You're Correct!

The wrists in general are a very difficult aspect of the swing to control because sometimes the weight of the club can manipulate the wrists rather than the other way. Some amateurs will grip the club too tightly causing very little wrist hinge during the back swing.

Amateurs often try so hard to keep their left wrist straight at the top and they actually cup or bow them without realizing and they do this by gripping the club really tightly and allow their left arm to bend. However, if they hinged the club correctly the left arm wouldnt actually need to bend.

An example of a poor top of the back swing left wrist position is when it is cupped as this can open the club face so that at impact it is pointing right of the target or swing path. This can then cause the player to swing from out to in with a view to straightening the swing up, ironically making the ball slice further right.

A great drill for correctly hinging the left wrist position at the top of the swing is to take your set up, preferably with a neutral grip. Before any move is made, hinge the wrists up by pointing the thumbs up. This creates the hinge nice and early. Then keeping this hinge, rotate and perform the back swing and use a mirror down the line or film this so you can see the left wrist parallel with the club face and left arm. This drill can be done whilst hitting balls also. Once you have your timing and youre happy with the positioning at the top, the results will be instant. It is then a case of practising and repeating this before putting it into your full swing routine. You should also notice that it is much easier to keep your left arm straighter and it can also help provide a wider more powerful golf swing with a strong aggressive release of the hands through impact for added ball speed.

As well as the grip, the wrists have a huge impact on where the golf club is at impact so they need to move correctly and in tandem with the rest of the swing. Golfers can be seen rolling their wrists, thinking that they are hinging - the difference is quite significant at impact. Rolling the wrists away from the ball instantly opens the club face to point it right at impact. After this movement, the rest of the swing becomes difficult and inconsistent because the player now needs to roll and release the club face back to square in time for impact.

One degree is such a small amount and if the club face is opening by 10-30 degrees on the takeaway, the consistency of rolling the club face back to square is highly unlikely. That is why the takeaway should be a simple movement with the left arm and shoulder and the only movement the wrists will make during the swing is to hinge the club upwards to try and make it vertical because a roll away from set up will have the club face horizontal during the back swing.

Practise half swings on the range trying to get the club and left arm to an L shape which will show the wrists have hinged and not rolled.

To keep the left wrist exactly the same as it is at set up will take a very tight grip and limited rotation in the swing. Working so hard on this will shorten your shoulder rotation and potentially lead to you bending the left arm to try and achieve a full back swing.

When the back of the right hand is pointing up to the sky this position is a bowed position. The club face is also pointing up to the sky which at impact would be pointing left of the target. This can lead to many swing characteristics changing as a result because once the ball starts missing left, the player could then start to release the club less through impact in an attempt to square it up.