# Hand seperation question



## Jay1 (Jun 18, 2013)

I had a lesson the other day to try and resolve inconsistent ball striking with my irons, particularly scoring clubs. I was told that my swing is good but I have very little wrist break on the back swing which remains throughout the down swing so I have no delayed impact, with the club and my hands reaching the ball together. 

I've been given drills to work on getting a full wristcock in the back swing and think I am getting some improvement. My one concern though is that at the end of the back swing my hands are seperating slightly. Where the pad of the right thumb rests on the left thumb, a gap is appearing. 

Now I don't have very flexible wrists, which I think is some of the problem. The question is though, should I be worrying about the slight seperation or is this fairly normal.

I know one of the answers will be to ask my pro, which I will do when I see him but it's not likely to be for another week and I don't want to be practicing something that is a real no no in the meantime.

Thanks for any input

J


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## bobmac (Jun 18, 2013)

Hold your arms out straight in front of you and take your grip as if you are holding a club. Then without moving anything else, try hinging your wrists so your thumbs point towards your face. This exercise will help improve your wrist flexibility.  This should help stop your hands from separating


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## Jay1 (Jun 18, 2013)

If I hold my arms straight out in front of me and hinge my wrists upwards my thimbs only just point at the sky, let alone my face 

This is also kind of one of the drills my pro gave me. Set up as normal, hinge wrists up, then make shoulder turn and have a look where everything ends up, this is where I want to be at the top of the back swing. Doing this there is no significant hand seperation, but getting there with a swining motion rather than a preset wrist cock, is a lot tougher and definitely cases some gapping in the hands.


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## bobmac (Jun 18, 2013)

They wont actually get to your face, it was just showing you what direction to hinge the wrists


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## JustOne (Jun 18, 2013)

If you can hold a club straight out in front of you and point it up at the sky (90 degree angle between arms and shaft) then you have all the wrist cock you need for a full and proper golf swing, that doesn't mean that you then go ahead and do something wrong when you actually swing the club though.. but if you are getting hand separation the you're doing something wrong.... probably bending the left arm, collapsing the right elbow or literally overswinging.


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## Jay1 (Jun 18, 2013)

Thanks for the replies.

Interesting you should mention the bend in the left arm as this is another slight fault to my swing. It's not a collapse by any means but I get a slight bend at the very end of my backswing which is something else my pro is trying to get out. The goal is to get more width, without the elbow bend, and a full wrist cock. 

However, even with a dead straight left arm, If I really push for the wrist break, I get the gapping between my thumb pads at the very end of the back swing. My hands don't feel as though the are fighting each other, and my grip is good, I just get the gap between the right thumb pad and thumb. It's almost like my right hand grip is losening at the top of the swing.


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## JustOne (Jun 18, 2013)

You don't need 'wrist break', here's a pic I posted on another thread.... if you over do the wrists/right arm bend you lose the 'box shape' and the grip is compromised..... the guy on the left has more chance of having 'grip separation' as you describe (right palm loosens) than myself (middle) or Tiger (right)


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## Jay1 (Jun 18, 2013)

But in those pictures, you and tiger both have a good 90degree angle between the club and left forearm, suggesting a good full cocking of the wrists. That's what I'm aiming for, at the minute I'm not forming those angles, resulting in too shallow an angle of attack and loss of power on iron striking.

I'm not looking necisarily looking for horizontal and massive wrist break, but I'm in need of some angles. I'll try and get a couple of vids I have up later, just to show what I'm working from.


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## sev112 (Jun 18, 2013)

I bow to the gods that is justone, oh and Bob too ...

But I'm surprised that inconsistent ball striking is being linked to lack of wrist cock / break
I can see why wrist cock can be good, but usually inconsistent strike comes from too many moving parts, not too few.
Personally I would be looking at excessive body movement /sway as a cause of inconsistency

But I'm not the pro
Be interested to see your swing vids though


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## bobmac (Jun 18, 2013)

sev112 said:



			I bow to the gods that is justone, oh and Bob too ...

But I'm surprised that inconsistent ball striking is being linked to lack of wrist cock / break
I can see why wrist cock can be good, but usually inconsistent strike comes from too many moving parts, not too few.
Personally I would be looking at excessive body movement /sway as a cause of inconsistency

But I'm not the pro
Be interested to see your swing vids though
		
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If there is little or no wrist hinge on the backswing, there will be no lag hit into impact.
Therefor there may be a flip with the hands causing the club to 'bottom out' before impact. Hence the poor contact and a high weak ball flight.
Try throwing anything without any wrist hinge....


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## Foxholer (Jun 18, 2013)

bobmac said:





sev112 said:



			I bow to the gods that is justone, oh and Bob too ...

But I'm surprised that inconsistent ball striking is being linked to lack of wrist cock / break
I can see why wrist cock can be good, but usually inconsistent strike comes from too many moving parts, not too few.
Personally I would be looking at excessive body movement /sway as a cause of inconsistency

But I'm not the pro
Be interested to see your swing vids though
		
Click to expand...

If there is little or no wrist hinge on the backswing, there will be no lag hit into impact.
Therefor there may be a flip with the hands causing the club to 'bottom out' before impact. Hence the poor contact and a high weak ball flight.
Try throwing anything without any wrist hinge....
		
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I think you are dealing with slightly different meanings on 'consistent'.

Fewer moving parts might promote a more consistent result for Sev, but it's likely to be consistently 'less than optimal' (bad!).

Bob is intending to have 'consistently solid/good' strikes - for which wrist cock and lag are important elements.


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## sev112 (Jun 18, 2013)

Foxholer said:



			I think you are dealing with slightly different meanings on 'consistent'.

Fewer moving parts might promote a more consistent result for Sev, but it's likely to be consistently 'less than optimal' (bad!).

Bob is intending to have 'consistently solid/good' strikes - for which wrist cock and lag are important elements.
		
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Consistently less than maximum, I will accept

But not"bad"

Unless you get your lag timing perfect, the loaded shaft will be unloading during the cocking process
I would suggest that allowing the shaft to load and unload, as it is designed to do, is a more consistently repeatable process than the human timing of unlocking of a wrist 

But that's just me


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## Jay1 (Jun 18, 2013)

Bobs hit the nail on the head. I'm. It a bad striker as such, hence a half decent handicap, however my irons can tend to be fractionally heavy and even good strikes can result in a high weak flight, particularly with more loft. Woods on the other hand I think my shallow attack helps. 

I'll be home in a bit and will put a couple of videos up.


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## Jay Gee (Jun 18, 2013)

I've had a similar problem to the extent that you could see daylight between my hands. I was almost letting go and re-griping at transition. My fault was that I was over-swinging and bending my left arm. 

 I was given similar advice by my clubfitter and pro; one said to use a short thumb grip, where you have your thumbs quite close together and both pointing down the shaft. This helps restrict your ability to over do the backswing apparently and keeps your hands tighter together. The other said to simply shorten the backswing so that it feels like a 1/2 or 3/4 backswing depending on how bad your overswing is. 

I haven't fully committed to the short thumb grip as I've spent all my time recently on the course rather than the range. It's one of those changes that needs some repetition to bed in properly,  so I've just been concentrating on a shorter backswing for now.

The really interesting thing was that with the short thumb grip, my swing speed was faster and I was hitting down on the ball more. That said, I'm hitting down a bit more now by just shortening the backswing.

I don't profess to know what I'm talking about, just sharing what I was told in a similar situation. I'm sure there are other things going on and one thing may affect another etc.


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## Jay1 (Jun 18, 2013)

OK, well heres a video of my swing at the lesson I had, before any changes or suggestions

http://youtu.be/Zwwl_Vz66eU

And heres a video tonight at the course. In fairness I was really struggling tonight but even so, you will see there's not much change yet, I'm really struggling in getting the wrist hinge unless I'm forcing it in practice swings, which is when the hands seperate a bit.

http://youtu.be/WMNjPxBmY-I


Sorry couldn't get the embed thing to work


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## Foxholer (Jun 18, 2013)

sev112 said:



			Consistently less than maximum, I will accept

But not"bad"

Unless you get your lag timing perfect, the loaded shaft will be unloading during the cocking process
I would suggest that allowing the shaft to load and unload, as it is designed to do, is a more consistently repeatable process than the human timing of unlocking of a wrist 

But that's just me 

Click to expand...

Perhaps material for another thread, but I'd suggest timing is (marginally) less critical where there is still lag being released through uncocking of wrists through impact than where the load/unload happens precisely at impact. Seems to me the former is hitting 'down and through the ball' - as in the thought of hitting an imaginary ball 4 inches in front of the real one - while the load/unload is more the hitting at/semi flip. In both cases timing, is very important though.

 This thread is actually about the cocking and uncocking and the improvement in (consistecy of) quality of strike that is the result. As Bob pointed out (though it's not the same action), if you try to throw a ball whit a locked wrist, it will not be as effective as when you actively flick the wrist from a 'lagged' position to being 'released'.


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## Foxholer (Jun 18, 2013)

Apart from the wrist flexibility exercise that Bob mentioned in post #2, there's a couple of other drills that might also help.

The pump drill, Here's one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAef1L7rh0s

And turning a club upside down and swinging so that you here a 'whoosh' at its loudest as it travels through the impact zone.

That 2nd vid looks like an improvement over the first, but Driver tends to look better anyway, so may be a tad misleading.

Good Luck.


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## Jay1 (Jun 19, 2013)

Thanks for all the feedback so far. 

Bob, I've been using that stretching drill since you posted and can definitely feel that this is going to help, can really feel the stretch in the wrists, in the right way to use in the swing, so many thanks for that.

Foxholer, I like that pump drill and will definitely be giving that a go on the range as I can see the next step, once I'm more comfortable in building the angle in the wrists, will be to maintain it.

Cheers.


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## Pin-seeker (Jun 19, 2013)

I'm in no position to offer advice but I've just watched the clips of your swing & it looks pretty tidy to me. it obviosly works for you (playing off 7)
Bob always seems to offer good advice when some one asks,Top man :thup:


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## Jay1 (Jun 19, 2013)

Cheers Pin-Seeker, It does work, don't get me wrong. However, having got down to 6 this year, I've set my sights on making it to CAT1, something I never thought possible. To do that, I need to improve my iron play, particularly in the shorter clubs wedges-7iron. My impact is just not solid enough to get consistent results, particulary when there is wind, which we get a fair bit of at out place.


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## sev112 (Jun 19, 2013)

Jay -very very interesting seeing your vids

Your swing is frighteningly similar to my own, set up, head position, position through impact 

Yours Los very tidy i think

You are trying to go further with your golf, so good luck -I'll be really interested to see how your swing changes go.

From my posts above, you'll note that I tend to keep my wrist cock very minimal, as I personally prefer the consistency in my golf that this gives me.  What I have been working on however, is ensuring that my club goes back and comes back through on its initial plane .  By doing a bit of videoing I worked out that's was way off plane very early into the backswing .  Have done some work on that and bingo, the quality of strike is back.


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## Jay1 (Jun 19, 2013)

Cheers Sev,

I've had plane issues in the past, getting very flat on the way back, and to be honest when I went for a lesson I was sure that the pro was going to tell me I was getting back in to those old habbit. However, he said that I was nicely on plane and showed me a vid from down the line to prove it. 

My big long term swing faults have been lateral movement on the way back, and getting the club flat and on the inside going back. I seem to have cured both of these judging by the latest lesson, but my pro was convinced more wrist break on the way back, would give me a better impact, by having a later "hit" on the ball.

Appreciate all the comments, always good to get opinions. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll start seeing some real progress.


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## Region3 (Jun 19, 2013)

Jay1 said:



			But in those pictures, you and tiger both have a good 90degree angle between the club and left forearm, suggesting a good full cocking of the wrists.
		
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You don't need amazing flexibility to get a 90Â° angle between forearm and club. If you think about how you'd hold an umbrella that makes around 90Â° and I'd bet almost everyone can do that.


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## JustOne (Jun 19, 2013)

Region3 said:



			You don't need amazing flexibility to get a 90Â° angle between forearm and club. If you think about how you'd hold an umbrella that makes around 90Â° and I'd bet almost everyone can do that.
		
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Indeed.

I wouldn't worry about the backswing as much as I'd worry about impact..... learn from the ball backwards. Lots of casting/flipping going on in that swing.... you DO know that you should hit a little bit DOWN on the ball?


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## Jay1 (Jun 19, 2013)

Yes I knoe you should hit down on the ball. I've been playing this game to an ok level for about 20 years, I've grasped that much. I also realise at present I am sweeping the ball away. I'm also aware that impact is the most important factor, however building some wrist hinge in to the back swing should make it easier to retain wrist hinge back to impact and thus create the downward strike. 

I know there is casting in the swing, this is because I am not cocking my wrists naturaly, so when I'm forcing a bit of wrist hinge on the back swing, at present my body is still trying to get in to the same old positions on the downswing, this is where something like the pump drill mentioned earlier will hopefully help.

Perhaps you could elaborate on the "lots of flipping" bit though?


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## JustOne (Jun 19, 2013)

Here's Steve Stricker, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8VfY07DYTk watch his swing then compare it to the guy standing behind him who has a ton of wrist hinge, a full 90 degree angle,  and is 'working on it' in the background....

They both end up here..... (a position know as P6)







Stricker is making lag on the downswing, not the backswing. He doesn't have a ton of lag (the player behind has hands just a bit closer to the right thigh)... but he has enough to make $37M


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## JustOne (Jun 19, 2013)

With regards to flipping...

This is flipped.... (compared to a pro on the right) .... your club passes the plane make by the straight left arm.


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## Jay1 (Jun 19, 2013)

Excellent. Can't beat pictures for a good explination.

Basically everything you have said is what my pro is working to get me to do. The whole goal of getting wrist hinge in the backswing is to hopefuly promote it leading in to impact (P6 as you say). I do get that it's not essential to have hinge on the backswing and it can be built in the downswing, but it does make sense to me that to incorporate a hinge going back and then maintaining it is probably as straight forward and sensible as trying to incorporate a move to just create lag from very little hinge at the start of the down swing.

Ultimately the goal is the same however, to have a good angle between shaft and forearm leading in to impact, to create a downward strike on the ball. 

Incidentaly the picture used above left, is at the very start of my lesson before the pro had given any advice or shown me the video of my swing. Since then, I think, my impact position is slowly getting stronger. Hopefully that will show a little in the other video I posted (although maybe not  ). I think I may have been swinging like this for a good long time though so it's likely to be a slow process getting to the position I'd like (nearer the right hand picture above).

Thanks again, the input is appreciated.


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## JustOne (Jun 19, 2013)

Here's Stricker PAST the position you were at and he STILL has the club more in plane with his left arm... the clubhead has NOT past his hands/left arm plane....







(Using Stricker as an example as he's known not to have a lot of wrist cock in the backswing) :thup:


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## sev112 (Jun 19, 2013)

Lot of good discussion here
Personally I thought Kay's first swing wasn't flipping, more right hand turning over left through impact ?

Love the Stricker pics -that last one is exactly the position I have been trying to get to

LaSt point - Faldo's book (Swing for Life) talks simply about getting to 90 degrees wrist cock at halfway back (forearms horizontal) and just lifting the arms.  Coincidentally this is what Leadbetter championed for many years.  One of their exercises is half swing back to 90degrees, swing through to half way with wrist cocked again to 90degrees the other way.


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## JustOne (Jun 19, 2013)

sev112 said:



			Love the Stricker pics -that last one is exactly the position I have been trying to get to
		
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Me too. Once you get to that point you can do what you like with the club, re-hinge, roll, hold it off or chuck it down the fairway before retreating back to the bar 

Jay1 - I did think your 2nd swing looked better... ironically though you can get away with less lag with a driver as you're looking for launch angle and clubhead speed and less of a descending blow, or indeed, upwards a little.


My reply really only puts into pictures basically what Bobmac said....



			If there is little or no wrist hinge on the backswing, there will be *no lag* hit into impact.
Therefor there may be a *flip with the hands* causing the club to 'bottom out' before impact.
		
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