00:03Hi, I'm Katie Dawkins. I am an advanced PGA professional and I'm here at West Hill Golf
00:08Club today to talk to you about wrist hinge in the golf swing. Wrist hinge is where we get power
00:15from. Imagine for example that you had a flat pebble. I'm going to skim it across a beautiful
00:21mill pond like I used to do as a kid. I'm going to first of all hinge my wrist like
00:26this. 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 flat pebble skimming a stone. I'm
00:41going to have to hurl myself into the drink to actually gain any sort of power at all and
00:45the pebble is probably just going to go plop. So wrist hinge in the golf swing is where power
00:51is created and club head speed. So what actually happens in the golf swing? Where do the wrists
00:59actually hinge from? The club moves away, club and arms move away together and the wrists will start
01:05hinging, almost giving you a thumbs up feeling at this point here. You can see I've created a lovely
01:10L shape between my club shaft and my arm and what's going to happen from there depending on my own
01:17mobility is I'm just going to wind myself up to the top of my back swing. Some people wind up
01:22a bit
01:22like John Rahm. Some people wind up a lot like Rory McIlroy. How much you wind up, it's not a
01:28competition. The most important thing when it comes to power in the golf swing is that wrist set and for
01:35ladies especially, if there's no wrist hinge early on in the golf swing and 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. You
01:46overswing and you lose power. So from this lovely L shaped position that you have here, all that
01:53really is required after that is a wind up to the top of the backswing. Because the wrists are set
01:58properly here, they're likely to unhinge at the right point, giving you a bit of a crack of the whip
02:04through the ball and giving you tons and tons of power and fizz, especially in your iron play.
02:13A lot of ladies that struggle with this wrist hinge generally tend to have the club in the wrong
02:18position in the hand. So it's worth going and getting a bit of a lesson just on your fundamentals
02:22to check whether the source of the problem is from holding the club in the wrong place. A lot of
02:27the
02:27time they tend to hold it more in the palm and it needs to be in the fingers. This frees
02:31the hand up
02:32and creates that lovely hinge. And then of course that lovely whoosh of power through the ball.
02:38If you're hinging the 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 without
02:50busting it down there. We've all played against those players where you think golly they don't know
02:56how they're going to hit it very far. They step up with a little bit of a hockey swing and
03:00smack it out
03:00with a swing that goes from here to here. And that is in fact a kind of drill that you
03:05could practice
03:06on the range. Just little seven irons off a tee going from L through to L like so. And what
03:15you'll
03:15find there is you start to get a bit more height with your irons and a little bit more distance
03:20as
03:20well. So if you've got a decent set of the wrists your swing is more efficient. And a more efficient
03:26swing means that you're going to last longer out on the golf course hitting more decent
03:30shots. And who doesn't want to hit lots of decent shots during a round of golf? If you are somebody
03:36who gets a bit tired midway through the round, then the likelihood is that you're not hinging these
03:41wrists and you're doing what we talked about with the pond at the beginning, which is throwing yourself
03:45at that golf ball to generate some form of power. So what I'd recommend, go and get a lesson, get
03:52them
03:52to check your grip. If the grip's in the good place, just soften it off a little bit because if
03:57you're
03:57squeezing the life out of this club, you're not going to be able to get that wrist hinge happening.
04:02So softer hands, L to L, and you'll start seeing those iron shots really get a decent strike on them.
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