Why You Need This: In this video, you'll get a very detailed look at the left wrist in the golf swing.

Normally I focus my videos on the bigger moves in the swing...

But I do get tons of questions that focus on the small details.

One of those questions is about the left wrist.

So in this video, you'll get crazy details about your wrist to make sure you're on the right track.

I recommend not spending tons of time performing thousands of reps trying to get the perfect movement in your left wrist.

But you do want to make sure...

1. You're not performing a move with your left wrist that's way off, and
2. Your left wrist puts you in a good position to make a great swing.

This video will show you, step-by-step, how your left wrist should move in the swing.

You'll learn...

• About wrist pronation and supination,
• How your left wrist pronates in the backswing,
• How all great ball strikers bow their left wrist in the downswing, and
• How your left wrist moves during the release.

Watch this video now to discover how your left wrist moves throughout the swing!

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 9:54

Video Transcription:

Hey guys, absolutely great to have you here today. In today’s video we’re going to do something just a little bit different. In the Top Speed Golf System we really break the entire swing down into five pieces that are really going to give you the most results.

So it’s about eliminating a lot of the details, getting to the pieces that really matter. But there are people out there, rightfully so and I’m like this myself, that want to know the details.

We don’t necessarily have to practice a lot on the details, but we like to know the details to know if what we’re doing is correct, if we have a good idea on the golf swing or not.

In this video I’m going to talk about just the left wrist. We’re going to go into tons of details about how the left wrist and the club, how we’re going to get forward shaft lean, how we release the club, all these things.

I’m going to break it down for you piece by piece, step by step. It’s a little bit longer of a video. This isn’t a video where I want you to go out and break down this, and kind of master each of these individual pieces.

There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s completely fine, but I just want to go through these details just to see if we have the right idea about how the left wrist should be working in the swing.

Let’s start out here at setup or address, and we’ll go through the entire swing. If you can imagine, say I had my golf ball here and I’m face-on from the camera angle. My ball position’s going to be about my left ear, logo on my shirt, somewhere around there is really nice.

Because I’m tilted away, one of the five keys we talk about is getting a stable fluid spine, so we’ve got to et our spine tilted away from the target.

When I do this, my arms are going to hang down, my shoulders are slightly tilted as you can see, and I can have a little bit of forward shaft lean. Most of the pros you see only have a slight amount, though.

If you look at my left wrist, it’s almost perfectly flat, but it does have a little bit of bend in it. That would be perfectly flat, meaning that the back of my left wrist, the logo of my glove, and my forearm would be in a perfectly flat line.

That would be a lot of forward shaft lean. I want to have a little bit of a relaxed left wrist there, so a little bit of bend.

This is what we call extension of the wrist, which means the knuckle’s back to the elbow, your palm is going out away from your body. This would be flexion of the wrist, and now my palm’s back toward my body.

We also have what’s called radial deviation, meaning my thumb is going up, and then ulnar deviation, meaning my thumb’s going down. So that’s radial and ulnar deviation, or thumb up, thumb down.

Then we have pronation, which means if I grab the doorknob and turned it to the right, that’s going to be me pronating my left wrist. It’s actually your forearm, your radius and your ulna are rolling over each other in your forearm.

If you grab our forearm you can feel those bones rolling over each other. That’s going to be pronation, and this would be supination. We’re going to go over those throughout the swing.

When we’re letting our arms hang down at address, we have a little bit of what’s called extension or palm out, just a very small amount. Wrist is almost flat.

Then as we go into the takeaway, we’re going to get a little bit of pronation, so our forearm’s going to turn slightly to the right. That’s actually going to happen throughout the entire backswing.

Here’s at address, you can see that my palm is straight up and down this way. As I go to the top, that wrist is going to turn to the right as I get all the way to the top. That’s going to start to happen in the takeaway.

So as I do my takeaway, I’m going to keep a little tiny bit of bend in this left wrist and my wrist is going to start to pronate. My wrists are going to start to roll this way very slightly. So only a little bit’s going to happen.

As I finish my takeaway, we look at it from this direction, then as I get to when my club’s parallel with the ground, you’re going to see basically a rough idea. Again, small bend here, and that my club’s pretty much parallel with the ground.

My club head or the leading edge of my club is almost perpendicular to the ground. It can be a little bit shut, some players like to do that. It could be a little more open, some players like to do that. Either one’s completely fine.

Now what’s happening with my wrist, is it’s in the way. It’s getting toward pronating fully until that’s basically matching my swing plane.

If you can imagine I have a swing plane here that my club is swinging around, my left wrist is going to match that swing plane. It’s going to be a little bit above my shoulders. This is going to be dead flat at the top.

You could get a little bit bowed, would be fine, or you could get a little it cupped would be fine. It all depends on what we do in our downswing.

So to kind of recap on that, what’s happening is we’re going from a slightly cupped left wrist at address. As we go to the top of the swing that left wrist is going to pretty much flatten out, and we’re going to elevate our arm to get that club over our shoulder.

So if I’m just standing straight up and down, basically here’s my wrist at address, and then here as I’m going to the top, my wrist is this way, like that. That’s going to be the top of the swing.

Now from there, this is what’s really important. If you watch all pro players, all really good ball strikers, what they’re going to do is from this position they’re going to shallow that club out a little bit.

What’s going to happen is this wrist is going to flatten out, it’s either going to be pretty much dead flat, or it’s going to be slightly bowed, meaning that it’s getting a little bit of my palm turning in to my body.

Now because I’m still pronated, because my hand’s still turning like a doorknob to the right, that’s going to shallow out this club. If you watch all the pro players, they’re shallowing out that club.

This is going flat or a little bit bowed, and that’s going to get them in a position where now they can release that club.

Whether I’m playing a fade or a draw, I’m flattening out that swing plane and letting that club kick forward. That has to do with momentum of the club.

If this club gets flatter, as my hands swing forward, this momentum is going to want to kick it forward. The momentum of the club head is working toward the ball. If I get steeper and I go forward, the momentum of my club head is going this way.

We talk about that in our lag series of the Top Speed Golf System, I call it a momentum trail, talking about how the club head trails the hands and it either wants to catch up and add speed, or wants to sow down and we actually lose some speed.

The key there is, once we get to the top, our hand’s going to continue to pronate and that wrist is going to go flat or a little bit bowed.

If you really want to deloft it, we’re going to get a little bit bowed as we’re coming into impact here. Then completely at impact, we’re going to be either dead flat or a little bit bowed there too.

So depends on how much loft we’re taking off this club face, and that depends on a lot on how much we’re tilted away or we’re over top of the ball. So most good players, most of the pros you’re going to see, as they come down to impact this is slightly bowed.

Then as I get to impact there, I’m going to have this wrist a little bit bowed there and I’m going to be having some forward shaft lean. Now from there, I’m going to release this. This is what we call the straight line release in our Top Speed Golf System.

We’ve got all this lag, we’ve got these big angles between our forearms and our club. I’m hitting that ball and releasing that club on out in front. Now as I’m about 45° in front, this is completely released.

Then from there, my wrist is going to go ahead and bow back up. If you’re watching from this direction, there’s impact, and then as I come on through this wrist is going to go ahead and fold.

I’m actually getting some cup or some extension in that wrist, and it’s going to allow it to relax as I come up over my shoulder. That’s the full wrist motion.

Let me go ahead and break it down for you in kind of an easier way to think about this. If we’re just standing up and down, we’re not creating any rotation, we’re not hinged forward, so in the golf swing my body’s hinged forward and I’m rotating around it. Makes it very difficult to see how this would work.

If I’m just standing straight up and down, here’s my left wrist at address. Let’s go ahead, I’m here, and then I’m going to hinge forward to the ball. I’m just going to go ahead and stand up. There’s my left wrist at address.

As I go to the top of the swing, I’m going to be here. My left arm is elevated, my wrist is pretty much flat at that position. As I start down, again, I’m pronating the wrist, turning that doorknob to the right, and it’s going to start to bow a little bit.

There’s impact, it’s kind of by my right leg, inside of my right leg, and again that’s because my hips are open. You can see if I stand up, that’s going to be about right here is where I’d be at impact.

Then as I come on through, there’s my straight line release, everything is neutral, I’m releasing it in front of my body. It went from there at the top, to there’s my release, and then I’m going to go on ahead and let it fold back up over my left shoulder as I come on through, and this can go ahead and bend.

That’s letting all that energy come on through and then release on through the shot. So that’s the wrist in crazy detail.

I know that’s probably a lot more than everybody needed, but I’m sure some people had some questions, and I want to make sure I addressed everything in there.

Let’s go over each individual piece. Left wrist which would be extension and flexion, starts out a little bit bent. Goes to the top, it flattens out. As it starts down it gets a little bit bowed. We come to impact, and then the wrist goes ahead and bends up this way into the release.

If we look at radial and ulnar deviations, that’s going to be our lag, as we come in here, when do we get lag? Here’s at address, we’re going to be pretty much neutral. As we go to the top of the swing we’re getting most of our upward bend, thumb-up radial deviation.

As we continue to the downswing, so right there, as soon as we start down, that’s when it maxes out. As soon as we’re there in the downswing, that’s when we have the sharpest angle of thumb up.

Then as we come through, we’re going to release that. So this is halfway down, full amount of lag, club would be a very sharp angle there. As we release that to the straight line release, that’s going to be fully down, so it’s actually firing that club this way, almost like you’re casting a fishing rod.

There’s our straight line release, 45° in front, and then from there we’re going to go ahead and let it fold back up again as we finish our swing.

Pronation and supination, here’s at address. As I go to the top, I’m going to pronate a little bit. Continue to pronate as I start my downswing, that’s what’s going to shallow the club out.

Then from there, straight line release, I’m letting that release on through. So I’m turning to the right, turning to the left to get to this position. Now you can see the inside of my arm.

There’s the backswing, there’s the release, and then as you come on through it’s just going to relax and kind of go back to neutral again.

That’s the entire left wrist, that’s how it works in detail. If you guys have any questions, be sure to post those below. Good luck with your golf game, work hard. See you guys soon.