Wrist Action for Increased Power

Video Transcript

Wrist action in the golf swing is a very important element because it adds a lot of whipping action to the golf club. A lot of people try to cock the club with the left wrist during the takeaway and never get the sense of how to un-cock their wrists or what having a square clubface would be. A real good drill here is to put a book between your hands and just take it back and forth a couple of feet in each direction. Get the wrist action where it feels more like a bending back of the wrists as you take the book back and a through bending of the wrists as you pass the impact position. That is more of the correct feel of the wrist activity in the golf swing. It will actually end up being different than it looks because there is body movement along with the wrist cock. So as you follow-through, although you might see a cupping of the wrists, the fact that the body and arms are moving together will naturally eliminate that cupping. A lot of people are afraid of this cupping movement, but if I were throwing a ball with my right hand my wrist action is back and through, I develop a natural cupping of the wrist once I have released the ball. Now what happens when I do that with throwing motion with my wrist and I rotate with my body as if I am swinging a club? The wrists actually never releases to that cupped position because the body movement counteracts it. But we need more of that type of wrist action. If we are trying to rotate our body and intentionally cock our wrists, we will never get a sense of the clubface being at a square position at impact. What we are trying to do in this drill is get a little bit of wrist whip while timing that with the movement of the center of the body. For those of you who played baseball, a real good correlation would be the throw from the infield when fielding a grounder and just making a snap throw forward with the wrist. It would not be a twisting or rotary movement in the entire arm but just a wrist release as the body is in motion. That is the tricky thing, not only do the wrists have to set and cock, they have to release in time with the body while the body moves along with the wrists. Practice this drill with a book in your hand and your body in motion and get your wrists loosened up. It’s going to add a lot of energy to your golf game.

David Glenz
The David Glenz Golf Academy
138 Route 23
Franklin, NJ 07416
Tel: 973-209-6075

David Glenz is Director of the David Glenz Golf Academy in Sussex County, New Jersey. He is listed as one of Golf Magazine's Top 100 Teachers and Golf Digest's #36 instructor in the world.

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