Understanding What Wrist Hinge In The Golf Swing Is

Golf Monthly

In this video, PGA Professional Katie Dawkins explains how to use wrist hinge more effectively in the golf swing.

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Katie Dawkins. I am an advanced PGA professional and I'm here at West Hill Golf

00:08Club today to talk to you about wrist hinge in the golf swing. Wrist hinge is where we get power

00:15from. Imagine for example that you had a flat pebble. I'm going to skim it across a beautiful

00:21mill pond like I used to do as a kid. I'm going to first of all hinge my wrist like this. I'm

00:26going to wind everything up and the last thing I'm going to do is unhinge my wrist to get that

00:31lovely bouncing across the water. If we didn't hinge our wrist to skim that stone, you imagine

00:37that. Imagine flat pebble skimming a stone. I'm going to have to hurl myself into the drink to

00:43actually gain any sort of power at all and the pebble is probably just going to go plop. So

00:48wrist hinge in the golf swing is where power is created and club head speed.

00:56So what actually happens in the golf swing? Where do the wrist actually hinge from? The

01:01club moves away, club and arms move away together and the wrist will start hinging, almost giving

01:06you a thumbs up feeling at this point here. You can see I've created a lovely L shape between

01:11my club shaft and my arm and what's going to happen from there depending on my own mobility

01:18is I'm just going to wind myself up to the top of my back swing. Some people wind up a bit

01:22like John Rahm. Some people wind up a lot like Rory McIlroy. How much you wind up, it's not

01:28a competition. The most important thing when it comes to power in the golf swing is that

01:33wrist set. And for ladies especially, if there's no wrist hinge early on in the golf swing and

01:39in fact there's no wrist hinge at all, your club's going to hinge from somewhere and it generally

01:44tends to be here. You over swing and you lose power. So from this lovely L shaped position

01:52that you have here, all that really is required after that is a wind up to the top of the backswing.

01:57Because the wrists are set properly here, they're likely to unhinge at the right point, giving

02:02you a bit of a crack of the whip through the ball and giving you tons and tons of power and

02:07fizz especially in your iron play. A lot of ladies that struggle with this wrist hinge generally

02:17tend to have the club in the wrong position in the hand. So it's worth going and getting

02:20a bit of a lesson just on your fundamentals to check whether the source of the problem

02:24is from holding the club in the wrong place. A lot of the time they tend to hold it more

02:28in the palm and it needs to be in the fingers. This frees the hand up and creates that lovely

02:33hinge. And then of course that lovely whoosh of power through the ball. If you're hinging

02:39the wrist well, the golf game will feel a lot easier. It's efficient power. It's a way

02:45of actually creating a good bit of fizz through the ball and getting a good bit of distance

02:50without busting it down there. We've all played against those players where you think golly

02:55they don't know how they're going to hit it very far. They step up with a little bit of

02:58a hockey swing and smack it out of sight with a swing that goes from here to here. And

03:03that is in fact a kind of drill that you could practice on the range. Just little seven irons

03:08off a tee going from L through to L like so. And what you'll find there is you start to

03:16get a bit more height with your irons and a little bit more distance as well. So if you've

03:21got a decent set of the wrists your swing is more efficient. And a more efficient swing

03:27means that you're going to last longer out on the golf course hitting more decent shots.

03:31And who doesn't want to hit lots of decent shots during a round of golf? If you are somebody

03:36who gets a bit tired midway through the round then the likelihood is that you're not hinging

03:40these wrists and you're doing what we talked about with the pond at the beginning which

03:44is throwing yourself at that golf ball to generate some form of power. So what I'd recommend,

03:50go and get a lesson. Get them to check your grip. If the grip's in a good place just soften

03:55it off a little bit because if you're squeezing the life out of this club you're not going

04:00to be able to get that wrist hinge happening. So softer hands L to L and you'll start seeing

04:06those iron shots really get a decent strike on them.

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