You're Correct!

Hinging your wrists on your back swing is extremely important for both directional control and shot distance. If you hinge your wrists correctly during your back swing, it will allow the club head to move around you at the optimum angle and on plane.

Swinging the club head on plane makes it much easier to produce straight golf shots and to be able to repeat this consistently. Hinging your wrists correctly generates a great deal of power for your swing, as if you have set your wrists in the correct position, you can release them through impact and this will deliver maximum club head speed into the club head as it strikes through the golf ball to produce shot distance.

Once you have taken up your address position, the initial movement on your back swing should be instigated from your left shoulder if you are a right handed golfer. As your left shoulder begins your takeaway, you need to move your shoulders and arms away from the golf ball. As you complete your takeaway and the club shaft becomes horizontal at around hip high, this happens because you cock your wrists.

As you now move beyond this position and your shoulders continue to turn, your wrists also continue to set into a 90 degree angle between your extended left arm and the shaft of the golf club. This happens by the time your hands have reached between chest and shoulder high on your back swing and this leaves your shoulders to finish rotating to complete your back swing.

Hinging your wrists in this way now means that the club head is in the correct position to swing back down towards the golf ball and strike through impact along the target line and from the correct angle. This will produce straight golf shots if the club face is aiming at the target and a late wrist release on your down swing will produce maximum club head speed and your longest golf shots.

If you hinge your wrists at the very top of your back swing, you have hinged late. Your down swing becomes a mirror image of your back swing, resulting in a late back swing hinge becoming an early down swing release and a loss of club head speed through impact. This will produce shorter golf shots.

If you hinge your wrists to initiate your back swing, then you will pick the club head up too much as you swing back and the club head will travel around you on too high an angle, producing a steep back swing and a very arms dominant action.

If you do not hinge your wrists on your back swing then you will not achieve the correct swing plane for the club head to move around you on and you will not generate the speed in the club head that you potentially could. You need to hinge your wrists to create the best golf swing.