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, in fact there's no wrist

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

01:46You over swing and you lose power. So from this lovely L-shaped position that you have

01:52here, all that really is required after that is a wind up to the top of the bag swing.

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

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

02:07and fizz, especially in your iron play.

02:10A lot of ladies that struggle with this wrist hinge generally tend to have the club in the

02:18wrong position in the hand. So it's worth going and getting a bit of a lesson just on

02:21your fundamentals to check whether the source of the problem is from holding the club in

02:25the wrong place. A lot of the time they tend to hold it more in the palm and it needs to

02:29be in the fingers. This frees the hand up and creates that lovely hinge and then of

02:34course that lovely whoosh of power through the ball. If you're hinging the wrist well,

02:40the golf game will feel a lot easier. It's efficient power. It's a way of actually creating

02:46a good bit of fizz through the ball and getting a good bit of distance without busting it down

02:51there. We've all played against those players where you think, golly, they don't know how

02:56they're going to hit it very far. They step up with a little bit of a hockey swing and smack

03:00it out of sight with a swing that goes from here to here. And that is in fact a kind of

03:05drill that you could practice on the range. Just little seven irons off a tee going from

03:10L through to L like so. And what you'll find there is you start to get a bit more height

03:17with your irons and a little bit more distance as well. So if you've got a decent set of

03:23the wrists, your swing is more efficient and a more efficient swing means that you're going

03:28to last longer out on the golf course, hitting more decent shots. And who doesn't want to hit

03:32lots of decent shots during a round of golf? If you are somebody who gets a bit tired midway

03:38through the round, then the likelihood is that you're not hinging these wrists and you're doing

03:42what we talked about with the pond at the beginning, which is throwing yourself at

03:45that golf ball to generate some form of power. So what I'd recommend, go and get a lesson,

03:51get them to check your grip. If the grip seems a good place, just soften it off a little bit,

03:56because if you're squeezing the life out of this club, you're not going to be able to get

04:00that wrist hinge happening. So softer hands, L to L, and you'll start seeing those iron shots

04:07really get a decent strike on them.

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