Losing Posture At Impact? Are You Flipping Out?

By Jennifer Stowe

To find out if you are losing posture at impact get your swing video taped. Have the instructor monitor where your butt starts and then where it is at impact.

For those of you who fall inside the large population of “flipping” at the golf ball this is the article for you. Flipping occurs when one unhinges their wrist on the downswing too early. This causes the club head to reach the golf ball before the hands. To make contact the wrists will unhinge causing an upward motion at the ball or an early downward motion at the ball. Here you will see high shots or very low shots, both of them being much shorter then one’s capability.

You will also see this move on pitch shots when people think they are helping the ball up into the air by lifting the club head. This can be a hard error to fix because it is one of the fastest parts of the swing and it directly effects how the ball is struck. Using the right training aids and drills will help one feel the better downswing and how the wrists are supposed to work.

One of the better training aids out there to help you hold the hinge is called the “swing gyde”. It is a bright yellow piece of plastic that gets hooked on to the very bottom of your grip on any iron or wood. The goal is to hinge the wrists till the end of the swing gyde is on your left forearm. On the downswing you want to keep the swing gyde on the forearm as long as possible holding the hinge till the proper release point. This training aid gives you a reference point showing you how the proper hinge feels. You can even hit balls with the training aid still attached to your club.

A great drill to use that doesn’t require any training aids is what is called the “swoosh drill” (it has nothing to do with Nike). In this drill you want to hold your club on the other end, by the head. Try and grip the best you can with your hands below the club head. Now you can swing without hitting the ground.

The object of the drill is to swing the butt end of the club and hear the swoosh it makes in front of the golf ball toward the target and not behind the golf ball on the downswing. The swoosh is made when the wrists release, therefore when you hear it on the follow through, after hitting the ball, the hinge is held longer on the downswing. This drill is an over exaggeration but it helps you feel the right move.