Ehien, you almost certainly already have some wrist bend at address. It is the angle between the arms and clubshaft as seen looking down the target line. As you make the backswing, this angle becomes part of and contributes to the customary wrist bend angle. You could experiment with more or less wrist hinging to see what happens.
The only problem you might encounter is the one I mentioned above about the club coming around too early. You might have to take care to not use too much wrist power on the way down.
Are you sure your improvement is from the "hinging" and not primarily a result of keeping the club in front of you? After a lot of years of loosing distance and accuracy, I improved finally just by keeping the club from getting behind me and out of sync with the rest the swing. Once your body is ahead of the club it is hard to achieve any accuracy or distance. A large turn is not necessary to get the club behind your body and out of position. Thinking of a triangle formed by the arms and club and keeping the triangle in front of the chest has helped me and now I am trying to get more "proper" wrist action rather than less.
Are you sure your improvement is from the "hinging" and not primarily a result of keeping the club in front of you? After a lot of years of loosing distance and accuracy, I improved finally just by keeping the club from getting behind me and out of sync with the rest the swing. Once your body is ahead of the club it is hard to achieve any accuracy or distance. A large turn is not necessary to get the club behind your body and out of position. Thinking of a triangle formed by the arms and club and keeping the triangle in front of the chest has helped me and now I am trying to get more "proper" wrist action rather than less.
Good post. For a feel of how to do, see my post on this thread: "Keeping left arm straight and straightening right after impact".
I can't help but think you are not connected if you have to work on hand/sternum relationship Ehien. If not sure, glue, not squeeze, BOTH armpits (upper inside arm and upper torso flesh), allowing no movement of that flesh. Keep the triangle stable and you should be increasing in distance. Do modified push ups and other activity with a boulder sized marble in each armpit without dropping. Swing with the armpits then, keeping the triangle stable. You will feel the power of that stable triangle as the power arm straightens close to impact. As a result of this, the "elbow pit" of the target side arm, as indicated in a previous post, will be facing up at you at the top, and you should feel as if the shoulders are "pulling back" in the opposite direction of the club c-force.
I just came back from a trip overseas where I played about 6 rounds of golf. These are the only rounds of golf I played after I tweaked my swing. The results? Very positive. For the first time in my 2 years of on and off golf, I shot under 100 with borrowed clubs (one birdie and about 3 pars). I'm expecting to do better here with my own clubs.
Crossgrain and DarkOlliveGreen, yes it's possible that my thought of "keeping hands in front of body" is one factor that may be even more important than wrist hinge to contribute to my improvement. But since the thought of keeping wrist quiet also remove lots of havocs caused by wrist actions, I can't say for sure which accounts for more.
To me "keeping the triangle stable" and "keeping hands in front of body" are the exact same thing. Since I had a strong tendency to turn body must faster than arms and hands, doing either almost completely reduce this tendency and allow solid ball contacts.
While playing abroad, I found my carries were actually longer than previously reported with the borrowed graphite shafted clubs. I shot 7 iron 160yds with ease and 5 iron was 170-180yds.
So with my experience so far, I'm pretty convinced that I'm on the right track. I won't worry about how my swing looks or whether my take back is only half or 3/4 swing. Well I still plan to tape my swing but still no chance yet.
Oh one piece of info... on different occasions few people I played with commented that I had a very nice form. But one (a single-digit handicapper) of them told me my swing plane was too vertical. He recommended a more horizontal plane to prevent bad slices when my club head is not square at impact. I tried but couldn't do it well. This may be what I'll eventually correct on, but just not right now.
Ehien
Quote:
Originally Posted by crossgrain
Good post. For a feel of how to do, see my post on this thread: "Keeping left arm straight and straightening right after impact".
I can't help but think you are not connected if you have to work on hand/sternum relationship Ehien. If not sure, glue, not squeeze, BOTH armpits (upper inside arm and upper torso flesh), allowing no movement of that flesh. Keep the triangle stable and you should be increasing in distance. Do modified push ups and other activity with a boulder sized marble in each armpit without dropping. Swing with the armpits then, keeping the triangle stable. You will feel the power of that stable triangle as the power arm straightens close to impact. As a result of this, the "elbow pit" of the target side arm, as indicated in a previous post, will be facing up at you at the top, and you should feel as if the shoulders are "pulling back" in the opposite direction of the club c-force.
Nice to see your report Ehien. It would not suprise me if you continue to increase distance as you become more comfortable and swing more free. Keep in mind a bit less hinge resistance will allow club c-force to hinge the wrists while still keeping the arm/wrist muscles keyed in the direction of the hit. Pay particular attention to to the wrist end of the ulnae, allowing no separation there. You will truly begin to experience extension and the feel of getting the club in the fingertips at that point.
As for the hands in front of the body vs stable triangle, yes they are close to the same, but the triangle can "fold" with a longer backswing while remaining connected which will then put the hands over the back shoulder at the top ala John Daly. I found that while there is a different feel to going back that deep, there was no advantage distance wise, but a larger margin for error, so I go no further back than about 10:15 on the swing clock, truly keeping the hands "in front".
It would be impossible to comment on the "too vertical" point without seeing your swing. It all depends on setup position.
Keep in mind a bit less hinge resistance will allow club c-force to hinge the wrists while still keeping the arm/wrist muscles keyed in the direction of the hit. Pay particular attention to to the wrist end of the ulnae, allowing no separation there. You will truly begin to experience extension and the feel of getting the club in the fingertips at that point.
Thanks for the suggestion and reminder. I'll be watching out for the amount of "hinge resistance" or hinge during my swing and see how it affects consistency and distance. This likely will change as I make progress on my swing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crossgrain
As for the hands in front of the body vs stable triangle, yes they are close to the same, but the triangle can "fold" with a longer backswing while remaining connected which will then put the hands over the back shoulder at the top ala John Daly. I found that while there is a different feel to going back that deep, there was no advantage distance wise, but a larger margin for error, so I go no further back than about 10:15 on the swing clock, truly keeping the hands "in front".
Sounds like I'm doing the same thing. I don't allow folding of the triangle at all, even at the top. This is one of the 2 big reasons I'm hitting much better now. In the past I allowed the triangle to fold and when the ball was struck, the triangle was not completely unfolded due to body out raced arms and hands. This often created serious push slice. Maybe one day I'll be able to mater this timing. But for now, I don't see a good reason to change.
One dilemma I have now is for the driver swing. In order to have enough shoulder turn (remember I don't allow the triangle to fold), I can't keep my head not turning or remain starring at the ball at later or last part of the back swing. And if I keep my head still, then I can't have enough shoulder turn to generate good club speed. This is not a problem on iron or wood shots as the limited shoulder turn didn't result in lack of distance. But for driver I do need enough shoulder turn to generate club speed. Otherwise, unlike the shorter irons, I can't accelerate the driver head in the short path allowed. Any suggestion? I've chose to allow my head to turn. Most of the time consistency hasn't been a problem. But I am not sure if it's good to keep doing it.
Last edited by Ehien : July 14th, 2008 at 09:21 PM.