When it comes to using your wrists correctly or incorrectly in the swing, it all comes down to timing. Hinging your wrists at the wrong time can lead to a disaster within your swing – but getting it just right is one of the most powerful moves in golf. Mastering the golf takeaway wrist hinge is something of an art form, and it will likely take some practice time to really become comfortable with this maneuver. It is worth your time and effort, however, because you can come out on the other side as a much improved player.

Before we get too far into the instruction on your golf wrist hinge, it should be noted that both wrists do not play the same role in the swing. For a right handed golfer, it is important that the left wrist remain stable through the swing as it is strongly correlated to the position of your club face. Using proper golf left wrist positions from start to finish in your swing is something that you will want to pay attention to. For your right wrist, it is all about storing – and then unleashing – the power potential that your swing holds. By using a golf early wrist set to move the club into position, and then letting your right wrist release at impact, you can make power in your swing that you probably didn’t even know was possible.

— Don’t Get Wristy

The first thing to remember is “don’t get wristy”, provided such word even exists. All jokes aside, the point of this golf tip is to keep you focused on the notion of preventing your wrists from being too active in the early phase of the backswing and takeaway. This swing advice is aimed at encouraging you to limit wrist hinge right before the shaft is past being parallel to the ground.

This particular move, the swing key respectively, helps promoting a full and wide swing, and in real life, it translates into more distance to your game, i.e. a ball that will go further. Why does it work? Well, if you hinge your wrist too early, you’ll reduce the total distance traveled by the club head, and that ends up in an incomplete swing, or a swing that fails to perform its full breadth, which furthermore means that the energy accumulated, will not be transferred to the ball.

So, what the “don’t get wristy” thing tries to cure? If you’re one of those golfers who make a habit from allowing early wristy/handsy movements to creep into their swings, you should pay attention and always remember this particular swing tip, because it may change your life for the better. If you want to optimize the distance travelled by the ball and profit from your swing’s full potential, relegating wrist cock to its ideal timing should rank high on your priorities list.

And here’s why it works: if you think about the golf swing, you’ll realize that it makes for a complex and carefully organized movement flow that works best when everything is executed smoothly and in the right order. Ideally speaking, your wrists should start hinging at the last part of the takeaway, or, to put it differently, when the shaft of the club is parallel to the ground. So, your wrists will hinge gradually until the top of the backswing is reached at which point the wrists should be fully hinged. If you hinge the wrist too early, you’ll break up the timing of sequences, and that will end up with the wrists unhinging too early, right at the time of the downswing. This problem is also known as casting, and the problem with casting is loss of distance.


— Full Wrist Hinge at the Top

The point of this golf tip is to remind you to position your wrists at a fully hinged position at the top of your swing, and that’s the exact opposite of reaching the top of the swing before the wrists have had time to hinge completely, or to basically choose not to hinge them completely, regardless of one’s motives. The full wrist hinge at the top swing tip promotes a lag golf-swing; for example, when you’re starting the downsizing with fully hinged wrists, you’ll see golf head lag. Now, provided you don’t permit the hinge to unwind too early, i.e. before the club hits the ball, your hands will travel past the ball ahead of the club head, which is an essential component of a great contact.

But it gets even better, as if you keep your wrists fully hinged, you’ll promote what’s called a whipping motion at the ball, which promotes the perfect ball flight height and distance, as the club move towards the ball for impact. This golf tip is especially useful for players who have a habit of sending the ball on a lower trajectory than usual, so remember to check out if your wrists are positioned correctly at the top.