How much wrist hinge

A great way to practice this technique is with the popular Golf Doctor Wrist Hinge Trainer , which is a simple, cheap aid you can attach to the shaft of your club and will give direct feedback on where your wrists should be during the swing. If you want even better feedback, The Hanger Wrist Training Aid pictured above is the perfect option. While the one-piece takeaway and early hinge are the two most common methods when it comes to wrist break, there is no right or wrong technique.

Everyone has differing levels of flexibility — whether it be in your hip turn or shoulder turn — that will dictate just how much wrist hinge you can create at the top of the backswing, without losing your posture.

Players who have elbow issues and wear an elbow brace while they play, or who suffer knee pain , may be particularly restricted by what they can do and need to compensate.

The key is to try both techniques and see which is most comfortable: the easier it is to do, the easier it is to repeat, which is the key to a good golf swing. While a neutral position at the top of the backswing is ideal, golfers can also play high-quality shots with a cupped or bowed wrist position as long as they sync-up their hip, chest and arm movements through impact.

How many times have you gone to a golf instructor and been told your wrists are either too open, or too shut at the top of your swing? I can count a few, at least. Johnson and Rahm — two of the best golfers in the world — both have extremely bowed wrists at the top of their backswing, which creates an excessively closed clubface.

In order to deliver a square club to the ball at impact, both generate enormous rotation through their core and get their hips wide open by the time they strike the ball. The other problem with this method is that because the wrist angle is set so early when you commence the downswing the tension has increased in your wrists due to a constant build-up. The first thing that the body wants to do is release tension and this early wrist set will often force a golfer to get rid of tension too early.

As a result, in the downswing, you will lose your lag angle angle between your wrist and shaft and all timing and power. A simpler way of determining how much wrist hinge or wrist set you need in your golf swing is this.

You should set or hinge your wrists the same percentage in relation to the completed stage of your backswing. This would be roughly when your left arm is parallel to the ground and level with the chest.

You should be predominantly hinging your wrist upwards and not sideways. This simple method will give you a great guide for every stage of the backswing from takeaway right through to the top.

How would you like a more natural way to determine the right amount of wrist hinge in the golf swing? Simply by feeling the weight of the clubhead in the backswing you can develop your own correct amount of wrist hinge as the hands support the club throughout the golf swing. Where most golfers fail is they get overly active in their wrists and hands and as a result, make it very difficult to get any feel for the clubhead.

Grab a club in a relaxed position at set up and begin shifting your weight to the rear foot and turn your body. If you are holding the club with the right amount of tension your wrists will hinge when you begin to rotate. As long as you are moving the club away with your body and keep the wrists relaxed, as your finish the takeaway your wrists should begin to hinge on their own.

This is a natural physiological movement in the wrists. This wrist hinge creates a downward pressure that can be released into the ball on the downswing. By unleashing your wrist hinge, you can increase the speed of your swing by a considerable amount.

Many golfers get the motion of the wrist hinge wrong when they are trying to make a correction because it can be difficult to understand. Instead of applying downward pressure with their wrists, they are flicking their wrists as if they were casting a fishing pole. Casting with a golf club will not generate any speed or power and it will not result in solid contact so be sure to avoid this motion.

Every golfer has a slightly different wrist hinge but as long as the hinge follows a few basic parameters, you should be able to find consistent results.

The proper wrist hinge starts with the grip. Similar to swinging a hammer, you must have the meaty part of your hand on top of the grip in order to apply pressure and keep the face controlled. When beginning a swing, both wrists stay fairly flat. Keeping this part of the wrist flat at the address position will put you in a good spot to begin the swing correctly.

As the swing begins, the back wrist starts to hinge slightly at first. This hinge is in a cupping motion , rather than a bowed.

At this moment, the front wrist stays fairly flat until the hands get above waist-high. Up until the waist-high moment, most of the wrist hinge is in the back wrists only. From the moment when the hands get waist-high, the front wrist begins to hinge in a side motion wrist cock towards the target.

The flat wrist position at the top of the swing refers to the front wrist. This is the most popular and widely accepted position. Basically, it means that the back of the front wrist stays flat at the top of the swing. You will notice that there is a sideways movement towards the target, but a player will maintain the flat back of the wrist.