruough. I decided to start trying this earlier this week on the range and wow. What a difference. Now I just have to work on my timing and rotation to keep from pulling once in a while.

[sonicblue]

blagrange, you're a perfect candidate for a simple drill, I think. Find a "grid" floor, anything with some parallel lines you can use (a floor with a tile pattern is ideal). Take your setup, carefully aligning your feet along one line and your clubface to a perpendicular line. Take your backswing (don't pay much attention it, but I recommend at the very least a flat left wrist, but that's not really the point). Start your downswing about 1/4 speed and stop at impact - note the alignment of the club. Where is it pointed? How is it lofted? Where is it relative to the spot you addressed? What happens when you make very slight changes to your hands and wrist positions? I'm telling you, spend 5-10 minutes per day working on teaching your hands what "back to square" is, and it will help EVERY part of your game. After all, 90% of ball-striking is simply hitting the ball on a good spot on the club, it does not take Herculean swing speed to hit a ball far. I think you'll find you can simplify the rest of your swing (on all shots) and concentrate on less tension and simple "good contact." If your chipping and putting are getting better then you're leaking a lot of shots off the tee and with your irons. I would guess you're too focused on trying "generate a swing" on those shots, not "making contact." Contact first, swing speed later. Good luck.

[blagrange]

Yeah I am sure that this can lead to other issues but for now it feels pretty good. Am I on the right track with this? It seesm easier to keep my left arm straight by turning the end of the club towards the sky in my backswing then on my follow through having it point towards the ground.

It seems when I miss hit the ball with this new technique that it still goes straight but with loss of distance.

MAybe I am getting lucky?

[dlaville]

  blagrange said:

I have started doing this right before/at impact with the ball and it has eliminated my slice.

The proper terminology is clubhead throwaway and I don't want to be insulting but it's used by high handicap golfers. It's substituting a hand motion for a wrist motion. What happens is the right wrist straightens and the left wrist bends back. This causes the clubhead to flip past your hands through impact with a up, back and in motion. It does close the clubface but it also leads you down a road to disaster. What you should be doing is keeping the left wrist straight and the right wrist bent through impact. This will allow you to keep the clubhead on-plane through impact with a down, out and forward motion. Compare a up and in impact to a down and out impact and which one would you rather logically have? I mentioned you're substituting a hand motion for a wrist motion. We want to close the clubface with a wrist roll not a wrist bend. Through impact we roll the clubface closed by swinging the left hand palm up to the plane in the follow through. As a drill hold a club below the grip in your left hand with the grip touching the inside of your forearm. Your left wrist should be flat. Swing the club back and forth about 3 feet in both directions keeping the grip against the inside of your forearm. At the end of your 3 foot follow through have the toe of the club pointing at the target. This is how you swing a club through impact. Notice; 1) you've rotated the clubface closed 2) you've kept a flat left wrist 3) you've swung your left hand palm up to the plane and 4) you've allowed the left arm and clubshaft to work as a lever without it breaking down in the middle. David Laville, G.S.E.M. The Golfing Machine Authorized Instructor

[Amoretti]

I've heard this referred to as "closing the gate."

[Amoretti]

  dlaville said:

The proper terminology is

Great advice. Thanks!

[NBGC]

Aw crap, now i'm all confused and right in the middle of a driver slump.

A few month's ago I also "discovered" flipping my wrists, or clubhead throwaway, and it also eliminated my slices and seriously gained me 30 yards off the tee. I was hitting 210-230 avg before and prior to my last 2 rounds was getting 250-275 avg ( i know, everyone thinks they hit it 275-300, but i use my gps to measure my drives to mark improvements in clubhead speed etc) as well as more accuracy- Straight, draws, power fades. What lead me to the discovery was some article in GD that said the release was like "closing the gate" or "closing the car door".

The last 2 rounds I've been fighting a pull, obviously a steep downswing. I've tried shallowing it out and ensuring I draw the ball but I'm just pushing the ball more than I draw it and I've lost distance, accuracy, and confidence. My Pro told me I wasn't clearing my hips, that they were moving towards the target instead of opening up, blocking my release.

I used to "roll" my wrists but since this change to flipping I thought I made a huge step to making a more consistant, faster clubhead speed, accurate driver swing. This talk of clubhead throwaway has me confused now and I really would prefer to not have to start hitting hundreds of balls at the range again to get my "old" swing back losing distance and accuracy.

I know the old saying about it doesn't matter how you swing as long as the club meets the ball square and on plane, but is this flipping gonna hamper my end game as the OP asked? Don't answer that, I already know the answer =/