Left Wrist Hinge In A Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles
Left Wrist Hinge In A Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles

So now if we look specifically at the role of the left wrist during the golf swing and the left wrist hinge more specifically still, so in a good address position, we generally see that the left wrist doesn’t have a great deal of angle between the wrist and the shaft, it’s a relatively straight line from here. There is however a little bit of angle there already, but from this angle everything is straight forward. I’ve got a relatively short club here, I’ve just got a wedge. Now as I move the club back in the back swing the first motion I’m going to take here is I’m not going to use a great deal of wrist hinge or wrist set in the early part of the swing, but as the hands get more towards the height of my hips, I’m going to start putting a little bit of wrist set into it and I’m going to hit this very crucial key point here, I’m going to call this the L shape or the half way back position. The left arm is horizontal to the ground and the shaft is vertical to the ground, so the shaft of the club there pointing up to the 12 o’clock position if you like, so we are going to call that the L shape or the 90 degree.

So it’s no angle here, a little bit coming here, a lot coming here and we create a lag, that lag is then maintained to the top, maintained until half way down again and we are just going to try and keep that angle quite a long way into the down swing before we release it to the golf ball, so effectively the angle that you set on the half way back position is maintained down towards the golf ball then released. The important thing about the release is it’s finding a mirror image of where you are here over here. Well left arm horizontal again, right arm horizontal and straight and again the shaft pointing up to the 12 o’clock vertical position. So we create the left wrist hinge and then we use it in an efficient fashion. Now a great way of holding this angle to sort of drill this angle in, is do a few practice swings where you hold that angle all the way to impact so you would hit shots where you set the angle and then hold the angle at impact, and feel like your left hand leads the way to impact. You’re probably just going to cut underneath the ball and hit the ball a little bit – excuse me, and hit the ball a little bit out to the right hand side but it’s the sensation of holding that angle that helps you understand if I hold it then I can release it, then there's going to be some good power there, so I do a few where you hold on to the left wrist angle and then a few where you release the angle and when you start to release the angle you should start to feel that your left wrist hinging correctly on the back swing, releasing correctly on the down swing is a great source for plenty of power in your golf swing. 2015-11-06

So now if we look specifically at the role of the left wrist during the golf swing and the left wrist hinge more specifically still, so in a good address position, we generally see that the left wrist doesn’t have a great deal of angle between the wrist and the shaft, it’s a relatively straight line from here. There is however a little bit of angle there already, but from this angle everything is straight forward. I’ve got a relatively short club here, I’ve just got a wedge. Now as I move the club back in the back swing the first motion I’m going to take here is I’m not going to use a great deal of wrist hinge or wrist set in the early part of the swing, but as the hands get more towards the height of my hips, I’m going to start putting a little bit of wrist set into it and I’m going to hit this very crucial key point here, I’m going to call this the L shape or the half way back position. The left arm is horizontal to the ground and the shaft is vertical to the ground, so the shaft of the club there pointing up to the 12 o’clock position if you like, so we are going to call that the L shape or the 90 degree.

So it’s no angle here, a little bit coming here, a lot coming here and we create a lag, that lag is then maintained to the top, maintained until half way down again and we are just going to try and keep that angle quite a long way into the down swing before we release it to the golf ball, so effectively the angle that you set on the half way back position is maintained down towards the golf ball then released. The important thing about the release is it’s finding a mirror image of where you are here over here. Well left arm horizontal again, right arm horizontal and straight and again the shaft pointing up to the 12 o’clock vertical position. So we create the left wrist hinge and then we use it in an efficient fashion. Now a great way of holding this angle to sort of drill this angle in, is do a few practice swings where you hold that angle all the way to impact so you would hit shots where you set the angle and then hold the angle at impact, and feel like your left hand leads the way to impact. You’re probably just going to cut underneath the ball and hit the ball a little bit – excuse me, and hit the ball a little bit out to the right hand side but it’s the sensation of holding that angle that helps you understand if I hold it then I can release it, then there's going to be some good power there, so I do a few where you hold on to the left wrist angle and then a few where you release the angle and when you start to release the angle you should start to feel that your left wrist hinging correctly on the back swing, releasing correctly on the down swing is a great source for plenty of power in your golf swing.