Your Wrists at Impact--part 2

My last post concerned your wrists at impact. Let me go into more detail now, and give you a drill to build the right movement through impact into your swing.

The movement starts when your hands are even with the ball, that is, directly above the ball on a vertical line if you were looking straight across the ball to the golfer. The trick is that impact has not yet occurred. The clubhead should still be a foot or so behind the ball. That's one key point.

The second key point is that as the hands continue moving, the right wrist (left wrist for left-handed golfers) remains bent backwards as the clubhead meets the ball. It has not straightened out yet. The left wrist, however, must be straight, or even bowed out slightly if you can, but that is a rare talent. Correspondingly, the left arm is straight, and the right arm is still bent slightly at the elbow. It's bent right arm, bent right wrist, and straight left arm, straight left wrist. These are a must.

In addition, weight is more on the left foot than the right and continuing to move in that direction (but don't overdo it, since this is an effect, not a cause), the hips and shoulders are opening, and the right foot is coming off the ground. Throughout all this, the head is still. It must not move forward.

When the hands have moved about one foot past the ball, the clubhead will be about three to four feet past impact, and both arms and wrists will be straight for the first time in the swing. That's the end of the impact movement. The rest of the swing is the braking action up to the finish and can be whatever you want as long as you have moved through impact in the way I described.

You learn this movement, oddly enough, by practicing it and it alone. Start in the position described where your hands are directly in front of you and the clubhead is about a foot behind the ball. Now sweep the club through the ball in the manner described above. You'll be swinging the club only about five feet, but that's all that's necessary. Do it over and over and over.

Once you get used to moving through impact in this way, you will find the rest of your swing setting up to make this movement with no explicit effort on your part. The result will be a long, straight shot.

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