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

00:09Club today to talk to you about wrist hinge in the golf swing. Wrist hinge is where we

00:15get power from. Imagine, for example, that you had a flat pebble. I'm going to skim

00:19it across a beautiful mill pond like I used to do as a kid. I'm going to first of all

00:24hinge my wrist like this. I'm then going to wind everything up and the last thing I'm

00:28going to do is unhinge my wrist to get that lovely bouncing across the water. If we didn't

00:35hinge our wrist to skim that stone, you imagine that. Imagine a flat pebble skimming a stone.

00:41I'm going to have to hurl myself into the drink to actually gain any sort of power at

00:45all and the pebble's probably just going to go plop. So wrist hinge in the golf swing

00:51is where power is created and club head speed. So what actually happens in the golf swing?

00:58Where do the wrists actually hinge from? The club moves away, club and arms move away together

01:04and the wrist will start hinging, almost giving you a thumbs up feeling at this point here.

01:09You can see I've created a lovely L shape between my club shaft and my arm and what's

01:15going to happen from there, depending on my own mobility, is I'm just going to wind myself

01:19up to the top of my bag swing. Some people wind up a bit like John Rahm, some people

01:24wind up a lot like Rory McIlroy. How much you wind up, it's not a competition. The most

01:29important thing when it comes to power in the golf swing is that wrist set and for ladies

01:35especially, if there's no wrist hinge early on in the golf swing and in fact there's no

01:40wrist hinge at all, your club's going to hinge from somewhere and it generally tends to be

01:45here. You over swing and you lose power. So from this lovely L shaped position that you have here,

01:52all that really is required after that is a wind up to the top of the back swing. Because

01:58the wrists are set properly here, they're likely to unhinge at the right point, giving you a bit

02:03of a crack of the whip through the ball and giving you tons and tons of power and fizz,

02:07especially 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.

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

03:07seven irons off a tee going from L through to L like so. And what you'll find there is

03:16you'd start to get a bit more height with your irons and a little bit more distance

03:20as well. So if you've got a decent set of the wrists, your swing is more efficient and

03:26a more efficient swing means that you're going to last longer out on the golf course,

03:30hitting more decent shots. And who doesn't want to hit lots of decent shots during a

03:34round of golf? If you are somebody who gets a bit tired midway through the round, then

03:39the likelihood is that you're not hinging these wrists and you're doing what we talked

03:42about with the pond at the beginning, which is throwing yourself at that golf ball to

03:46generate some form of power. So what I'd recommend, go and get a lesson, get them to check your

03:52grip. If the grip seems a good place, just soften it off a little bit because if you're

03:57squeezing the life out of this club, you're not going to be able to get that wrist hinge

04:01happening. So softer hands, L to L, and you'll start seeing those iron shots really get a

04:09decent strike on them.

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