Have you ever heard someone watching golfers on the driving range say “Look at all the lumber jacks chopping wood.” Do you know why they say everyone looks like a lumber jack or like they’re chopping wood?
It’s because that’s what people look like. They’re using their arms to literally chop at the ball. Tightening their wrists, tensing their arms and swinging down at rather than through the ball.
The golf swing isn’t supposed to be tense or stressful on the arms, leave that for your mid-section and back. The arms are more or less along for the ride, swing as a pendulum would. Think of your arms as a string and wrists holding onto a your hands. If you were to swing that string around your body the string would go tense and the force felt at the hands is just that caused by the weight of your hands and the speed at which you swing the string. You don’t need to add force to make this happen.
That’s what you should feel like when you swing!
Now on to the wrist hinge. As you hold onto the golf club, your grip should be very loose. Just enough to keep the club from rotating in your hands, no more. Now think of that string again as you hold onto the club and your wrists should just go along for the ride. Keeping this in your mind as you take the club back you shouldn’t need to flex your wrists much as your bring the club to the top position, they’ll naturally flex.
Now when you bring them down, resist every temptation you have to tense your wrists. If you allow them to flex naturally and freely they’ll come back to square automatically. It’s physics my friend!:). As you continue through your swing don’t resist as you draw the club through. This is a big problem point where people will leave the club face open causing a slice. Keep your wrists loose and let them flex back and turn over. The club will come back around and might whack you in the back of the head but that just means you’re doing it right.
Just think loose, loose, loose.
