Thank you so much Steve. I have been obsessed with the wrist position at the top of the swing and it has complicated and ruined my swing. This, coupled with the video regarding the “hand gap rule” on the path thru impact, has made a huge difference for me. You are the best at explaining these concepts. Thanks!
I tend to play the best with a flat to slightly cupped wrist. When I tried being bowed/shut at the top, my brain sensed this closed face and it really prevented me from releasing the club and also made my path excessively in to out in order to try and salvage a ball that could end up on target. When my body senses a neutral or even slightly open face, it allows me to release the club and rotate my body much better in order to get the ball going where I want. I feel like guys who play from the closed face top position are able to really get their bodies open through impact and tend to have much less face rotation throughout the swing. Not wrong way, only the right way for you.
played w/a cupped position and was all over the face. tried a flat or neutral position and have never hit the ball better. I think matching the grip to the wrist makes sense. I have a neutral grip and neutral wrist. Tiger and Jack had a neutral grip and flat wrist. DJ and Rohm have strong grips with a bowed wrist etc...
I've heard it said that a lot of it has to do with how weak or strong the lead hand grip is relative to the trailing hand grip. Eg Dusting Johnson has slightly strong left hand grip, with a super strong right hand grip, so when right hand goes into extension is automatically bows the left wrist at the top of the backswing.
He basically showed that it doesn't matter when he showed the success various golfers have using each wrist position. So, do what you like and what is comfortable.
Visit your local golf professional to see what you need for your grip and swing style. Until a few weeks ago, my swing path has constantly been over the top. My golf coach suggested bowing the wrist to flatten/drop the club back down on plane.
I’ve played with cupped hand backswing since -88. Tried to go to bowed hand, but i dont have that flexibility. Thou thrue downswing my hand goes flat. Never cupped hand at impact.
I get my most power and consistency allowing my left wrist to cup in takeaway but as my lower body pivots and extends it naturally causes my lead wrist to go into flexion and ulnar deviation as the L shoulder rises and the forearm supinates through impact. I’ve been told that is too complex a technique to square the clubface at impact and have tried numerous other patterns with less success. Thoughts?
I’ve always had a strong grip and very cupped wrist at the top which is why I’ve always gravitated towards Fred couples swing. His clubface is very open at the top which allows him (or requires him) to fully release the hands hard through the ball in order to square the clubface which equals effortless power
Thank goodness. I'm so glad you compared Hogan, Johnson & Woods as well as the long drive specialists. I cannot get my wrist bowed at top. But I do like extending just after the slot. Some would say thats a cheat that is basically hooding the club, I don't know, but when I get in trouble - weak shots, lack power, I can employ this move and think of 'covering the ball ' w back of hand and then power, force, smash come back.... thats the good news, the bad news is I tend to have a low shot trajectory Still - for me, it helps me to move the ball with a little power rather than - "Look at that guy, he's never golfed before 🙂" And I've had that happen and it's know fun
I used to cup…but gave it up….I have for quite awhile been using a flat or neutral wrist with a neutral grip for one reason. It keeps the club head in the swing arc so on the down swing you don’t have to make any adjustment moves to square up the club face for ball contact….to me that simplification makes logical sense. What it has done for me is far more consistency with the bottom of my swing …. Which promotes better ball striking with no lose of power. Thanks for this vid on a very interesting topic!
*Fascinating* about the possibility that wrist flexion between the top of the backswing and impact could be all over the lot. Matches up with all the "motion blur" on video during that period thwarting my efforts to figger this stuff out. 🙂
Good video Steve. Mr Hogan advised to have what he called a 'pronated' left wrist at impact in his book 5 Lessons. How he actually achieved this he didn't say and neither, Steve, did you in this video. Obviously the left wrist has to change from cupped to palmer flexed (or pronated) at impact to achieve this. I guess you just have to practice in slow motion to achieve this position at impact then gradually speed up to full velocity. Not easy to time it just right!!
@@Inmotion70 OK Steve. Is it called supination? Anyway Mr Hogan showed his left wrist bent back with his palm facing more upwards at impact. The crux of my question was how do you achieve this transition from cupped or bent at the top so that the ball goes with a consistent direction. Thank you for the time and consideration you must put into your enjoyable videos.
@@Inmotion70 Just happened across a video of Gary McCord giving a corporate outing about 30 years ago. Told a tale of once sitting with Hogan and maybe Ken Venturi for a couple of hours. Hogan explained that he never wrote anything but merely explained to the guy that did the writing what he "felt". Gary mostly explained what he'd learnt from Mac O'Grady during the previous two months. Most entertaining. 🙂
If I’m cupped on drives I hit heavy or don’t release. If I’m straight or slightly bowed I seem to have much more time and hit the ball straighter and further. I imagine the back of my left hand is being stretched towards the bowed position on the downswing. It works for me. BTW I’m left handed but play right handed. It’s whatever works for your particular arm “structure”🤔. If you know what I mean😂
I'm rebuilding my swing after a long hiatus from golf. Now in my late 70s , I want to recapture my game of 20 years ago when I scoted in the high 70s and low 80s. My natural swing has come back, but I was having difficulty squaring the club face, leading to inconsistent contact and weak shots. Then I started to bow my left wrist during the backswing. Immediately, I started squaring the club face with excellent contact. This resulted in consistently straighter and longer hits with irons and woods. Your swing will determine whether you should bow, like I do, cup, or maintain a neutral wrist. The object is to square the face at impact for crisp, powerful contact.
One of the biggest distance killers is gripping the club too tight with the right hand. Well, both hands for that matter. The left wrist position is academic unless you lose the death grip. So take his advice--stop obsessing over the left wrist.
I strongly suspect one's height and anatomy has a lot to do with the wrist position at the top. Shorter players like Rory and Hogan have a cupped wrist, while taller ones bow. Jamie Sadlowski seems to be somewhat of an exception though, leveraging his wrist mobility for huge distance.
Cupping with Hogan's weak grip had a very different effect on the club than cupping does in the strong grips of Sadlowski, Couples, Daly, and Azinger. From address, with a weak grip, if you cup your wrist, you will raise the club sideways towards the target. With a strong grip, in the address position, cupping will raise the club straight up in the air. In order to get that same vertical raising of the club with a weak grip, the wrists must be cocked, not cupped. This vertical movement of the club is what creates lag in the golf swing. Shaft lean is created by the supination of the lead wrist in a weak grip while it is already built into a strong grip. Lag and shaft lean are two different considerations.
Exactly right. Hogan knew: cup at top t get longest arc for club head, then bow on downswing & whip through impact. But that demands great hand & wrist feel. Bow at top if you have control problems. Freddy cups like Hogan & bombs the ball, but he has surgeon’s hands. Thanks for investigating this fascinating aspect of the swing.
Every time I focus on bowing my wrist excessively… I get a terrible nerve pain shoot through my arm and get tingling after. My wrist is fairly neutral on my natural swing otherwise.
I get a feeling like a shock or tendon snap in my left wrist on the underside at the center when I try to bow my left wrist (happens when the club head hits the ground). Is that what you get? It feels like I could damage a tendon. You're the first I've seen mention a similar feeling.
Great video Steve. I would love to see a video with you discussing the initial takeaway and what Mike Austin did. In Dan Shauger's book "Kill the Ball" he claims that the left pinky must curl down on the take-way which results in an extremely closed clubface (almost facing the ground) and a bowed wrist at the top. Shortly after curling the left wrist down, as the club works up Shauger claims that you need to trombone the right arm. I am not sure if Mike Austin made these moves and whether or not this is a good idea for most amateurs. I think there is much confusion about these points. You cleared up that the pivot should be from 4 to 8 instead of 4 to 10 for many people, and your input on this would be very helpful as well. Thanks
For me bowed is the way to go. I tried to go “conventional” and I just couldn’t shallow or get my swing path in the right spot. I do have flexible wrists and a bowed wrist allows me to just turn and burn
A lot of it has to do with grip. The famous bowed players all have weaker grips. The cupped players tend to have stronger grips. It's harder to square the face with a weaker grip so they bow the wrist which helps close and deloft the face. If Freddy couples with his strong grip bowed his wrist at the top he would hit the ball dead left every time. So he cups he wrist which does the opposite of bowed, it opens the face at the top to help from hitting shots dead left.
Yup, look at Spieth's weak grip and bowed wrist up top. Or as with DJ is so wide open at impact that the bowed wrist helps him not blocking everything right I reckon. Maybe chicken and egg on that of course but either way the hands matches his body movement. IT's a personal thing.
Hogan's secret as he described in 1955 Life Magazine was the combination of cupped wrist, very weak grip and full arm rotation that allowed full release yet slightly open face at impact. The resut was so called power fade. I think also cupping at both address and top helps the loft to be utilized at impact .
hackmotion disproves this. There are bowed players who are weak, neutral and strong....same for cupped and neutral. Its the right hand manipulation (trail) that shapes the wrists. Also way less variation in trail hand vs lead.....right hand runs the show.
It’s physics. If you are taller -you can bow the wrist and still generate. If you are shorter -you need more extension-ie cupping the wrist. Great video.
Thank you for being neutral and not promoting this or this position. The examples of various champions you give at the beginning clearly shows that there is not ONE truth. By the way, you wrist position at the top doesn't mean it will stay this way in the downswing.
As a player who struggles with hyper-cupped wrists, to create angles, I can tell you it is not a good thing to do. My swing path is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT (-5 or +5, doesn't matter) because almost every ball either STARTS RIGHT, or SLICES. The good news is, when my only swing thought is, "Quiet Hands," it tends to help a lot.
Cupped adds another enemy of many, too high of a ball flight. It’s funny the way Hogan is worshipped, Iron Byron Nelson is much easier emulate, Tom Watson is another to copy, no quirks and great.
Your portrayal of an open club face in the downswing using a cupped left wrist is not accurate. Turn the left elbow down the line and use a strong left grip, which will result in a square club face down and into the ball.
Thank you so much Steve. I have been obsessed with the wrist position at the top of the swing and it has complicated and ruined my swing. This, coupled with the video regarding the “hand gap rule” on the path thru impact, has made a huge difference for me. You are the best at explaining these concepts. Thanks!
I tend to play the best with a flat to slightly cupped wrist. When I tried being bowed/shut at the top, my brain sensed this closed face and it really prevented me from releasing the club and also made my path excessively in to out in order to try and salvage a ball that could end up on target. When my body senses a neutral or even slightly open face, it allows me to release the club and rotate my body much better in order to get the ball going where I want. I feel like guys who play from the closed face top position are able to really get their bodies open through impact and tend to have much less face rotation throughout the swing. Not wrong way, only the right way for you.
Interesting thoughts.
played w/a cupped position and was all over the face. tried a flat or neutral position and have never hit the ball better. I think matching the grip to the wrist makes sense. I have a neutral grip and neutral wrist. Tiger and Jack had a neutral grip and flat wrist. DJ and Rohm have strong grips with a bowed wrist etc...
I've heard it said that a lot of it has to do with how weak or strong the lead hand grip is relative to the trailing hand grip. Eg Dusting Johnson has slightly strong left hand grip, with a super strong right hand grip, so when right hand goes into extension is automatically bows the left wrist at the top of the backswing.
Happy that the last video wasn't the end of the channel :) Great as always
More to come!
He basically showed that it doesn't matter when he showed the success various golfers have using each wrist position. So, do what you like and what is comfortable.
Visit your local golf professional to see what you need for your grip and swing style.
Until a few weeks ago, my swing path has constantly been over the top. My golf coach suggested bowing the wrist to flatten/drop the club back down on plane.
I really have to work on the whip part through the ball. cup and bow on the way down for me. .. sadly .. no whip at the end.
I don’t usually comment on videos but wow this makes me feel so much better about my swing now
I’ve played with cupped hand backswing since -88. Tried to go to bowed hand, but i dont have that flexibility. Thou thrue downswing my hand goes flat. Never cupped hand at impact.
I get my most power and consistency allowing my left wrist to cup in takeaway but as my lower body pivots and extends it naturally causes my lead wrist to go into flexion and ulnar deviation as the L shoulder rises and the forearm supinates through impact. I’ve been told that is too complex a technique to square the clubface at impact and have tried numerous other patterns with less success. Thoughts?
Steve GREAT VIDEO!!! I’ve been obsessing about this for months! THANK YOU for this video!!!
I watched Hogan play Frank Beard in an exhibition in the 70's and he was long and powerful he must of been in his 60's 😊
Impact matters -thanks Steve ! I just like to watch Steves videos . Relaxing habitus and relaxing voice.
Hey thanks!
I’ve always had a strong grip and very cupped wrist at the top which is why I’ve always gravitated towards Fred couples swing. His clubface is very open at the top which allows him (or requires him) to fully release the hands hard through the ball in order to square the clubface which equals effortless power
Thank goodness. I'm so glad you compared Hogan, Johnson & Woods as well as the long drive specialists. I cannot get my wrist bowed at top. But I do like extending just after the slot. Some would say thats a cheat that is basically hooding the club, I don't know, but when I get in trouble - weak shots, lack power, I can employ this move and think of 'covering the ball ' w back of hand and then power, force, smash come back.... thats the good news, the bad news is I tend to have a low shot trajectory
Still - for me, it helps me to move the ball with a little power rather than - "Look at that guy, he's never golfed before 🙂" And I've had that happen and it's know fun
I used to cup…but gave it up….I have for quite awhile been using a flat or neutral wrist with a neutral grip for one reason. It keeps the club head in the swing arc so on the down swing you don’t have to make any adjustment moves to square up the club face for ball contact….to me that simplification makes logical sense. What it has done for me is far more consistency with the bottom of my swing …. Which promotes better ball striking with no lose of power. Thanks for this vid on a very interesting topic!
*Fascinating* about the possibility that wrist flexion between the top of the backswing and impact could be all over the lot. Matches up with all the "motion blur" on video during that period thwarting my efforts to figger this stuff out. 🙂
Thanks for an apt analysis
I think it’s more how they transiting that wrist angle into the ball in the downswing.
Good video Steve. Mr Hogan advised to have what he called a 'pronated' left wrist at impact in his book 5 Lessons. How he actually achieved this he didn't say and neither, Steve, did you in this video. Obviously the left wrist has to change from cupped to palmer flexed (or pronated) at impact to achieve this. I guess you just have to practice in slow motion to achieve this position at impact then gradually speed up to full velocity. Not easy to time it just right!!
That's not pronation. Hogan was using incorrect terms. Thanks for watching!
@@Inmotion70 OK Steve. Is it called supination?
Anyway Mr Hogan showed his left wrist bent back with his palm facing more upwards at impact. The crux of my question was how do you achieve this transition from cupped or bent at the top so that the ball goes with a consistent direction. Thank you for the time and consideration you must put into your enjoyable videos.
@@Inmotion70 Just happened across a video of Gary McCord giving a corporate outing about 30 years ago. Told a tale of once sitting with Hogan and maybe Ken Venturi for a couple of hours. Hogan explained that he never wrote anything but merely explained to the guy that did the writing what he "felt". Gary mostly explained what he'd learnt from Mac O'Grady during the previous two months. Most entertaining. 🙂
If I’m cupped on drives I hit heavy or don’t release. If I’m straight or slightly bowed I seem to have much more time and hit the ball straighter and further. I imagine the back of my left hand is being stretched towards the bowed position on the downswing. It works for me. BTW I’m left handed but play right handed. It’s whatever works for your particular arm “structure”🤔. If you know what I mean😂
I'm rebuilding my swing after a long hiatus from golf. Now in my late 70s , I want to recapture my game of 20 years ago when I scoted in the high 70s and low 80s. My natural swing has come back, but I was having difficulty squaring the club face, leading to inconsistent contact and weak shots. Then I started to bow my left wrist during the backswing. Immediately, I started squaring the club face with excellent contact. This resulted in consistently straighter and longer hits with irons and woods. Your swing will determine whether you should bow, like I do, cup, or maintain a neutral wrist. The object is to square the face at impact for crisp, powerful contact.
One of the biggest distance killers is gripping the club too tight with the right hand. Well, both hands for that matter. The left wrist position is academic unless you lose the death grip. So take his advice--stop obsessing over the left wrist.
I strongly suspect one's height and anatomy has a lot to do with the wrist position at the top. Shorter players like Rory and Hogan have a cupped wrist, while taller ones bow. Jamie Sadlowski seems to be somewhat of an exception though, leveraging his wrist mobility for huge distance.
Cupping with Hogan's weak grip had a very different effect on the club than cupping does in the strong grips of Sadlowski, Couples, Daly, and Azinger. From address, with a weak grip, if you cup your wrist, you will raise the club sideways towards the target. With a strong grip, in the address position, cupping will raise the club straight up in the air. In order to get that same vertical raising of the club with a weak grip, the wrists must be cocked, not cupped. This vertical movement of the club is what creates lag in the golf swing. Shaft lean is created by the supination of the lead wrist in a weak grip while it is already built into a strong grip. Lag and shaft lean are two different considerations.
Great comment, other than misusing supination.
@@Inmotion70 So, it should've been "shaft lean is created by bowing (not "supination") of the lead wrist in a weak grip", is that right?
Exactly right. Hogan knew: cup at top t get longest arc for club head, then bow on downswing & whip through impact. But that demands great hand & wrist feel. Bow at top if you have control problems. Freddy cups like Hogan & bombs the ball, but he has surgeon’s hands. Thanks for investigating this fascinating aspect of the swing.
Every time I focus on bowing my wrist excessively… I get a terrible nerve pain shoot through my arm and get tingling after. My wrist is fairly neutral on my natural swing otherwise.
I get a feeling like a shock or tendon snap in my left wrist on the underside at the center when I try to bow my left wrist (happens when the club head hits the ground). Is that what you get? It feels like I could damage a tendon. You're the first I've seen mention a similar feeling.
because it is not natural
bowed is way too uncomfortable for me. Quick way to get injured if you hit a fatty or root
Great video Steve. I would love to see a video with you discussing the initial takeaway and what Mike Austin did. In Dan Shauger's book "Kill the Ball" he claims that the left pinky must curl down on the take-way which results in an extremely closed clubface (almost facing the ground) and a bowed wrist at the top. Shortly after curling the left wrist down, as the club works up Shauger claims that you need to trombone the right arm. I am not sure if Mike Austin made these moves and whether or not this is a good idea for most amateurs. I think there is much confusion about these points. You cleared up that the pivot should be from 4 to 8 instead of 4 to 10 for many people, and your input on this would be very helpful as well. Thanks
I do not agree with anything Shauger taught regarding hand action on the backswing.
For me bowed is the way to go. I tried to go “conventional” and I just couldn’t shallow or get my swing path in the right spot. I do have flexible wrists and a bowed wrist allows me to just turn and burn
Sweet. Glad you found what works. Many birdies!
A lot of it has to do with grip. The famous bowed players all have weaker grips. The cupped players tend to have stronger grips. It's harder to square the face with a weaker grip so they bow the wrist which helps close and deloft the face. If Freddy couples with his strong grip bowed his wrist at the top he would hit the ball dead left every time. So he cups he wrist which does the opposite of bowed, it opens the face at the top to help from hitting shots dead left.
Yup, look at Spieth's weak grip and bowed wrist up top. Or as with DJ is so wide open at impact that the bowed wrist helps him not blocking everything right I reckon. Maybe chicken and egg on that of course but either way the hands matches his body movement. IT's a personal thing.
Hogan's secret as he described in 1955 Life Magazine was the combination of cupped wrist, very weak grip and full arm rotation that allowed full release yet slightly open face at impact. The resut was so called power fade. I think also cupping at both address and top helps the loft to be utilized at impact .
hackmotion disproves this. There are bowed players who are weak, neutral and strong....same for cupped and neutral.
Its the right hand manipulation (trail) that shapes the wrists. Also way less variation in trail hand vs lead.....right hand runs the show.
@@ScratchArkkitehti Right hand runs the show. I predict you are cupped.
I cup and have strong grip
It’s physics. If you are taller -you can bow the wrist and still generate. If you are shorter -you need more extension-ie cupping the wrist. Great video.
Wish I watched this before buying hackmotion instead of after lol
Cupped is natural.
Thank you for being neutral and not promoting this or this position. The examples of various champions you give at the beginning clearly shows that there is not ONE truth. By the way, you wrist position at the top doesn't mean it will stay this way in the downswing.
Not mentioning swing plane is a major mistake in this analysis.
I’m saying flat. Mostly because of consistency reasons.
As a player who struggles with hyper-cupped wrists, to create angles, I can tell you it is not a good thing to do.
My swing path is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT (-5 or +5, doesn't matter) because almost every ball either STARTS RIGHT, or SLICES.
The good news is, when my only swing thought is, "Quiet Hands," it tends to help a lot.
Cupped adds another enemy of many, too high of a ball flight. It’s funny the way Hogan is worshipped, Iron Byron Nelson is much easier emulate, Tom Watson is another to copy, no quirks and great.
Unless you move into bowed wrist in the slot.
Your portrayal of an open club face in the downswing using a cupped left wrist is not accurate. Turn the left elbow down the line and use a strong left grip, which will result in a square club face down and into the ball.