What Is Correct Wrist Hinge In The Golf Swing? (Video) - by Pete Styles
What Is Correct Wrist Hinge In The Golf Swing? (Video) - by Pete Styles

Fairly common question that I get asked on a regular basis is what should my wrist be doing in the backswing, how should they be hinging? Well the first thing here is hinging is a bit of a misunderstood and probably misused word in this example, because the golf, in the golf swing the wrist doesn’t necessarily hinge it cocks, but we don’t really like to say cock 20 times a day in every lesson that we do, so we probably use the word hinge instead of the word cock, but actually if you hinge your wrists you are doing it all wrong. So when we setup to the golf ball, when a nice setup position here and the wrist is quite strong. In the first part of the golf swing the wrist should do very little, we don’t really want to be using the wrist in the takeaway that’s what we described as a wristy flicky golf swing. So in the first half of the takeaway the wrist are going to be quite strong, and then we would say that the wrist start to hinge but as I previously explained the wrist don’t really hinge they cock, they lift up this way and they create what we would class as an L shape position and that will be a nice checkpoint for most golfers during the backswing, is that when they front arm for my case the left arm is horizontal to the ground, the shaft should be vertical into an L shape position here.

And I don’t mean verticals as in straight up that way I mean sort of angled this way, but vertical 12 o clock if you like from the look of the camera there. So if you are practicing in front of the mirror you would see the golf club going up to the L shape position here, and that would be the wrist cocking that way. Now if I hinge my wrist I wouldn’t understand hinging as being this motion, so if I make my back swing here and I hinge my wrist the golf club goes into a very peculiar position, so if you are talking to someone in there they are saying I am hinging my wrist you have to question well are you really hinging your wrists or are you actually cocking the wrist into the back swing? So once the wrists have come back and they have cocked into a good position here the back of the – backswing can finish and we will see the golf club coming up to maybe around the two o’clock, position the wrists are nicely cocked and as they are delivering the club downwards they would un-cock this way and then re-cock in the follow through this way. And again they are not strictly hinging or flicking in the follow through motion, it’s a rotation and a cocking motion going back that way. So when we talk about the correct wrist hinge, we’ve got to understand we probably overuse the word hinge and we should be talking about the wrist cocking. If you are hinging your wrist and your golf swing it’s probably causing you a lot of problems, so work on cocking the wrist into the right position and not so much the wrist hinge. 2014-08-12

Fairly common question that I get asked on a regular basis is what should my wrist be doing in the backswing, how should they be hinging? Well the first thing here is hinging is a bit of a misunderstood and probably misused word in this example, because the golf, in the golf swing the wrist doesn’t necessarily hinge it cocks, but we don’t really like to say cock 20 times a day in every lesson that we do, so we probably use the word hinge instead of the word cock, but actually if you hinge your wrists you are doing it all wrong. So when we setup to the golf ball, when a nice setup position here and the wrist is quite strong. In the first part of the golf swing the wrist should do very little, we don’t really want to be using the wrist in the takeaway that’s what we described as a wristy flicky golf swing. So in the first half of the takeaway the wrist are going to be quite strong, and then we would say that the wrist start to hinge but as I previously explained the wrist don’t really hinge they cock, they lift up this way and they create what we would class as an L shape position and that will be a nice checkpoint for most golfers during the backswing, is that when they front arm for my case the left arm is horizontal to the ground, the shaft should be vertical into an L shape position here.

And I don’t mean verticals as in straight up that way I mean sort of angled this way, but vertical 12 o clock if you like from the look of the camera there. So if you are practicing in front of the mirror you would see the golf club going up to the L shape position here, and that would be the wrist cocking that way. Now if I hinge my wrist I wouldn’t understand hinging as being this motion, so if I make my back swing here and I hinge my wrist the golf club goes into a very peculiar position, so if you are talking to someone in there they are saying I am hinging my wrist you have to question well are you really hinging your wrists or are you actually cocking the wrist into the back swing? So once the wrists have come back and they have cocked into a good position here the back of the – backswing can finish and we will see the golf club coming up to maybe around the two o’clock, position the wrists are nicely cocked and as they are delivering the club downwards they would un-cock this way and then re-cock in the follow through this way. And again they are not strictly hinging or flicking in the follow through motion, it’s a rotation and a cocking motion going back that way.

So when we talk about the correct wrist hinge, we’ve got to understand we probably overuse the word hinge and we should be talking about the wrist cocking. If you are hinging your wrist and your golf swing it’s probably causing you a lot of problems, so work on cocking the wrist into the right position and not so much the wrist hinge.