Why the Proper Wrist Hinge Adds More Power to Your Swing

One of the primary sources of power that we establish in the backswing is the cocking of the left wrist to get that club loaded in the backswing and you will have a lot of stored energy when you do this.

One of the things that I see a lot in my students is that they never really cock that wrist. They will get up here to the top, they may even bend their arm, but you can see the relationship between my forearm and my wrist that this wrist is not cocked.

Put your left arm out straight with a flat left wrist with your left arm out to your side and then just cock it forward as you bring it in front of you. That is not a big movement but you will notice that when you do that the club has 90 degrees between the forearm. If you stretch it a little bit, this is a great exercise to do when you are sitting on the couch in front of the TV, notice my wrist is still in a nice flat position with my forearm, see how the shaft and the face are all on the same line.

Look at how the wrist cock that I have now. What I am asking you is to just get 90 degrees, get that club cocked in the backswing. That is one of the key positions of swinging this club.

• You can set the club early. Setting the club is the cocking of the wrists. So I can start back and feel that left wrists cocking very early so that by the time my hands are hip high that wrist is fully clocked. An advantage of being in that full clocked position is that you are going to be right in here ready to put that clock right on the ball. You are going to get down to where your arms are parallel to the ground and all you have to do is finish your downswing and come right back into the back of the ball.
  
• Or you can have the opposite to that. You might have seen Ben Hogan's swing or Jack Nicklaus' swing or Tiger Woods' swing early in his career where he extended way out to here and this is a very late wrist cock because it is not until they get up to about shoulder height that they set that wrist. I think that later wrist cock takes a little more talent and ability to get the timing.
  
• Or you might have what I call a swinging set. That is in between early and late and it is pretty natural. You just swing that club right up into here and get it into position. Regardless of which one you want to use, early wrist set, swinging wrist set or late wrist set, you must try to get that left wrist cocked at a 90 degree angle.

Take a look in a mirror, if you get up there in a mirror and you swing back and see that your hands are in this position with no wrist cock, you are losing a lot of power. Give that backswing loading a try.