In today’s Impact Show, we talk about when and how to set your wrists in the backswing. We also share our preferences and ideas on how to set the wrists, although there is no one way to do it.
Make sure to post your comments and questions on the wrist set in the comments section. We hope you enjoy.
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Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!
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My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.
As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.
The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.
Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:
Mis-aligned hands
By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.
The position of the grip in the upper/left hand
I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.
To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.
Too much lower (right) hand on the club
It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.
Gripping too tightly
Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.
So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.
More from the Wedge Guy
- The Wedge Guy: Golf mastery begins with your wedge game
- The Wedge Guy: Why golf is 20 times harder than brain surgery
- The Wedge Guy: Musings on the golf ball rollback
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Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?
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knoofah
Dec 2, 2016 at 3:31 pm
Nope. Too early, IMHO. But as long as your wrists and forearms are relaxed and can create lag coming down, and you can release that lag effectively, and not cast the club, then whatever works for you. Bit of a Willet influence there.?
Somebody on YouTube tried to tell me that “what Andy and Piers did in the video would help high handicappers to develop the feel for the lag.?”
But the purpose of lag is to create speed in the down swing and at the ball (impact). The only way you could feel lag in the back swing would be if the club head was trailing (or 180°) behind the hands. And that would be useless, right? Lag is felt when pulling, not pushing. The purpose of the back swing is to put the club and your body in the best position to create speed and deliver the club face squarely on the ball.
All you’re doing by setting the wrists so early is creating tension in those muscles, which WILL promote an earlier release of said muscles (casting), and you’ll suffer with weak pushes from wasted power/energy.
If you are a “beginner” golfer, then study physiology and how the body creates and delivers speed most efficiently. Why handicap (no pun intended) yourself with poor technique? Your muscles will want to release tension the moment they feel it; that’s their job. It’s how the body works.
If you wanted to do a standing high jump, you wouldn’t do it by crouching down and staying like that for 5 seconds before you jump. You’re wasting energy and building up lactic acid in those muscles, which will cause those muscles to slow down and under perform.
Just learn stuff right. It’s ultimately simpler and you’ll avoid needless injuries.?
Jim
Dec 2, 2016 at 12:03 am
“Saving” the wrist break for the top of a “full swing” ie: whenyour front shoulder hits your chin anf you start your weight shifting forward into the down swing allows for the opposing forces – body starting to move forward, clubhead still movind backward – to help set the wrists easily and creates NATURAL lag as the last thing to change directions is the clubhead….It ALSO serves as a ‘shock absorber’ which dissapates the inertia of the clubhead so that you
aren’t actually stopping the backswing and forcing that wweight-in-motion to change directions, but letting it
change directions by simply following the rest of the body.
when a crane swings a wrecking ball, the operator turns thecab & boom arm back into the forward swing BEFORE the ball maxes out the length of the backswing, the cable flexed, anf stops that weight in motion from yanking on the chain and screwing up the whole thing. Our “wrecking ball” – the clubhead is on a ROD, so the wrist break replicates that ‘flexion’ of the cable/chain.
Early setting of the wrists often promotes too much verticle lifting as it happens and cuts many players backswing shoulder turn short as they OFTEN focus on elevating the arms as they set the wrists and cheat themselves out of good extension, width and full turn…
watch: old Tiger, Harrington, Norman…best “earlier” wrist set – Els….
BrentF
Dec 1, 2016 at 5:50 pm
Fantastic video, very clear, well sequenced information. Good graphic help with the target line visualization also!
Marco
Dec 1, 2016 at 5:12 am
Same thing with the driver?
prime21
Nov 30, 2016 at 5:38 pm
why would you have to set your wrists when your elbow folds 1st? Joint 1 will activate joint 2 in a natural sequence.