Ladies tend to struggle with correctly hinging their wrists during their backswing because physically we are not as strong as men in our forearms or hands, so using our wrists correctly during the backswing, is not particularly easy. If you are not hinging your wrists correctly on your backswing, you will not be generating as much club head speed as you possibly could and therefore you will not be hitting the ball as far as you ultimately could.

Furthermore, not hinging your wrists correctly will make it impossible to swing the club head back on plane, or at the correct angle around your body and you will tend to swing the club head too low to the ground, or flat as you move the club away from the ball, forcing you to then lift your arms up to get height into the club head at the top of your swing. This will promote you to make an over the top movement on your downswing, where the club head moves over the top of your hands and then continues on to the far side of the target line. As a result of this position, you will then pull the club head across the target line to strike the ball and hitting shots straight at the target will become very difficult. You will also find it difficult to make a good, solid connection with the ball and the club face, as the club head will be dropping so steeply or vertically on the downswing that you will tend to strike the top of the ball.

To improve the use of your wrists during your golf swing, try this simple hinge drill.

Your wrists can move in two directions. They can make a right to left, or left to right movement and they can also make an up or down movement. During your golf swing you need to make an up/down movement, or thumbs up movement on your backswing. To achieve this, initially take a good grip with the club and set yourself into a good starting position and posture. From your start position make a thumbs up action to get the feeling of the direction that your wrist needs to move in. If you make this upwards movement in your wrists to allow the club head to rise above the height of your hands and then rotate your shoulders to the right until the club shaft is parallel to the target line, you are now in the correct takeaway position and you have hinged your wrist correctly. Look at the position that this places your wrists into as this is the position that you want to achieve when merging the wrist hinge in with the shoulder turn, rather than doing them individually.

You can also do this drill by just making an up and down movement with the wrists and then keep this going as you turn your upper body to the right, keeping your left arm straight as you do this. This will set you into the correct position with the wrists on your backswing and allow you to swing back down from a really improved backswing position.

Work on these drills on the range and you will experience an improvement in how you are hinging your wrists during your golf swing, allowing you to gain much more club head speed and therefore distance to your shots and also increased accuracy and improved ball strike, as the club head is now much more on plane.