Why You Need This:

If you have gotten this far, you probably realize just how important the wrists are in creating speed.  But what about the flip? We have all heard that a flip of the wrists is a “death move” in the golf swing.

What if I told you that you MUST flip to increase clubhead speed. The key is, when to flip. I will show you how in this video!

What's Covered: How to release your wrist from extension to increase your clubhead speed.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 10:05

Video Transcription:

OK, so in this video we’re going to talk about palm back and palm forward, or either wrist extension and flexion.

We’re going to forget about those terms and just talk about whether the palm is going back and the palm is going forward.

Then hands are going to work together in unison throughout the swing, and they’re really going to work as a pair.

So in this video we’re going to go through the entire swing and talk about how the wrists move when we’re talking about palm back and palm forward.

Again, palm back is when we take our hand nice and neutral here, and we take the palm of the hand and bend it backwards like this. So our knuckles are getting closer to our elbow.

Palm forward would be simply when we’re turning the palm towards the center of our body.

Same thing for the left hand, palm back would be the knuckles going toward the elbow, the palm facing out, and then palm forward would be this way where it’s facing back toward me.

So this would be palm back and palm forward for both hands.

So let’s go ahead and start out at address here, and as I set up to the ball I like to have a little bit of forward shaft lean, and if I get into the proper posture, basically what’s going to happen is I’m going to have a very, very slight amount of palm back as I’m at address.

So very, very slight amount, and my left hand is basically going to be flat or maybe a slight cup here, a little bit of backward cupping there, that’s completely fine.

So my left hand has a very slight amount of cupping and my right hand also has a very slight amount of cupping, that’s just because that’s how my arms are meeting the club.

Now as I go into the takeaway, very little is going to change. So as I – let’s turn this way – very little is going to change in my hands.

So as I go to turn back, you’ll see that I’ve kept a little bit of cupping in my right wrist, and I’ve also kept a little bit of cupping in my left wrist.

Now one thing that I’ll see people do a lot of times, is they’ll start back by really getting the palm of the right hand back, and they’ll start to pull it back this way.

The knuckles of the right hand will go toward the elbow, and that gets the club going to the inside.

You’ll also see that makes my left wrist bow as I’m doing this, that’s a very common mistake that I see.

So as we’re going back it’s really careful to take all that wrist action out of there, or very important to take all that wrist action out of there, and just keep the hands nice and neutral as we’re going back.

We’re not going to get super detailed into this, because I think if you get a little inside you’re going to be OK, as long as it’s not really extreme you can still play some really good golf from there.

But it’s important to realize that we don’t want to do a ton with the wrist as we’re doing the takeaway.

Now, the really important part that comes to do with the scratch golf system, what’s going to be even more important, is as we start down, as we go to the top of the swing, that’s when my left wrist is going to flatten out.

My right wrist is going to get a little bit of cupping, but even more importantly, the most important piece of this, is as I start my downswing and I’m building to the maximum amount of lag, that’s when my right wrist is going to get a lot of palm back, or knuckles back to the elbow.

My right wrist is really going to be setting. So everything before my full lag point, I’m going to be still setting my right wrist, my right palm is never going to be fully set.

When I get to the full amount of lag, I’m going to be fully set there. Now from that position, all I’m thinking about doing is letting go to my release point in front.

So as you’re coming down, you’ll see as I’m nearing impact, I still have palm back and my knuckles back to my elbow. As I release that, this is going to be nice and flat at the same time.

I’m going to be wrist neutral with my left hand, as I release that into the full release position, now both wrists are going to be nice and neutral, and that’s really key to getting speed.

I have to go from this palm back position to a full palm release into neutral to get the speed of the club and to still have compression and forward shaft lean here at impact, but be releasing that as I’m coming through there.

Two mistakes that we see very, very often with the right wrist especially, is that I’m flipping and I’m going forward, palm toward the middle of my body, and that’s scooping the club up like this.

What’s happening is we’re trying to get energy too quickly, we’re trying to release the club too quick at contact, and I start to cup my wrist and you’ll see that my palm is going back with my left hand, and forward with my right hand, and I’m getting this scooping action.

I want it to be the opposite way, where my palm is back with my right hand, my palm more toward the ground, forward shaft lean, and it’s on the way to releasing to the full release point which is 45° in front.

Now in the finish, this is where it’s OK to get a little bit of that flipping action, again we’re not going to get too much in detail, really the most important piece is having the palm back and then releasing it to neutral as we’re going through there.

That’s the key that we need to focus in on. The rest of this is just to give you a little bit more information.

So as we’re releasing this club, I’m going to go to the full release, and now from here as I release on around it’s OK to get this wrist to bend back.

So palm can go back or my knuckles can go back toward my elbow as I’m coming all the way on through to the release and then my right hand is going to be nice and neutral there.

So a lot of times what people will do when they have trouble flipping is they get this idea that they can just hold off on this the whole way and keep that bow in the wrist and keep this angle back.

You won’t be able to get any speed doing that, and it simply won’t work. That’s why the flip never goes away, because you’ll be swinging so much slower, your body just won’t let you do it.

We’ve got to make sure we’re going from here forward shaft lean, full release, and then after we come on around, this left wrist can start to go palm back and my right wrist is going to be nice and neutral into the finish.

That’s going to allow us to be very, very consistent to get forward shaft lean, to get compression on the golf ball.

So hopefully that simplifies how the wrists move back and forth throughout the swing, and how lag helps max out that palm back position, and then release that to neutral.

Really helps you to get speed, but without sacrificing forward shaft lean at impact.

So practice those out, I’ve got a couple quick drills to do for you on this that are going to hit the highlights, and then you’ll be ready to move on to the next piece.

OK, so as I mentioned in the last video, I talked a little about the entire swing but the part that really matters, the part I really want you guys to focus in on, is what’s happening from the full lag position to the full release position.

If we pair those up, the golf ball simply is going to get in the way, we’re not going to have to worry about hitting the ball at all.

So I’m going to go ahead and show you a couple without the golf ball, then we’ll hit a couple of shots here in a minute.

So as we’re doing our swing, I want to go ahead very little wrist action, as I’m coming into the downswing, my wrist is going from neutral to at the full lag my palm is going to be fully extended back.

That’s going to look something like this, there’s my full lag, my wrist is back, palm is back toward my elbow away from my body, and then from there I’m going to pause in this position, feeling that angle of lag when my left arm is about parallel from the ground, and my palm is back with my right hand.

Palm is neutral with my left hand, and then as I go into the release now everything’s going to be extended and my palm is neutral with my right hand, my palm is also neutral with my left hand.

So let’s look at it from this direction. We’re going from lag, probably can’t see my hands very well here, we’re going from lag to release, now everything is neutral.

We’ll go from this other direction down the line, I’m going from building lag palm’s going from neutral in the downswing it’s maxing out, knuckles back, palm back, or palm away from my body, and then as I release everything is going to go into neutral here, and then I’m going to go ahead and let it fold up.

So practice that about 100 repetitions. Go into fully maxing that out, and then I’m going to feel the release position as I’m coming through here.

The forward shaft lean is simply going to happen as a result of me being on the way to my release, the golf ball is being in the way of my release position.

I’m not trying to hit the golf ball, I’m just simply letting that happen. So pair up those two pieces, do about 100 repetitions pausing in each one of those.

Then we’re going to go ahead and do 100 repetitions trying to recreate the same feeling without really hitting a ball or doing anything like that, that way we’ve got a couple hundred repetitions and get comfortable with it, then we’ll go ahead and make a few swings.

All right so here we’ll take another look at Rory and the main thing to take away from this video is that we’re never holding the wrist back.

As we’re going into the downswing, we’re going to go into a palm back position with the right hand fully stretching the wrist, and then we’re immediately going to release that into the full release position.

So if we go back and take a look at that in slow motion again, as he starts his downswing we’ll notice he’s neutral here.

He’s going to gradually start to set the right wrist going back and back, more and more as he goes to the top, but that’s never going to get fully maxed out until he’s about halfway down into the full amount of lag here.

So this is when the right wrist is going to be palm back as much as possible, the left wrist is going to be neutral, and then from there he’s going to start to release this as he comes through contact.

So we can see here, look at the right hand how it’s really palm back there as he’s getting ready to release the club.

He’s already releasing that, so see how there’s less angle here, and then he’s going to be fully release in the straight line release position, so this right hand is palm neutral, fully released in that position.

So let’s take one more look at that, so we can really see. Because I think a lot of people struggle with the idea of trying to hold on to the wrist positions, and that’s the exact opposite of what we want to do.

Here we have the wrist fully angled back, as he’s coming through contact he’s releasing that all the way into the straight line release, and then all in to the follow through as he just releases and makes a good full finish.

So we’ve got to let those wrist angles go, we’ve got to let the club release itself to get the speed.

If we try to hold on, if we try to flip, if we try to do these other things, then it’s really going to hurt our speed and consistency.

We’ve got to let those wrists go, but we’ve got to let them go at the right time which is fully release at the straight line release.

So good luck to you guys, work hard, and I’ll see you soon.