Well, flick my wrists!

[Jmac23]

Fellas,

SOS!

I can NOT stop flicking my wrists at impact and uplofting my club. Even when I try not to do it, it is so ingrained in my muscles that it happens. does anyone have advice or better yet, drills, to help me keep my left wrist slightly bowed forward at impact?

thanks in advance.

Jmac

[golfonenemesis]

Re: Well, flick my wrists!

Yes. as you know, you are losing your angle and releasing the lag too soon.
Do This:
Take your backswing and go to the top, then, as you begin your downswing, invision that you are pointing the butt end of the club down the ball to target line. This will hold your angle and allow you to hit crisp shots.
Do this slowly at first.

[GregJWillis]

Re: Well, flick my wrists!

Time to break out your Secret again. Looks like it helped you last year.

[shootin4par]

Re: Well, flick my wrists!

nemesis
pulling the butt end down the target line actually can increase flipping because it inhibits natural forearm rotation and if that is not allowed to happen you must flip to get the club square

Jmac,
do a search for cupping and cocking of the wrists, learn how to cup the rear wrist before any wrist cock occurs, this will help lock your wrists into a position that can aide you in not releasing too soon, also make sure you clear out your body and do not swing all arms

[Timothy Slaught]

Re: Well, flick my wrists!

Hello Jmac:

Here is a tip that may help your tendency to flip, swat, break down, cast....

Assuming a sound neutral or slightly strong grip, your right hand should hold the handle primarily in the fingers and you should be able to see 2 knuckles of the right hand while the club is at address. Most people talk about the left hand position but the right is equally important. Do not rotate the right hand under the club by clawing at it. If you do this you would not see any knuckles and this is a very detrimental position. Even the strongest grippers on the tours show the right hand as I've described.
This facilitates the proper right hand action in the swing.

When you grip the club, focus on keeping pressure where the underside of the right thumb covers the left thumb. Some drills advise sticking a piece of paper like a gum wrapper in between this area and focusing on swinging without the paper flying out. You do not need to grip the club tighly do do this and, in fact, you always want to maintain a light grip pressure overall. Just make sure that you maintain pressure where the thumbs overlap during the entire swing.

What happens when you flip or swat (casting is the initial death move resulting in both of these) you are creating separation between the thumbs at the top of the backswing or very early into the downswing. The right hand actually breaks away from the left and you are overpowering the left hand with the right with the cast move. By keeping pressure at the area I suggest, you will keep the hands working as a unit. I feel as if I'm using the fleshy portion of my right hand at the base of the of the thumb to push the left hand into a flat position at impact. This maintains the cupped right hand position at impact. The left wrist is straight and the right is cupped at impact with all good ballstrikers.

I made a training device using two golf gloves to enhance this feeling of hand connection. Where the thumbs overlap, I glued velcro strips so when I took my grip, this area was glued together so to speak. This really helped me feel the correct action of my hands during the swing working together. It really helps maintain the cupped position of the right hand.

I hope it helps you.

[Simon Woo]

Re: Well, flick my wrists!

Hi jmac,

You probably shouldn't listen to me as I'm still a beginner, but just to share some of my thoughts : I feel that very often us beginners try to hit at the ball, causing the tendency to use the hands to swat at the ball. As someone very nicely pointed out in another thread, it's called the DOWNswing and not the FORWARDswing

So what I try to do is avoid the feeling of trying to hit at the ball to propel it forward. Instead, I try to allow my body rotation (hips pulling shoulders) to do the forward motion, and because of that, the arms/hand only need to concentrate on the down motion. If you keep that in mind, you'll probably be better able to keep the right wrist cup, and also allow your lower body to be more dominant giving more power.

Caution though : a new move like that will probably mean you'll have some difficulty getting sweet contact with the ball initially, but that's to be expected so don't get frustrated initially :P

[pnearn]

Re: Well, flick my wrists!

Jmac

I was working with a friend of mine on exactly this the last few nights at the range ( see the RHD advocates thread). Try and learn the concept of passive hands, its difficult but stick at it. The best way IMHO is to start with a club like a PW and make a connected turn back until the club and your arm form an L shape. Connection is the Y shape formed by your arms and the club. You want to keep that shape as long as you can in your backswing. As you do this dont let your arms pull the club back, feel as if your left arm is pushing the triangle, your elbows point to the ground and the clubface stays looking at the ball as long as possible. Your wrists will cup and hinge naturally halfway back so dont worry about wrists at all

From there just turn that connected Y back thriough the ball using your 'core'. How you feel this core turn will be a personal thing but maybe hips, chest or shoulders but make sure (as Simon rightly says) its your core turning and your arms/Y shape getting pulled down and through. Try and leave your wrists/hands as loose and floppy as you can. Do nothing with them except hold on to the club and feel them being pulled down and through

Again as Simon rightly says this may take lots and lots of balls but stick at it. If youre not hitting straight go back and check setup and swing plane but keep trying. You will feel very open at impact (see Gregs Impact Drill). Sooner or later you will hit a PW with a half swing with this body turn that will be effortless and sail 100 yards and then the light will go on. GTO is littered with posts where people have found this. Keep doing those half swings and ingrain it before trying a hit a driver 300 yards

Bear in mind though that trying to take the hands out the swing isnt easy. It takes a long time and I still struggle with it. TGM'ers call it educated hands, One Planers call it passive hands, SimpleSwing calls it core rotation, Ballard calls it connection but its really all the same concept. Take a few months to really practice it and it will be well worth it

[james.welsh]

Re: Well, flick my wrists!

My teacher suggested extending your right index finger along the club grip curling under slightly. He called it the "trigger finger". The theory is, if you keep pressure on that finger and the grip as you swing through, you're keeping the grip "ahead" of the club head. If that happens you can't "swat" the club through impact. It works and is easily incorporated into any kind of grip.

[snake]

Re: Well, flick my wrists!

Good thread lads !

I am also a swatter....and not a happy one !

I am working with Greg Normans Secret and Greg Willis' Right hand drill.
Without a doubt its the right direction for me but I can seem to avoid the flick when I am outwith the confort of the driving range.

I can only suggest you try to do as I am
i.e. using a training aid and the Right Hand Drill

Anybody idea how many balls you need to hit to change muscle memory ????

[GregJWillis]

Re: Well, flick my wrists!

Well, muscles really don't have memory. Your memory has muscle motion awareness. (Sorry to be cute)

Hitting buckets of balls in a "trainning" mode where you are isolating one aspect of your swing and making this the focus is essential to this process. Worrying about everything else, type of shape, or perfect contact and the combination of all the other elements that make the "final product" swing is another trainning technique alltogether.

So how you practice and train muscle awareness is the first step. My guess is that if you make 400-500 correct tainning swings, this will allow the new element to be incorporated in to the "final product" swing.

When I changed my swing 15 years ago, it took me a whole year to be in automatic mode. I had several items to change so this had an affect on the overall time. I must have made 2000 trainning swings to get to that point. But I knew the change was right for me right after the first one.

[msklar92]

Re: Well, flick my wrists!

Read above posts. I am always tinkering with my swing a bit. Last round I tried to keep my ball position more foward in my stance on all shots. The triangle as pnearm referred to is not centered directly under my chin but set more towards my front foot. The ball feels as if it is outside my left ear and I feel as if I am more behind the ball. The reason I mentioned this, is that with the triangle more foward, you are setting the right wrist in the proper postion at address. This may help you to stop from flicking. From that position, I feel as if I can simply swing back and then come through hard with the hips and let the arms follow. Had some very good results with this - maybe about 15 more yds of distance and straight and hit more greens in regulation. Will see if this holds up, but went to the range today and had the sami good results with this setup.

[Simon Woo]

Re: Well, flick my wrists!

I think I have muscle amnesia!