Wrist Hinge In The Golf Swing Explained
In this video, PGA Professional Katie Dawkins explains how to use wrist hinge more effectively in the golf swing.
Transcript
00:00 (golf club thwacks)
00:02 Hi, I'm Katie Dawkins.
00:05 I am an advanced PGA professional,
00:07 and I'm here at West Hill Golf Club today
00:09 to talk to you about wrist hinge in the golf swing.
00:13 Wrist hinge is where we get power from.
00:16 Imagine, for example, that you had a flat pebble.
00:19 I'm gonna skim it across a beautiful mill pond
00:21 like I used to do as a kid.
00:23 I'm gonna first of all hinge my wrist like this.
00:26 I'm then gonna wind everything up,
00:27 and the last thing I'm gonna do is unhinge my wrist
00:30 to get that lovely bouncing across the water.
00:34 If we didn't hinge our wrist to skim that stone,
00:37 you imagine that, imagine flat pebble skimming a stone.
00:40 I'm gonna have to hurl myself into the drink
00:43 to actually gain any sort of power at all,
00:45 and the pebble's probably just gonna go plop.
00:48 So wrist hinge in the golf swing
00:50 is where power is created and club head speed.
00:54 (upbeat music)
00:56 So what actually happens in the golf swing?
00:58 Where do the wrists actually hinge from?
01:00 The club moves away, club and arms move away together,
01:04 and the wrists will start hinging,
01:06 almost giving you a thumbs up feeling at this point here.
01:09 You can see I've created a lovely L shape
01:11 between my club shaft and my arm,
01:14 and what's gonna happen from there,
01:15 depending on my own mobility,
01:17 is I'm just gonna wind myself up to the top of my backswing.
01:21 Some people wind up a bit like John Rahm,
01:23 some people wind up a lot like Rory McIlroy.
01:26 How much you wind up, it's not a competition.
01:28 The most important thing when it comes to power
01:31 in the golf swing is that wrist set,
01:34 and for ladies especially,
01:36 if there's no wrist hinge early on in the golf swing,
01:39 and in fact there's no wrist hinge at all,
01:41 your club's gonna hinge from somewhere,
01:43 and it generally tends to be here.
01:45 You over swing and you lose power.
01:48 So from this lovely L-shaped position that you have here,
01:53 all that really is required after that
01:55 is a wind up to the top of the backswing.
01:57 Because the wrists are set properly here,
01:59 they're likely to unhinge at the right point,
02:02 giving you a bit of a crack of the whip through the ball,
02:05 and giving you tons and tons of power and fizz,
02:07 especially in your iron play.
02:09 A lot of ladies that struggle with this wrist hinge
02:17 generally tend to have the club
02:18 in the wrong position in the hand,
02:19 so it's worth going and getting a bit of a lesson
02:21 just on your fundamentals to check
02:22 whether the source of the problem
02:24 is from holding the club in the wrong place.
02:26 A lot of the time they tend to hold it more in the palm,
02:28 and it needs to be in the fingers.
02:30 This frees the hand up and creates that lovely hinge.
02:34 And then of course that lovely whoosh
02:35 of power through the ball.
02:37 If you're hinging the wrist well,
02:39 the golf game will feel a lot easier.
02:42 It's efficient power.
02:44 It's a way of actually creating
02:46 a good bit of fizz through the ball,
02:48 and getting a good bit of distance
02:50 without busting it down there.
02:52 We've all played against those players
02:54 where you think, golly,
02:55 they don't know how they're gonna hit it very far.
02:57 They step up with a little bit of a hockey swing
02:59 and smack it out of sight
03:01 with a swing that goes from here to here.
03:03 And that is in fact a kind of drill
03:05 that you could practice on the range.
03:07 Just little seven irons off a tee
03:09 going from L through to L, like so.
03:14 And what you'll find there
03:15 is you start to get a bit more height with your irons
03:18 and a little bit more distance as well.
03:21 So if you've got a decent set of the wrists,
03:23 your swing is more efficient.
03:25 And a more efficient swing
03:27 means that you're going to last longer out
03:29 on the golf course hitting more decent shots.
03:31 And who doesn't wanna hit lots of decent shots
03:33 during a round of golf?
03:35 If you are somebody who gets a bit tired
03:37 midway through the round,
03:38 then the likelihood is that you're not hinging these wrists
03:41 and you're doing what we talked about
03:42 with the pond at the beginning,
03:43 which is throwing yourself at that golf ball
03:46 to generate some form of power.
03:48 So what I'd recommend, go and get a lesson,
03:51 get them to check your grip.
03:53 If the grip seems a good place,
03:55 just soften it off a little bit.
03:57 'Cause if you're squeezing the life out of this club,
03:59 you're not gonna be able to get that wrist hinge happening.
04:02 So softer hands, L to L,
04:05 and you'll start seeing those iron shots
04:07 really get a decent strike on them.
04:10 (gentle music)
04:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]