Would you like to pound out 300-yard drives? Sure, you would. That would sure help your game, wouldn’t it? But slamming 300-yard drives isn’t easy.
So, what’s the key to boosting clubhead speed? One is to use good wrist action to add yards to your shots. It’s also a key to mastering your overall game. But few weekend golfers focus on using their wrists correctly to release the club. Instead, they concentrate on moving their bodies or pulling on the grip end of the club. That’s not as productive as using your wrists correctly.
Below are three golf tips that show you how to use good wrist action to add yards to your shots:
• Full shots — Many weekend golfers think that rolling their wrists on full shots is the key to boosting clubhead speed. It’s not. Turning your wrists like you were using a screwdriver does nothing to help your swing. Instead, you need to hinge your wrists up and down like you were shaking someone’s hands. That snapping motion boosts speed, loft, and accuracy.
• Short shots — Usually, you want to generate loft with shorts shots—and a lot of it. (The same with sand shots.) The key here, once again, is using the same hinging motion as you do with a full shot but at a slightly flatter angle. That increases loft and exposes the club’s bounce. It’s hitting a nail into the side of a window frame or a wall or skipping a rock across a pond.
• Putting stroke— Putting is about feel, not power. So, you need to minimize wrist action. But since the putter shaft is upright and the grip sits in line with your forearms, your wrist action will be a different motion altogether. You’re loading the putterhead on your backswing by hinging your right wrist backward. You then unhinge your wrists on your through-stroke.
Two Golf Drills on Wrist Action
Now that you have an idea of what good wrist action is, the key to benefiting from this knowledge is ingraining the motion in your swing. Below are a couple of golf drills to help you do that:
1. Hammer Golf Drill
This drill ingrains the feel for releasing your wrists for power in the right downward motion:
Start by sticking the shaft of the club in the ground. Then set up to the grip end of the shaft as you would if you had a club in your hand. Instead, have a hammer in your hands. Swing back and tap the shaft. If you tilt your shoulders too much or roll your wrists incorrectly, you’ll miss the top of the shaft.
2. Right Hand Only Golf Drill
This golf drill ingrains the feel for releasing your wrists for loft by using a slightly flatter hinging motion, which gets the clubs bounce under the ball:
Set up to an imaginary ball with a 7-iron in your hand. Now swing the club with your right hand only. Make tiny swings without the ball first, feeling the back edge of the clubhead skipping over the grass. Then hit shots releasing your wrist early. If you do it right, the ball will pop in the air.
Both drills ingrain the right feel for releasing a golf club through impact using good wrist action. That helps boosts distance and accuracy. When you’re releasing the golf club through impact on short shots, good wrist action boosts loft and accuracy.
Learning what good wrist action is with help from our golf tips—and practicing the drills described above—will help you break 80 and cut strokes from your golf handicap, making you a force in your foursome.
