Cock up and down Vs siide-to-side

[koonl]

I am confused about the cocking of the wrists in a full swing.

I have been taught to address the ball with the the arms and club forming a "Y", so the clubshaft is vertical down to the ball. I see many pros address the same way so I know there is nothing wrong with this setup. However, pros, including the instruction pages here, teach you to cock your wrists up and down, and never side-to-side. If you cock your wrists up and down from the address position, as if you were going to hit your nose with the clubhead, then your clubshaft should remain between your forearms, neither leaning to the left or right of the vertical. Is this correct? Because when you see a pro take the club half-way back, were the forearms are parallel to the ground, the clubshaft is leaning away to the right (from the golfers view of a right-handed golfer), as the shaft should point roughly to the ball at this point, not vertical pointing down to your right foot. This means that the wrists must have some right-side hinge as well as up-cock of the wrists. This also means that your left wrist must be flatter than at address. If you make all efforts to cock your wrists up with no right side hinge, then at the top of the swing, the left hand is well cupped as it may also be at address, and the clubshaft points to the right of the target. I get tremendous clubhead speed doing this, albeit slicing and fading at times because of the open face, where I get hooks and fades from allowing my wrists to naturally cock up with some side hnge, though I never get the power with the former method. The only way I guess is coorect is by leaning the hands forward at address so the left hand already is flatter, and when cocking straight up, the shaft is pointing to the ball. Is this therefore the correct address position?

Please can someone explain what I am experiencing?

Thanks all

[Ian Hancock]

Re: Cock up and down Vs siide-to-side

It sounds to me like you know what you are doing, you are correct cocking the wrists up and down is for teaching purposes only.

As you say your set up is more y shaped looking face on with a flater left wrist, but you should still cock straight up, so when you are half way back the club should be natually tilting behind your body with the butt aiming at the ball.

Try taking the club back to 8 o clock the club face should be slightly shut"stop" at this position and cock straight up as if you are going to put the club on your right shoulder, "now" simply hold this position and turn your shoulders,............if you look into a mirror from behind you will see you are absoluley perfect...



Hope this helps.........let me know


Ian.

[LowPost42]

Re: Cock up and down Vs siide-to-side

For a RHG:

Place a watch or a couple of elastics on your left wrist. Slip a comb underneath the elastics so that the comb touches the back of your hand halfway between the wrist and knuckles. Now, don't bend the comb, and don't break contact with the comb during your backswing. Ignore your right wrist - it ends up cupped at the top.

Somewhere else, someone had said that when you cock your wrist up and down, you see the clubhead go up and down, but stay square. When you move your wrists side to side, you see it open and close the clubface.

So you need to have a flat left wrist that cocks up and down only. Let your right hand and wrist go along for the ride.

And forget about when to cock your wrists - if your backswing is sound, gravity will pull the club and cock your wrists for you.

[Mulligan Al]

Re: Cock up and down Vs siide-to-side

If you want to spend a few dollors here is a neat little item that helps me keep my wrist flat.

http://www.shop-safely.com/shops.asp...id=TACTICWRIST

It's really hard to stop it from making that tic tac sound, you really have to work on it.

[koonl]

Re: Cock up and down Vs siide-to-side

I got some answers from my teacher - he says because the forearms are rotating through the back swing, the shaft will not disect through the forearms as in the address. As long as the dish angle of the left wrist is the same at the top as it was at address, you have cocked the wrists correctly without having to manipulate the wrists any other way.