Changing Wrist Bend For Higher Or Lower Golf Pitch Shots (Video) - by Peter Finch
Changing Wrist Bend For Higher Or Lower Golf Pitch Shots (Video) - by Peter Finch

If you’re looking to alter the trajectory of your pitch shots and your chip shots you can use something called the hinge and hold technique to try and alter the flight that you hit. Now the hinge and hold technique, this is something that Phil Mickelson advocates, and it’s something that a lot of tour pros use as well. The hinge and hold technique basically sees the backswing hinging the wrist to a certain point, so we’ll say 90 degrees, and then as you come through it in practice keeping the wrist just exactly same position, and then rotating the body. Now the advantage of this, what it does it sets the wrist into a certain position. And then by using the body a little bit more through it tries to take the hands and any active hands out of the equation. What it can also do is allow you to help control you trajectory a little bit better.

For example, if I take this club back with that 90 degrees of wrist hinge, and then move through holding that position, my angle of attack going down into this ball, as you can see with my hands getting ahead of the overall impact, is going to be very, very steep. As I’m moving into impact with those wrists very hinged, coming down into the ball, and obviously this is an exaggeration, but you can see the amount of shuffling that I’m having as I move through impact. If I take the club back with less wrist hinge however, so half of that, about 45 degrees of hinge. If I hold that position there and then move through, my angle of attack will be lessened, therefore my dynamic loft will be higher and the ball will go higher. So to give you an example of those two shots, first of all I’m going to hinge my wrists up to 90 degrees, hold that position coming through, ball comes out a little bit lower with that nice bit of skippy chet. If I hinge my wrists less, by about 45 degrees and then hold it through, the ball is going to come out a lot higher because I presented much more dynamic loft to the shot. So that is a very simple way and very simple technique that you can use to hopefully give you a little bit more control over your pitching and chipping trajectory. 2016-10-26

If you’re looking to alter the trajectory of your pitch shots and your chip shots you can use something called the hinge and hold technique to try and alter the flight that you hit. Now the hinge and hold technique, this is something that Phil Mickelson advocates, and it’s something that a lot of tour pros use as well. The hinge and hold technique basically sees the backswing hinging the wrist to a certain point, so we’ll say 90 degrees, and then as you come through it in practice keeping the wrist just exactly same position, and then rotating the body. Now the advantage of this, what it does it sets the wrist into a certain position. And then by using the body a little bit more through it tries to take the hands and any active hands out of the equation. What it can also do is allow you to help control you trajectory a little bit better.

For example, if I take this club back with that 90 degrees of wrist hinge, and then move through holding that position, my angle of attack going down into this ball, as you can see with my hands getting ahead of the overall impact, is going to be very, very steep. As I’m moving into impact with those wrists very hinged, coming down into the ball, and obviously this is an exaggeration, but you can see the amount of shuffling that I’m having as I move through impact. If I take the club back with less wrist hinge however, so half of that, about 45 degrees of hinge. If I hold that position there and then move through, my angle of attack will be lessened, therefore my dynamic loft will be higher and the ball will go higher.

So to give you an example of those two shots, first of all I’m going to hinge my wrists up to 90 degrees, hold that position coming through, ball comes out a little bit lower with that nice bit of skippy chet. If I hinge my wrists less, by about 45 degrees and then hold it through, the ball is going to come out a lot higher because I presented much more dynamic loft to the shot. So that is a very simple way and very simple technique that you can use to hopefully give you a little bit more control over your pitching and chipping trajectory.