Early Wrist Hinge In Your Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles
Early Wrist Hinge In Your Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles

In this next section, we are going to start talking about using the wrist hinge correctly in the golf swing. Now most golfers I’ve ever come across will use some wrist hinge. Everybody, nobody ever swings the golf club with no wrist hinge, this isn’t going to get you very far. But a lot of golfers use their wrist hinge incorrectly and inefficiently, and therefore cause themselves problems, not only with the direction or the distance they hit the golf ball but also just the positions they find themselves in their golf swing and they can be looking in a mirror or in a camera, desperately trying to find the exact right position and never quite get it right. Now there's generally two schools of thoughts on where the club should be and how the wrist should hinge and how the wrist should cork. Faldo was one of the golfers that when he rebuilt his swing he started to use a lot more wrist hinge a good few years ago, and you got somebody like Paul who was quite an early wrist setter as well, so from a good address position these guys are working the club back with quite a lot of wrist hinge in the back swing and then lifting the club up.

From down the line this doesn’t necessarily look all that different, if I swing it back with very little wrist hinge or I swing it back with lots of wrist hinge the path and the plane that the club is swung on is very similar but from the front on view, very little wrist hinge and a lot of wrist hinge can start to look quite dramatically different. Now there isn’t necessarily one particular better or worse option, it can be more suitable for individual golfers as long as the club is swung back on the correct position. I think one thing that most teachers would agree on is that we don’t want to swing the club back on an inside position, this isn’t necessarily good wrist cork, this is more sort of forearm rotation, it’s not good wrist hinge, it’s forearm rotation, flicking the club in and then getting it stoop from the inside to ultimately result from chopping over the top. So here’s a little drill, little checkpoint just to make you’re working the correct wrist hinge into the take away. It’s quite an exaggerated drill actually this one, it’s quite a good checkpoint. I’m going to take a normal set up and just lay a shaft between the heel and the toe, heel of the left foot, toe of the right foot in this position here and then work on taking the club back, and seeing that it’s an extension of the shaft that’s on the floor between my feet. So as I bring my club back here, the club effectively sits outside of the line it’s definitely avoiding it nipping in here. Ultimately the correct position I would like to see the club in is about here, so it’s directly in line with the club head and the camera and my hands and ultimately my target down here. But this idea of swinging the club so it sits on this line, an extension of the line that’s between my toes, is quite a good exaggerated version; to make sure that my hands don’t flip inside. So I can use some good wrist hinge to get the club in that position, but I just can’t use forearm rotation and wrist rotation to set the club behind me. So wrist set, try and work it nice and early into your swing if that’s the swing that you’d like to have, to make sure it’s not inside the line by using the wrist rotation, get it wrist-hinge, and there is a difference. 2015-11-06

In this next section, we are going to start talking about using the wrist hinge correctly in the golf swing. Now most golfers I’ve ever come across will use some wrist hinge. Everybody, nobody ever swings the golf club with no wrist hinge, this isn’t going to get you very far. But a lot of golfers use their wrist hinge incorrectly and inefficiently, and therefore cause themselves problems, not only with the direction or the distance they hit the golf ball but also just the positions they find themselves in their golf swing and they can be looking in a mirror or in a camera, desperately trying to find the exact right position and never quite get it right. Now there's generally two schools of thoughts on where the club should be and how the wrist should hinge and how the wrist should cork. Faldo was one of the golfers that when he rebuilt his swing he started to use a lot more wrist hinge a good few years ago, and you got somebody like Paul who was quite an early wrist setter as well, so from a good address position these guys are working the club back with quite a lot of wrist hinge in the back swing and then lifting the club up.

From down the line this doesn’t necessarily look all that different, if I swing it back with very little wrist hinge or I swing it back with lots of wrist hinge the path and the plane that the club is swung on is very similar but from the front on view, very little wrist hinge and a lot of wrist hinge can start to look quite dramatically different. Now there isn’t necessarily one particular better or worse option, it can be more suitable for individual golfers as long as the club is swung back on the correct position. I think one thing that most teachers would agree on is that we don’t want to swing the club back on an inside position, this isn’t necessarily good wrist cork, this is more sort of forearm rotation, it’s not good wrist hinge, it’s forearm rotation, flicking the club in and then getting it stoop from the inside to ultimately result from chopping over the top. So here’s a little drill, little checkpoint just to make you’re working the correct wrist hinge into the take away.

It’s quite an exaggerated drill actually this one, it’s quite a good checkpoint. I’m going to take a normal set up and just lay a shaft between the heel and the toe, heel of the left foot, toe of the right foot in this position here and then work on taking the club back, and seeing that it’s an extension of the shaft that’s on the floor between my feet. So as I bring my club back here, the club effectively sits outside of the line it’s definitely avoiding it nipping in here. Ultimately the correct position I would like to see the club in is about here, so it’s directly in line with the club head and the camera and my hands and ultimately my target down here. But this idea of swinging the club so it sits on this line, an extension of the line that’s between my toes, is quite a good exaggerated version; to make sure that my hands don’t flip inside. So I can use some good wrist hinge to get the club in that position, but I just can’t use forearm rotation and wrist rotation to set the club behind me. So wrist set, try and work it nice and early into your swing if that’s the swing that you’d like to have, to make sure it’s not inside the line by using the wrist rotation, get it wrist-hinge, and there is a difference.