Do you cock?

[Loop]

lol... This thread is about cocking, you know, the adduction movement of the wrist.

I know there are some teachers who say: cock your wrists in the backswing, and uncock it at the last moment in the downswing (due to the release).
Do any of you cock in the backswing? I don't, it kills my swing plane, ballstriking gets more erratic, and don't get any power....

DaveE, do you have some issue with too soft wrists ? When my wrists cock in the backswing, I can't control anything, the swing is hyper long, way longer than Daly's backswing.... Needs huge timing to get it back square and on track.

 

[Bravo]

Loopy:

Everybody who has the club level at the top has cocked wrists. Its just a matter of when it happens during the backswing.

I dont think about a discrete "cocking action" going back.

As the arms are taking the club back in a fluid motion the wrists are cocking at the same time...

And as you are coming down into the ball with an accelerating motion - your wrists are uncocking - but once again -not in a discrete "wrists uncock now" motion..

Its a fluid motion of going back and forth that includes cocking and uncocking.

I dont know if this helps you or not. Probably a bunch of hogwash.

I really dont know how it happens. It just does though.

 

[DaveE]

DaveE, do you have some issue with too soft wrists ?

Who told you????? This is embarassing! Geez.

Actually the comment I made had to do with supinating the wrist instead of pronating. When I try to hold my wrist in the position Hogan promoted in his book, my left wrist does feel weak.

As far as cocking goes, I'm with Bravo in that it happens without thought as part of the swing. If I tried to think about when to cock and uncock I'd be even more screwed up than I am.

 

[JasonMacIsaac]

I do with the irons but I don't with the driver. When I do it with my driver I find I hit big slices. It works extremely well when you drive into the ground with shorter irons. I still cock my wrists with the driver but it is natural and not as early in the backswing.

 

[Loop]

I know that unconsciously, i cock my wrists during the backswing, due to the momentum of the clubhead pulling the club more backward. Then I get inconsistent ballstriking.
But Jason has a good point, I can cock with the irons, especially with the shorter ones, to hit down on the ball.

DaveE, in Hogan's book, I think the drawing overemphasizes the supination. For me, at impact, the left wrist and forearm are flat... I don't know about you though.

 

[Youngun5]

i just hold the club and swing all by feel, if it happens it happens, dave if you have weak wrists try the dynaflex powerball, i had terrible wrists and since getting it feel more in control with my forearms and wrists, jmho

 

[Rockford35]

If I tried to think about when to cock and uncock I'd be even more screwed up than I am.

I really don't think this is possible....

R35

 

[BadPudder]

Don't they say "Swing like your swinging a piece of Rope".

 

[spankdoggie]

Supination of the wrists will cure all slices. I read that in the little red book or another one before spending a week in West Virginia golfing at Oglebay in Northern West Virginia less than 3 years ago, and it worked!!!...

Oglebay has a Robert Palmer course and a Robert Trent Jones course... great golf!!! Best I have played... greens are tough... I played 36 holes a day for five days straight there... (wife was on a rare business trip, thank heaven!!!)...

I highly recommend Oglebay golf course in West Virginia: http://www.oglebay-resort.com/speidel.htm

Some of the kindest people I have ever met.

We stayed in a hotel in Wheeling and I took my beautiful Asian wife out at night to some pool hall on the side of a freeway to shoot pool... you know inter-racial marriage (I am a cracker) and all... no trouble from anybody, and I tipped the waitress San Francisco style (30 percent)...

Born and raised, both of us in San Francisco, so we gave out no negative energy for anbody to play on...
Keep in mind that when my I and my wife came in, we did not come in with fear (well she felt safe with me)...

We were safe in West Virginia...

Don't make me tell you about the time we were out on the town in Philadelphia, on the way back from Italy... I crossed the street against the red light, and my wife had no clue... I squeezed her wrist so hard she had a small bruise (not intentional), but it was a dangerous situation... So she was all crying and stuff at he hotel when I explained what was playing out with the situation at that time.... We were being triangulated big time.

No, I won't tell.

Don't make me ramble you bastards.
Don't make me cry.

Tears.

 

[DaveE]

DaveE, in Hogan's book, I think the drawing overemphasizes the supination. For me, at impact, the left wrist and forearm are flat... I don't know about you though.

Same here, the wrist is more flat. After watching the tape Bravo sent me I've realized that some of the things that are in Hogans book, were never part of Hogans swing.

I think it's more a feeling of supination than anything.

YG - thanks for the tip on the dynaflex, I'll give it a try.

 

[Farquod]

I have avoided this thread (to the relief of all, I'm sure...but now I have you....MOOOHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA) because this wrist action has absorbed an inordinate amount of my time for the past year, and I can’t possibly write a short answer. Sorry boys. But the good news is that I’ve sussed it out on my end….for ME. Maybe not you. After trying a cackajillion different approaches to deal with pronation of the left wrist, I have come to believe something really scary: it is like worrying whether you breathe in or out on the backswing.

First, loop. When I took the game back up like 5 years ago, I had a problem with over-cocking my wrists, that was identified by my one and only foray to a golf school (Ben Sutton, Tampa area, pretty good really). On my intro video, I looked like Daly, with the clubhead almost hitting my shoes at the top of the backswing. At that time I hit the ball pretty well, really, very straight, but not too far. And I couldn’t score for sh!t. The pro I had let me swing my way for the first day and a half for the 3-day school, and then he couldn’t take it anymore, and completely deconstructed my swing. I mean completely. (The man utterly effed up my game for more than a year. Problem is, all the stuff he gave me was right, and has since made it into my swing) One of the first things he “fixed” was my backswing. For me, he told me to only try for a ¾ backswing, and to limit my wrist cock, to gain consistency and power. Well, to make a long story short, I did this, and although I felt like I was hardly cocking my wrists at all, I was perfectly parallel to the ground at the top. So like Bravo et al have said, you are cocking your wrists, though it doesn’t feel like it. And perhaps, for you, it shouldn’t.

Now, Dave. This supination thing. Welcome to my hell.

As I’ve written to you before, Hogan's 5 Lessons is one of 3 golf books that I read all the time. With regard to supination, he says specifically that it is a key to being a good player, that all good players supinate at impact. He then gives the example of Jimmy Demaret, saying he really “slaps at the ball with the back of his left hand” (or something close, the book’s not in front of me). If you go to the golf channel site or anywhere else that they have the pro swings on video, look at their left arms (or lead arms) at impact. They are supinating. Look at Els, Vijay, Charles Howell, hell, look at Corey Pavin. Supination city. I know Hogan doesn’t do all the things in his swing that he talks about—that picture of the arms wound with rope at address leaps to mind—but on this one, I think he’s pretty literally accurate. Their wrists all flatten out AFTER impact, maybe 12-15” past the ball, when they all have that nice extended triangle happening.

With regard to flat, flat is ok at impact. Pronated is not. So if you’re flat, and comfortable hitting the ball that way, and you like what the ball does, be flat. And be happy about it, dammit, ‘cause that’s your swing.

For me, I’ve spent a year trying to force that supination. And that’s where, I’m afraid, it wasn’t happenin’ for me. Anything I tried to do mechanically, from bowing my left wrist at the top, to hitting at it with the back of my left hand, to maintaining my frame through impact, to a half dozen other attempts, none worked repeatedly. My hands fought each other, or my downswing slowed, or I fatted shots, damn, every type of crap.

What eventually worked, for me, was envisioning the head of my irons cutting an angle through the ball and into the turf. That simple swing thought (right after "seventeen" for tempo) gave me supination, because you can’t cut through the ball like that if your pronating, or even flat. I also start my backswing now with a forward press, which starts my hands out ahead of the ball. So if I return them to the address position, they arrive ahead of the ball. Every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. (With apologies to Issac Newton. Or was it Einstein? I think it was Newton).

So the only way I was able to repeatedly supinate at impact, was by not trying to do so. God, I hate this game.

Hope this helps. I feel like I’ve just given birth.

 

[DaveE]

Great explanation.

I always find it fascinating how many of us end up going through the same experiences. At different times maybe, but when I'm reading I'm thinking hey that was me.

I'll try your thought but in the end I'll know it will be something that will come to me at a practice session or during a round. I have convinced myself though that the answer is not "trying to supinate" at impact for all the reason you stated.

Stupid game.

 

[Loop]

I just LOVE when people talk technical
Farquod, the only reason why I don't cock (or not as much) is that as you mention, the club was pointing down in the backswing. Worse than Daly like.
At first, I've shorten my backswing to even a half backswing. Though my hands didn't go higher than the shoulders, the club just goes past parallel.
No matter how much I've feel that I was okay, looking at my swing videos brang me back to reality.
Then I've figured out that it was the momentum of the club in the backswing that caused it to go overboard. Since then, I don't cock, and ballstriking is excellent.
Some of the pros I've watched have their club pointing up 45 degrees in the backswing. And geez, they really drive it a long way.


Now, to your supination problem, to which I think I may have the solution, because I tried all sorts of things too
I don't like that bowed wrist concept at impact, because it is definetely hard to visualize.
So take a club, elevate your forearms in front of you so that it is horizontal to the ground. Hold the club so it is 90 degrees to your foreams and vertical to the ground. Pronate and supinate the forearms so that the club rotates in a vertical plane (it should draw an upper half circle). See? You don't need to bow your wrists, the left wrist is flat. Well, that's it! That's the swing (well that's how I do it anyways lol). (Note: I have a neutral grip).
So just lower your forearms like it was at address and recreate the same pronation/supination. One last tip, when you downswing, stay pronated until the last moment, then supinate. Even though you feel you'll push slice the ball, it won't be the case.
Please tell me if it works for you.
I need a drink.

 

[Farquod]

I always find it fascinating how many of us end up going through the same experiences.

F***in' a bubba. What amazes me is that I can hear what someone else has done and try to implement it, and it doesn't work. Then, sometime later, I'll come up with the same thing and a different mind frame and **WHACK** it absorbs and makes sense.

Pronate and supinate the forearms so that the club rotates in a vertical plane

Nifty tip, with good feel. I like that it forces you to see that when one wrist supinates, the other pronates.

I'm still grooving my "through the ball" thing, so I'ma gonna defer the delayed release thing until that is on auto pilot.

& make mine a double.