Keep That Wrist Flat!

Mon, 07/05/2010 - 13:00 -- Don Trahan

We got a comment from Greg, about the grip and the top of the backswing. “I've been experimenting with my hand position at the top of my backswing. With the knuckles of my left hand visible, I lose a lot of power. With the knuckles turned away (more of a cupped wrist), I get more power and maybe more accuracy. My problem is making that automatic. It is so easy to lose that hand position. Your comments?”

Well, we got one comment, right afterward, from Lynn, who is a Peak Performance fitter and instructor. You have all seen many articles from him about club fitting. He's also a Certified Instructor for the Peak Performance Golf Swing.

Lynn responded, saying, “Knuckles turned away is not cupped if you are right handed. If you'€™re right handed and your knuckles of the left hand are turned away, that's bowed which means the right wrist is cocked. So, if this is indeed your hand position it is also a logical conclusion to figure that the club is in the Sacred Burial Ground and laid off. This is not the Peak Performance Golf Swing.”

Lynn is absolutely correct. Here's the key. The left wrist should be flat, if you're a right handed golfer, conversely the right wrist if you're a left handed golfer, which is your lowest hand on the golf club.

Why is it flat? Because that's the natural position. If you extend your hand out to shake hands with somebody, you don't extend it out bowed or cocked. Because as soon as you bow it or cup it, you've changed all the muscles, from the wrist to the elbow connection points and you've stretched on side and contracted another. The hand is out of dynamic balance.

I covered this a lot in the Peak Performance swing manual and, ironically, we just shot some videos with extensive and detailed and intricate things about the grip, from the positions and muscle tone and how to get the right setup to have the muscles correctly positioned so that they are in dynamic balance. But the key is, once you get it you must maintain it.

So, Greg, if you are changing your grip position at the top of the backswing and if you are bowed or arched, as we believe you are, you are in a weak position. If you returned the club back to the ball the face would be wide open, probably hitting dead weak blocks or cuts, or even if you hold it so long you could blade it and it would feel like the sound of a shank.

Conversely, to stop that, you now have to do what? You have to release it. If you release it where you're going to break at the wrists again, that's going to flip the club into the ball and you're going to hit weak pulls and hooks. Or if you just plain get it back to straight but over release it, you could still hit smothered hooks and power pulls.

So that's where I think your accuracy and control problem is coming from. The key is set up with a good flat wrist, swing it up to the top, keep it flat and bring it back flat. I think you'll find that you're going to improve a whole lot more and get that consistency, as well as distance, back that you're searching for.

Start with a flat wrist, stay flat from start to finish and I think you'll see what you want to see in solidness, in better shots and in scores going lower.

The Surge!

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