More on Wrist Cock and Swing Plane

In some ways I suppose this post could be called The Bent Trailing Elbow Drill, Part 9 since it adds some thoughts to that series. But this is some general info that can help all of you, no matter what your swing looks like.

This post is about how your swing plane can affect how your wrists cock and uncock during your downswing. How you think about your swing has a lot to do with your mechanics and how well -- or how badly -- you manage to keep your swing working.

I spent a fair amount of time talking about wrist cock in the elbow posts. I divided wrist cock into two parts:

• The first was sidecock, the wrist movement you use if you make a karate chop with the side of your hand.
• The other I dubbed backcock, where the back of your hand hinges toward your forearm.

I also talked some about downcock, a term most instructors use to describe wrist cock that happens during the downswing, after the change of direction. I said that we tend to think of it only in terms of sidecock, but backcock is actually a very important part of the action. Because of that, the place of sidecock in a swing is a bit difficult for most weekend players to get a handle on.

One of the reasons sidecock is a challenge has to do with your swing plane. Most of you know that your swing plane can be either flat or upright -- Dufner has a flattish swing while Bubba's is wildly upright, for example. If you're somewhere in the middle, teachers will often refer to that swing as a neutral swing.

But the part of your swing from around waist high down to the ball -- the impact zone -- acts pretty much the same no matter what your plane looks like. And that probably needs some explanation.

Here's the picture of HaNa Jang that I used in a lot of the elbow posts, showing her as she enters the impact zone:



At this point, your wrist cock is mostly backcock. Backcock is the easiest way to chip, which is the way Pete Cowen, one of the top instructors on the planet, teaches chipping. This post included a video where he demonstrates the technique. And as you swing back to the position where HaNa Jang is in the photo, you bend your trailing elbow and that brings your backcocked wrist up into the position she's in.

Is that clear so far? No matter how flat or upright your plane is, at impact you're still swinging the club out away from your body as you turn and shift your weight to your lead foot, so you get the same basic rotary motion regardless of your swing plane. The distance your club travels in the impact zone is pretty much the same for an upright or a flat plane.

However, it's different with the upper part of your downswing, depending on how flat or upright your swing plane is.

• In a flat swing, the down part is roughly the same as the around part. That is, you travel downward very close to the same amount you're moving toward the ball in a flat swing. Because of that, backcock is responsible for a lot more in a flat swing. A good example of this is a two-handed tennis forehand, where it's all backcock and there's no sidecock at all, simply because your arms travel parallel to the ground throughout the stroke. 
• But an upright swing travels more down than around. Because of that, you create a lot more sidecock in the upper part of your swing. The backcock becomes most pronounced as you near the impact zone, simply because the momentum of the clubhead tries to stay on the plane as you come down. You try to turn, the momentum resists, and your trailing wrist bends backward more as your body turns to face the ball. Otherwise the club would ALWAYS come over-the-top on the way down.

My point here is that sidecock plays a much bigger part in an upright swing than in a flat swing. This may be why many instructors believe an upright swing creates more power than a flat swing, but it's also why it's harder to square the clubface with an upright swing than a flat swing. The flat swing primarily uses backcock so there's very little rotation involved when you square the face. But in the upright swing, it feels like you need to twist your wrists in order to square the face.

In the elbow series I focused on a flatter plane swing -- which most modern instruction also teaches, so most of you are probably more familiar with it -- because the swing is simpler to understand. I have an upright swing so, although I use a lot of backcock in the swing, I use a lot of sidecock as well. But my understanding of my swing -- my swing image, if you will -- uses lead shoulder rotation (which I talked about in the first few elbow posts) to smooth out the transition from mostly sidecock to mostly backcock during the downswing. That's a lot more difficult to explain in blog posts although the drills would help you create the move, even if you didn't understand it.

The purpose of this post is much simpler. I just want you to understand that, if you have an upright swing and you're having trouble getting backcock early in your downswing, there's nothing wrong with you. But you should be able to use backcock in the impact zone with little or no trouble. If you're having a problem there, it's just a matter of understanding how your hands and wrists work during impact, and working with the drills in the elbow series will help you develop that understanding by "digging it out of the dirt", as Hogan would say.

I hope that clears up any problems you might have. As usual, you can post questions in the comment section and I'll try to answer them.

Chris O'Connell's Three Swing Fundamentals

Chris O'Connell's students include Matt Kuchar and Scott Piercy, and he was GC's Golf Channel Academy Coach of the Week this past week. Here's a quick video he did with three basics he feels all golfers should know. (Hey, he said beginning golfers but fundamentals are the same at every level!)



Three very simple basics:

1. Grip the club primarily in your fingers, not your palms. Some instructors differ on exactly what this means. Some swing methods put the club more in the palms, like the Natural Golf method (the one based on Moe Norman's swing). Some want the club cradled diagonally across the palm and fingers (the butt end is more under the heel pad), which is more Hoganesque. O'Connell puts it mostly in the fingers; there's a very clear view at the :18 second mark.
2. Your swing plane shouldn't be too upright or too flat. Note that he doesn't give you a specific angle that it should be, although I'm sure he has a specific plane he looks for in his pupils. (He teaches the Plane Truth method a la Jim Hardy.) But the fundamental is to avoid extremes. His 'ferris wheel / merry-go-round' image is pretty cool.
3. Finish with your weight on your lead foot. Again, note that he doesn't give any particulars about how to move your lower body here. He just wants you to make a forward weight shift -- that is, move from your trailing foot to your lead foot during your downswing -- so you don't fall backward when you swing. You make better contact with the ball this way.

These are dirt-simple basics that allow for a lot of different types of swings among players, but it's amazing how often swing problems are the result of not following one of these fundamentals.

Keep it simple, folks. Always check your basics first when something goes wrong in your swing, and you'll find it's easier to keep your swing working correctly.

Hyo Joo Kim's Major-Winning Swing

This past weekend, in her first major appearance, Hyo Joo Kim shot the lowest score ever (male or female) in a major -- 61. Then she finished the week by winning the Evian Championship in a head-to-head match-up against Karrie Webb.

Matthew Rudy at Golf Digest posted an article that included the following YouTube video and a brief breakdown of H.K.'s swing.



At only 5'3" tall, she averaged 250 yards off the tee yet missed only 9 fairways total during all 4 rounds.. (A lot of you taller men out there can't do that!) And she does it with a swing that seems very relaxed. PGA instructor Michael Jacobs gives an explanation of the main mechanics of her swing:

"It's because of how her arms travel 'up' in the backswing and the way she uses her lower body to turn her hips on the downswing."

Obviously there's more to it than that -- there's more detail in the article -- but the basic idea is that she has a fairly upright swing and strong leg action. The combination gives her a lot of room to swing her arms and generate a lot of clubhead speed.

Read the article and make sure you watch that video a few times. This is a simple swing with strong fundamentals... and let me repeat that she obviously stays as relaxed as possible throughout her swing. She's not concerned about hitting positions; she's just concerned about swinging that club. That's the real key.

If you try making practice swings (you know how relaxed you feel when you make those!) and just try to clip tees out of the ground, you might find that this is a fairly simple motion to learn. Don't worry about her flexibility; if you stay relaxed, you'll get your most flexible swing naturally.

Playing a Sidehill Downhill Lie

I found this neat video over at golftipsmag.com. PGA teaching pro Jeff Johnson left this video with a very simple tip to improve your shots from a sidehill lie.



This is really simple, folks; it's all about posture. While this lie requires you to bend your knees a bit more -- so you can get down closer to the ball -- you have to make sure that you don't "sit back" into the hill too much. If you do, you'll end up swinging too flat, too much along the line of the slope, and that will make it hard to get the ball up in the air. If you don't get it up in the air, you aren't going to hit it very far!

On the other hand, you don't have to lean toward the ball so much that you lose your balance. Just make sure that you lean forward enough to get an upright swing. That's how you dig down and make solid contact with the ball.

Don't forget that the ball is going to curve down along the side of the slope. (That's a slice, no matter whether you're a leftie or a rightie. They included a trace of the ball's flight near the end of the video. See how much it curved?) You'll probably need to aim more uphill so the ball doesn't curve into even worse trouble.

Martin Hall on Jack Nicklaus

On School of Golf Wednesday night, Martin Hall focused on how Jack Nicklaus played the game. (Not unlike what I did in Tuesday's post.) This clip is the "extra" that gets posted on GC's site with extra material not on the show.

There are a couple of tips on this one, but I want to focus on the first one concerning swing plane. How do you make sure you have a swing plane that lets you hit the golf ball straight?



Just to sum up the tip, make sure that your position at the top of your backswing and your position at the top of your finish match.

• If you have a flat backswing and an upright finish, your plane is set up to push the ball.
• If you have an upright backswing and a flat finish, your plane is set up to pull the ball
• But if the two match, you have a swing plane that's aimed down your target line.

Simple enough, eh?

I did want to mention one thing Martin talked about near the end of the broadcast that may help you all understand why the things I say on this blog sometimes sound very different from what you hear other instructors say... although I insist that I'm not teaching anything different.

Martin said that Jack told him the secret to hitting a predictable slice was: He made sure that the palm of his trailing hand pointed at the sky when he reached waist high after impact. Martin said he told Jack that he had plenty of video showing Jack hitting shots and his palm NEVER pointed at the sky. And do you know what Jack told him?

"I don't care what your video shows. I know what I feel."

Jack was using the same principle I use when I post instruction on this blog and in my books. Jack wasn't actually twisting his hand so his palm faced up. Rather, he was making sure he didn't flip his hands at impact... and he did that by feeling that his palm faced up. It wouldn't have been as effective if he had merely tried not to flip his hands, because it's always easier to DO something than to NOT DO something.

That's what I do in my instruction. I want you to feel that you're doing something else, something that will prevent you from doing the wrong thing.

A classic example: I teach you to not to twist your forearms during your backswing by telling you to feel as if the club shaft points straight up in the air when you cock your wrists at waist high during your backswing. The shaft won't actually point straight up when you make your normal swing -- there are physical laws that determine where a swinging shaft points, especially with all the angles in your posture and with the bend you create in your trailing elbow. But the effort keeps you from twisting your forearms -- and therefore the club shaft -- incorrectly and therefore interfering with the natural motion of the club.

If it's good enough for the Golden Bear, it's good enough for the rest of us.

In case you can't run the video from the player above, use this link.