Is a bit of lead-wrist bowing OK?

[Luckydutch]

I’ve been over-the-top with my swing ever since I started golf. I’ve tried every book and video but nothing helps me to shallow the club consistently so I’ve started to believe it’s down to a fundamental concept issue with how I think about my path.

 

I was recently playing around with different stuff at the range and discovered that I was able to consistently achieve a path that’s square or even a little in-to-out by thinking about my swing path more in terms of the logo on the back of the glove than the butt of the club. 

 

To achieve this, I was bowing the wrist a little and then thinking about working the logo of my glove slightly out to the right of the target. This differs from my normal swing where it feels like I’m doing a diagonal slashing motion across my chest, driven from the butt of the club.

 

Below is two of my swings. The first is a ‘good’ normal swing. Pretty OTT and would have been a nasty slice with the driver but I maintained decent posture through impact and got a decent strike on the ball. 
 

[Alternate link if vid doesn’t show for you: https://imgur.com/a/n0LH43A ]

 

 

 

The second is me playing around with this wrist bowing at the range. The strike is a horrible toe-down fat shot but those were crappy rentals that were a good inch shorter and a few degrees flatter than my normal irons so not overly surprising. However, the club path is the best I’ve ever seen from me. The hands work down a little, not just across, and at shaft parallel to the ground, the club head is just slightly behind my hands. There were some dodgy strikes in that session but I also hit some of the straightest and longest iron shots I’ve ever hit in my life with irons that are cheaper and weaker-lofted than my normal ones.

The only thing I didn’t like about this wrist bowing is the wrist feels a lot weaker in this plane compared to just flexion/extension and I am recovering from a TFCC tear. My wrist didn’t really hurt much after the session, though.

 

 

 

So TLDR here’s the question: is it OK for me to bow the wrists a little to help me achieve a less OTT club path? Will it cause me to start hooking the ball? Pulls and hooks kill seem to be way more devastating to my scoring than when I’m just hitting weak fades and slices.
 

I’m currently playing at about 30 over par, if that is relevant information. My biggest issue lost balls and chunks. My putting is actually pretty decent now.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Luckydutch

[Luckydutch]

Sorry, these videos were recorded in slow mo but uploading them sped them up, maybe to compress them.

 

Here’s an imgur link for them still in slow motion:

 

https://imgur.com/a/n0LH43A

Edited May 10, 2022 by Luckydutch

[milesgiles]

cant see videos, but yes bowing is very likely the right way to go. Every tour pro does it.

[Valtiel]

Shallowing the club consistently is impossible if you're doing this:



That is massive amount of depth loss/extension which, if you actually shallowed the club "correctly", would cause you to slam into your right leg before impact. Notice Tiger's positions in relation to depth (red line), right hip (orange dot) and hand position (red dot), and how drastically your change approaching impact. No amount of anything that you do with your hands/arms/path will help if this is how you're using your lower body. If you're going to focus on anything, get your lower body fundamentals working correctly:
 

 

[Luckydutch]

8 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Shallowing the club consistently is impossible if you're doing this:



That is massive amount of depth loss/extension which, if you actually shallowed the club "correctly", would cause you to slam into your right leg before impact. Notice Tiger's positions in relation to depth (red line), right hip (orange dot) and hand position (red dot), and how drastically your change approaching impact. No amount of anything that you do with your hands/arms/path will help if this is how you're using your lower body. If you're going to focus on anything, get your lower body fundamentals working correctly:
 

 

 

Hilarious gif you made there!

 

I’m aware that I have an issue with this. Sometimes more than others. If I’m consciously thinking about hand path and controlling my OTT, the early extension sneaks back in. If I’m thinking about my hip depth, the shoulders/hands throw themselves way over the top.

 

Haven’t been able to get both working at the same time.

 

Still from the same session but before I started toying around with hand path:

 

 

Better depth (not perfect but better). I think it’s easier to maintain depth when I’m hitting these OTT pulls because everything is working left of target together. When I start thinking about trying to get my path more right and the club momentum is going away from me, it’s easy for my balance to follow it. I guess I need to work on separation between the upper and lower body? Hands/club working right of target line but lower body staying deep and working left? 

 

What did you think about the two hand paths/swing planes? Better in that second one? Is that the right swing thought for me to control the OTT and I now just need to combine it with maintaining depth?

Edited May 11, 2022 by Luckydutch

[Luckydutch]

10 hours ago, milesgiles said:

cant see videos, but yes bowing is very likely the right way to go. Every tour pro does it.

Yeah the upload seems a bit temperamental. Tried a few times and sometimes the videos show and sometimes not.

 

Try the Imgur link in my first comment. That seems to be working good.