wrist breakdown

[rockside]

hello gents

ive been playing golf for afew years now playing off around 18 handicap, not getting much better or worse but loving the game, however, over the last 6 months ive developed a very wristy swing, breaking my wrist very early in my backswing and flicking my wrists over at impact,i can still hit the odd good shot if my timing is spot on, but the one thing you cant rely on is good timing when your a high handicap golfer, i know im doing it but i cant seem to do anything about it, the longer it goes on the more ingrained its getting into my swing , anyone one got any drills that would help me
thank you

[GregJWillis]

Re: wrist breakdown

Try the right hand drill:
http://mysite.verizon.net/gregjwillis/LESSON1.htm

[cyc53870]

Re: wrist breakdown

It's a great site. I find it beneficial to go back to basics.

[rockside]

Re: wrist breakdown

thank you to everyone who took the trouble to reply, the greg willis website was a great help, i found the thread on timing interesting, the more i read it the more it makes sence, ive just arrived home from the belfry watching the pros on the european tour, unbelieveable, if thats golf then im playing something else ! the one thing i noticed with all the players was how they got through the ball , something im looking at with my swing, maybe i need to get my weight through to my left side quicker with more club lag stopping me releasing my wrists to early

[BrianW]

Re: wrist breakdown

Swing into the ball and ignore your follow through, Just let it happen. many golfers have problems due to over thinking about how the club needs to finish high after impact, this can cause the clubface to hit behind the ball, hitting up and thinning it or flipping the wrists.

Try a shorter follow through and see what happens.

[BrianW]

Re: wrist breakdown

and that i could not disagree with more.

that is like telling a whip to not crack. if you deploy it properly it will crack no matter what, or like putting a pole instead of a rope on a trebuchet with a stop on the pole so as not to excess 90deg of travel, that will put some crazy strain on the structure. the follow through is really the start of release. the whole downswing is building it up and when hands get about waist high the club releases and goes flying up. if you swing correctly you cannot stop it, there is too much force, you would hurt yourself. i believe it is jim thorpe that does that weird follow through that changes direction in his follow through is is kind of able to contain it.

but if you are able to control your follow through any anything more than a 50% shot then you are not hitting the ball as far as you can/should be able to hit it. i bet i could have a short follow through if i let my arm outrace my body

If you want to quote me then use the whole quote and not a selected line. You have taken my post out of context.

You missed this bit:
"Swing into the ball and ignore your follow through, Just let it happen. many golfers have problems due to over thinking about how the club needs to finish high after impact, this can cause the clubface to hit behind the ball, hitting up and thinning it or flipping the wrists."

If you crack a whip then you have to slow and stop the forward motion to let the whip crack through by it's own momentum, a trebuchet has to stop the primary lever to allow the secondary to be propelled forward (like a whip)

I said "let it happen" not stop it happening. My point (that seems to have gone right over your head) was that some people get wristy due to trying to flip the club to a high follow through, if you concentrate on making solid contact with the ball and allow your arms and club to release by their own momentum you will probably make a better swing.

This is an excerpt from Purepoint golf:

"Low Follow-Through = Maximum Airtime
If I had a dollar for every amateur that told me that they are trying to follow-through high after impact so that their shots will go up in the air, I would be set for life.

Most of the time, a high follow-through after impact will force the ball to be hit on the upswing which results in a top, scull or ground-behind shot. "



If you work on getting into the release position shown in this picture then you will have made a good hit, you can just let momentum take you on from here.



Read the first part of this article also:

http://www.dreamswing.eu/dreamswing-...wing-tips-ever

[rotator]

Re: wrist breakdown

i actually did read your whole post, i guess i just misunderstood it. I think I would have understood it better had it said lower follow through not shorter.


i also dsagree with the purepoint view

Most of the time, a high follow-through after impact will force the ball to be hit on the upswing which results in a top, scull or ground-behind shot.

Personally i like to hit it on the upswing. like skipping a stone, under up and out.

but that is just my opinion, feel free to disagree with me if you wish. The intent of my post was not to be an attack.

I can't agree with the underlined statement. Perhaps with the driver swing, level or slightly on the upswing. As for the under, I don't see that. In special cases perhaps, such as high shots. Also, for the out, why? I would believe that there are few pros or good golfers who would do this with most normal ball striking.

[BrianW]

Re: wrist breakdown

i actually did read your whole post, i guess i just misunderstood it. I think I would have understood it better had it said lower follow through not shorter.


i also dsagree with the purepoint view

Most of the time, a high follow-through after impact will force the ball to be hit on the upswing which results in a top, scull or ground-behind shot.

Personally i like to hit it on the upswing. like skipping a stone, under up and out.

but that is just my opinion, feel free to disagree with me if you wish. The intent of my post was not to be an attack.

My advice was given to golfers that flip their wrists at the ball (that's what this thread is directed at) My advice was to help those that have this problem. I happen to believe that many novices who pay too much attention into getting into a high finish with the club wrapped around their neck (so that they can look like Tiger or Garcia) tend to make poor contact due to swatting their wrists. If they focused more on the impact zone and release they would make better shots.

I don't like the idea of hitting anything but a driver on the upstroke either.

[rotator]

Re: wrist breakdown

I assume you have never heard of Mike Austin? nor the skipping stones reference that many a great golfers used.

perhapse i wasn't very clear as well. The arm is on the under up and out as the club moves down and strikes the ball on the dowswing. yes you would only want to actually strike the ball with the club on the upswing with the driver.

perhapse it is also a feeling, the hitting on the upswing of the arms, but i feel as if i am my arms are traveling down and then they level our and the club begins to release and the arms are then travelling up as the club goes down and strikes the ball.

I know about Austin. The skipping stone analogy I can relate to because it is fundamental, and it should be part of my and anyone's swing. It's not exclusively Austin's. It's in the throwing motion of baseball pitchers and quarterbacks. Basically, for a right handed golfer, the right elbow floats ahead and down ("under"), and because in golf the ball is on the ground, toward the right hip, while the forearm and hand follows behind ready to whip through. I suppose the arm and club levels out at a point, but I don't think you should intentionally want to swing them up before impact. You would lose the bent wrist (lag) if you did.

I don't believe the "arms (and hands) should be travelling up as the club goes down and strikes the ball" as you say. That may (will likely) result in the flicking (some call it slapping) motion you say has been creeping into your swing.

Even with the driver, I don't think you intentionally want to manipulate your arms and hands to swing "under and up". You swing though with the "skipping stone motion of the right arm and the straight left arm, and retain the bent wrist, on a mainly downward motion. The reason the driver is hit on the level or slight upswing is because of the ball position being of the left foot, and the arc of the swing is starting to be on the up rise.

One of the most discussed subjects on this forum in varying renditions is the loss of the bent angle of the right wrist through impact. Willis' right hand drill, 3 skills, countless other teachings, and the examples of topflight golfers illustrate this is a primary aspect of solid ball striking. I see this is paramount. I linked Martin Hall's video on another current thread about Timing and Leverage. The drill with the plywood shows this well. You will never be able to execute it with your under and up.

I have been striking the ball as solid and longer, and now more accurate than when I was much younger and depended on brute strength. A lot of this is attributable to finally integrating the basic concept of the bent wrist into my swing a year ago. This bring about the elusive lag, accuracy, consistency, etc.

Look, I'm not trying to be a smartass. If this helps you and others, and I'm sure it will, it'll be great for me. I'm the type of person who is happy to see my fellow golfers and opponents do well.

Ted

[rotator]

Re: wrist breakdown

golfinguy28,

Not to belabour the point, but seriously look into the bent wrist aspect of the swing. It will dramatically improve your game; driving, irons, chipping and putting.

It's not a feel thing or a bandaid technique. It's fundamentally what all good strikers have to do, Tiger, Garcia, Furyk,... name them all. That's why so many instructions deal with the subject, so many training aids are sold, and so many discussions revolve around it. I could see Brian's been around the game and he is clearly a devotee of this fundamental.

It seems to me you are concerned about wrist breakdown, but the down and under thing has captivated you, although it's meant to be a feeling only, and is causing you to flip in an effort to implement it.

When I was young, I used to pick up on tips, and thought if I really worked on them, it would be the magic missing element to playing better. I practiced and practiced the tip. This happened so often, and invariably, I found I had not fully understood what the "real" action was, so I was ingraining something that took years to unlearn. I had to unlearn an ingrained reverse pivot motion, because I was trying to make a higher deeper backswing and shoulder turn.

In this light, while working on the bent wrist downswing, don't do it in isolation, or this will cause an over the top move (as I had to struggle with), until I connected in the rest. You have to start the downswing with the weight shift, rotation of the hips and body, and the swinging of the shoulders and soft arms. You don't consciously uncock the left wrist, it will happen, and at impact the left wrist is flat or bowed, and the right wrist is still bent. Never flipping.

Sorry, I got carried away. I'm passionate about this.

Ted

[Neil18]

Re: wrist breakdown

Hi all,

If we watch any face-on view of any good ball striker, whether it be with an iron or driver, the hands are starting to work away from the ground as the clubhead begins to catch up and strike downward. They may not try to do it, but it does happen.

There's three main causes of fat and thin shots (two of which are combined - I'll talk about these first)

1. Loss of height in the body structure whilst holding onto that angle of the trailing wrist = hitting behind the ball. It's in the effort to hit down on the ball that this occurs and can lead to;

2. Loss of height in the body structure and flipping at the ball in order to keep the clubhead above the ground before it contacts the ball. Fat, thin or topped shots result.

3. Retention of body height is good but the wrists are used to make the clubface meet the ball which either bottoms out the club behind the ball or catches it thin (depending on ball position nd rotation type). Add to that the fast changing angle of the clubface and you can add fore left or right. I think I've just covered everyones bad shots haven't I?!

I'm sure everybody on here realises that these are combinations of small factors, and one can get hopelessly lost on trying to marry up all of them to get a good strike.

However, The relationship between wrists, hands and clubface needs to be understood to be able to apply it correctly.

I have used this analogy before, but to illustrate the point, I like to think of the hands as the cab of a 16 wheel truck, and the club as the trailer.

Imagine the cab turns a right-angled corner. The cab will start to move away from the junction on its' new path, but the trailer is still approaching and turning the corner.

Flip the analogy to a birds-eye view and stick a clubface on the rear of the trailer and you have a downward moving rear end of the trailer (clubface), with an upward moving cab (hands).

It's an identical principal and needs to be understood for God-like ball striking.

[Neil18]

Re: wrist breakdown

Er, I've never heard of the "Law of the Flail"! I didn't know there was one! I'm presuming it's a physical sub-law of some kind (i.e. Newton's).

"Flail" doesn't sound like a word I'd want to associate with what I'm doing, but I'll go with it!

[bdbl]

Re: wrist breakdown

Er, I've never heard of the "Law of the Flail"! I didn't know there was one! I'm presuming it's a physical sub-law of some kind (i.e. Newton's).

"Flail" doesn't sound like a word I'd want to associate with what I'm doing, but I'll go with it!

Too right Neil, if the Law of Flail allows me to carry my driver 280+ then show me the way.

[Neil18]

Re: wrist breakdown

The single most important thing is that that is the single most important collection of the single most important clips ever to be seen on my single most important computer.................mostly.............singly .........importantly.........ever



Very nice. I like this single most important guy.

[jamesh]

Re: wrist breakdown

Greg your right hand drill video will be my sole practise material for a long as it takes to get it right. Speaking of which, how long does it usually take to ingrain a new movement into your swing…I also have more than a tendency to start my swing from the top …. Do you know of any good drills to help you start the swing from the bottom…..


Thanks,

Jamesh