Why You Need This:

Have you been working hard trying to get forward shaft lean? Struggling with high weak shots? Have you been trying to hold onto forward shaft lean?

If so, you may be on the wrong track.

The good news is that I will show you how to stop flipping the golf club in this video.

It all comes down to releasing the golf club instead of holding on. That’s right! I said releasing.

So if you want to have more forward shaft lean and hit some of your most solid shots, you are in the right place.

What's Covered: How to control the wrists in the golf swing to start hitting compressed shots.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 6:02

Video Transcription:

Hi guys, I’m Clay Ballard with Top Speed Golf, and today I have a great question for you.

Have you been working on getting more forward shaft lean coming into impact?

Have you been focusing bowing the wrist, trying to bow it all the way through impact and all the way through the ball?

Well this is actually not the correct motion, and this could actually be contributing with why you’re flipping the club if that’s what you’re struggling with.

In today’s video I’m going to talk about when the wrist should be flat, how it should bow, a great visualization which you can do with the back of your hand.

And then how that should release and the wrist will actually be cupping if we do it correctly just like you’ll see with all the top players.

So if you’ve been working on getting rid of the flip, compressing the golf ball, this video is custom-made for you. Let’s go ahead and get started.

All right, so first let’s go ahead and talk about what I see people doing, a lot of times when they’re trying to get more forward shaft lean that can really be detrimental.

A lot of times I can see as they’re making practice swings they’re really getting a lot of forward shaft lean here, their left wrist starts to bow, there’s forward shaft lean at contact, tons of forward shaft lean.

Then as they come through they’re trying to keep this forward shaft lean all the way through and to really keep an angle between the wrist and the club when in reality, that is going to absolutely kill our club head speed.

When we release the club properly it should be going from a lag position, have a little bit of forward shaft lean as it’s coming to contact, and then just after contact, this club is going to be fully released and it’s going to make a straight line with the arms.

That releasing of the angle is what’s going to allow us to get speed through contact, and it’s really going to allow you to hit the ball very, very far.

All the top pros are doing that, and that’s the only way that you can get speed without being extremely, extremely fast, and trying to drag it through there, very, very difficult to get speed that way, this is the easiest way to get speed.

So a lot of times when I see people getting this forward shaft lean, and they’re practicing this, what will happen is they may try to do that but your body is subconsciously fighting that.

Your body knows that if I’m going to hit the ball with any distance, I have got to let this club release.

So your brain is telling you one thing, and your body is resisting, wanting to do something else.

At the last second your hands and arms want to flip and take over to try to get that speed.

Because let’s be honest, if we take out the driver and iron, and we all of a sudden just start to hold off on it, and we hit it 40 yards shorter, we’re not going to do that very long.

Our brain is going to figure out a way, our subconscious mind is going to figure out a way to get the speed back and to start hitting those good shots.

That’s exactly what happens when you flip.

The key is to understand what exactly happens with this left wrist as we’re coming through contact, when it’s flat, when it’s bowed, when it cups back up, and that’s going to make it so much easier for you when you go out to practice.

So we’re going to break this down into four separate pieces, very easy to practice, and you can start right now in your living room.

So let’s go ahead and stand up here, grab a club in your living room, you don’t need a lot of space to do this.

The first thing we’re going to work on is when the wrist is flat in the downswing.

So as your hands near your right leg in the downswing, as my hands near my right leg, my wrist should be dead flat.

So if you’re looking at it from this angle, my wrist should be nice and flat just like a pancake. I should have a pretty good angle here with quite a bit of lag still built up in my swing.

As I come to contact, my wrist is actually going to be bowing forward a little bit more. So it went from flat, let’s go to the side, it went from flat to a little bit bowed.

It’s actually increasing the bow as it’s coming through contact. That’s definitely going to be the feeling that you’re going to have as you’re coming through contact if you’re used to flipping.

So start out flat, let’s go bowed, so you can see there’s a slight bow in my wrist, I’m exaggerating here a little bit so you can really see this on camera, that’s arcing there, that’s going to be contact.

As you release the club now, the wrist is going to go back to being flat again.

So the release point is 45° past impact. So straight up and down would be 90, this is 45, level with the ground would be 0.

That’s when my wrist is going to be nice and flat as I’m coming through. If you look at it from this angle, like I’m hitting a ball towards you, as I come through there, my wrist is going to be nice and flat.

I don’t want to have it cupping yet, and I don’t want to have it bowed yet like this, because then I’m not going to be able to get the energy.

I’ve got to get it released, get my wrist nice and flat to get rid of that energy. This is the key that really ties it in all together.

A lot of people feel like this should be flat all the way on through.

After you release the club, after this is nice and flat, and all the energy is gone, the ball is on its way, the wrist can then start to cup back up.

So as you finish your swing, your wrist will begin to cup back up after you’ve already hit the ball.

So you’re not going to be able, or you don’t want to, shouldn’t even be trying to keep that wrist flat all the way on through.

That’s going to cause you to hold off this finish, and your yardage just goes away.

So let’s go over these four pieces again one more time, then you can go ahead and practice these.

I recommend doing 100 repetitions, pausing in all four of them, 100 repetitions nice and slow in your living room to get you started without a ball.

Then we can take it out to the driving range and go nice and slow, but I want a few hundred repetitions before I ever try to hit a ball with this.

Piece number one, coming into my downswing weight is shifting to the left, nice amount of lag, this is flat as a pancake.

As I come into contact, I’m feeling like I’m going from flat to a little bit bowed forward.

I am exaggerating this a little bit so you can see this on camera, in reality the club’s only going to be leaning forward about 7 or 8°, something like that with an iron.

As I release the club, 45 past, flat as a pancake again. As I come to the finish this wrist can go ahead and cup back up a little bit as I come all the way on through.

So from this angle, flat, bowed, flat again, and then as I come all the way around that wrist is going to cup back up so I can come to the finish.

Work on those four pieces individually, I guarantee you you’ll start to be able to compress that golf ball a little bit better, it will feel a lot more natural to you, and you’ll start having better shots.

Good luck to you guys, I’ll see you all soon.