Learning how to release your hands through impact will be eye-opening to you!

How To Release Your Hands In Your Golf Swing – Watch This Video

I’m my own guinea pig, so through these articles I hope you learn from my mistakes, and save the heartache, agony and time I put in. I’ve been fortunate enough to learn from some of the best golf instructors on the net, so I will not ever profess to say these are all my ideas, but they are the ones that worked for me.

Learning how to play better golf takes a little effort, and smart training. Recognize your swing faults and fix them. I know that’s easier said then done, but that is the fastest way to playing better.

The Most Common Is The Early Release

This is referred to as casting, throwing, and a number of other terms, but it’s a premature release of your wrists too early, typically for some high handicap golfers, right from the start of the downswing.

This causes a widening of the wrist angle (lag) too early, and will result in other compensations later in the downswing, most notably flipping and coming up (which I use to do) at impact, which can produce fat, thin, chunked and even topped shots.

It depends on your timing that day as to which one of these happens, but usually it’s consistent for that day.

Fix Early Release

If you’re a right-handed golfer, the release is all about your right wrist. I have spent hundreds of hours trying to subdue my right wrist. It was over-active in the golf takeaway, and coming down. I experimented with different feels and drills given to me from local teaching pro’s, never to fix it.

Then during one practice session it hit me. My grip and wrist tension was through the roof! It was one of the major causes of this over-active right wrist. With this tension in my fingers, hands and wrist, the muscles just want to fire (release) as quick as possible.

The Answer: What I did next changed my swing immediately. I let all the tension go in my right wrist, so when I took the club back, it set back on itself naturally. I felt a lot of pressure in my trigger finger of my right hand, so I know I was on to something. Before I could never feel that.

Read on there’s more!

Now that I could feel the proper wrist cock at the top of my golf swing, I needed to restrain from the early release in the transition. What I did next might not work for you, as it is a “feel” move, but I’m confident it will if you understand it.

What I Did (Drill): I kept the fingers in my right hand very relaxed, and focused on a slight pulling motion. But the key was to pull down with the big fleshy pad under my right thumb, which helped retain the wrist cock in my right wrist. Following me?

What’s important here, is to feel your right hand bent back on itself, and staying there as you pull down. This is called “retaining lag”, and is a must if you want to hit the ball a long way.

Added Benefit: This relaxation in the right hand coming down, also enabled the club to stay on plane, whereas before, I would come down very steep, which is NO GOOD in golf. With the club resting on the fingers of your right hand, this plane is set, and not disturbed coming all the way down.

Next Tip For Pre-Release Of Hands

As you’re coming down, I want you to feel like your right hand is on top of the shaft. This feeling will also turn down the left hand (Hogan move), which will be squaring the face coming into impact. This little turn down needs to become automatic.

Believe it or not, in the pictures below, you might not be able to see it, but my right hand feels and looks right on top of the shaft, with the palm literally facing the ground.

The second picture at impact, I feel like I’m smothering the ball with my right hand. That’s the feeling you need to get to compress the ball squarely, and achieve the nirvana of smashing that golf ball!

I will bet you a hundred dollars 99% of high handicap golfers don’t get this right.

When you get this right, you will come down onto the ball squarely, and if you’re anything like me, I found the ball jumped off the clubface. It was pure heaven! All those years of hitting the ball with a slightly off-square clubface, and not to finally compress that dang golf ball!

Look at the full release in the below picture. See how the butt of the club is now disappearing? For most high handicap golfers, the entire club would still be visible, because they flipped it, and come up on it.

Drill: The Late Release

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this in golf instruction, but sometimes you need to go to an extreme to fix your fault. And this is one time I feel it is warranted.

What you’re going to do is retain your wrist cock as long as you can, late into and past impact (see image below). At first, this will not be while you hit a golf ball. This is a drill to do in front of a mirror. Keep the tension out of your right hand, wrist and fingers, and bring the club down, way into impact.

I promise you, when you hit a ball, you won’t even come close to holding this angle. There is too much  centrifugal force from the club and speed. But the point of the drill is to get you comfortable retaining this angle late into the hit.

How To Release The Hands Through Impact

This is the “money zone”.

This is where you can really compress that poor golf ball.

With your right hand still on top of the club, your left hand turning down, you now have a “green light” to push (extend) your right hand down and through the ball, and the left hand to turn over into a full release of your hands. This is not a flip or roll! This is a release of your hands through impact.

Notice the right arm fully extended. Also the right shoulder has continued to come through. This was not an independent move of my hands. It was a shoulders, arms, hands and club release for maximum power.

You could even practice this position right here in a mirror to feel what it’s like. I’ll bet you have felt your body in that position before. That’s a great drill all by itself.

What helped me the most, was using a golf release training aid. I did this move with the aid all over my house for days and days, and finally got it ingrained, and my ball striking is better than ever!

Golf Release Training Aid

This was a mammoth article, but one that I felt was needed to get you to understand how your hands release in your swing.

If you enjoyed this article, please facebook comment below, and also “like” the article by clicking on the facebook icon at the top under my name. I’d appreciate it.

I don’t want you to get too overwhelmed, so what I have in here should keep it quick and easy to master.

Simple Tips To Develop Your Swing Plane

To own the perfect golf swing plane, You’ll want to first keep in mind where your hands and club are when you start your swing, because you’ll want to come back to that position, or as close as you can.

Every golfer is not the same, as some have long arms that hang lower, making a lower angle to your own shaft plane at your starting position, and the short arms produces an increasingly upright, vertical shaft plane at address.

Perhaps you have heard this before, but impact and address should be similar. There is some leeway here, so nothing to obsess over, nevertheless, if in your thoughts you will get back to impact, from your starting position, you are going to be smashing your the golf ball like you’ve never done before.

Leave the hands out of it!

You read it here! Your hands make or break your golf swing. I do know for me personally, I’ve been on completely wrong end of that stick, and wrecked my swing plane, and it took hours of researching swing videos, and drills to correct it. I’m not there yet, nonetheless the progress continues to be remarkable!

Once you start your move back, your hands should go directly back, without the need of manipulation of your hands to the club. It all extends back as a whole (hands, arms, club and shoulders). You’ve probably read, the one-piece takeaway, and that’s exactly what I’m referring to here.

Check It Halfway

When you’re midway back in your backswing, your left arm will be parallel to the ground, not to mention parallel in conjunction with your target line. At this time in your swing, you will have cocked your wrists ” up “, and simply started to flex your right arm (slightly).

At this time, the butt end of your club should really be pointing towards target line. Should you have a lazer on the end of your own club (butt end), it is going to point right towards the line, about 2-3 feet behind the ball, but directly on the target line. If you can possibly hit that line consistently, you’re on your journey to an incredible golf swing.

All you have to do now’s continue your shoulder turn, as you’re flexing your right elbow to 90 degrees. Now your’re near the top of your swing in best placement to come down on plane. This is a beautiful thing!

Mimic Backswing Plane And Path When Coming Down

This is where I know personally I screwed this up for sure! When you’ve executed your complete backswing like already mentioned, all you have to do is reverse it coming down. Deliver your hands downward on the same path you did going up.

You should not adjust your hands in the downswing, as that will immediately alter your swing plane. My fault was coming down way steeper than when I went back. It’s a killer in your own golf swing, and I labored very hard to resolve it.

Another checkpoint is midway coming down (see picture to your right).Similar to halfway back, the butt of your own club must be aiming on the target line, in essentially precisely the same spot as when you were going back.

Focus on how Hunter’s shaft is very nicely parallel on the plane line. He will come into impact specifically on the proper golf swing plane.
There are numerous other extremely effective golf swing plane drills that I’ll go over in a future article, but my intention is that this article has presented you a better comprehension of your golf swing plane.

Use A Trainer To Ingrain Swing Plane

For most golfers it is almost impossible to enable them to acquire the appropriate sense of the on-plane swing, which is when the use of a golf trainer to improve your swing plane can be a godsend.

Being in position to use this sort of trainer and strike golf balls, will let you have real time feedback. You’ll know at any instant when you strike the ball by having an on plane swing or not.

What if I told you, you could have a weighted training aid, alignment aid, swing plane aid, a putting trainer, a stretch bar, and it can fit in your golf bag, would you be interested? I know I was, so I got one, and now offer it here on my site. Take a look at our Swinkey Multi-Use Golf Swing Trainer.

I have used separately in practice sessions, especially on swing plane, as I have an issue coming down too steep, and this has really helped.

Here’s 7 Simple Steps To A Better Golf Swing

• Grip
• Posture
• Ball Position
• Takeaway
• Top Of Backswing
• Downswing
• Impact

Grip

Your golf grip is your ONLY connection to your club. If you do not hold the club properly, you will not come into impact with a square clubface.

I was really trying too hard with my arms, creating not only tension which slows clubhead speed, but making my upper body more dominant during the initial part of the downswing. This caused a whole host of issues with my swing, that resulted in the above mentioned toe shots, a lack of hip rotation and clearing through impact, a raising up out of my spine angle at impact, and a slight flip of the hands causing an early release through the ball.

With all that being said, I am now initiating my downswing with an emphasis on lower body weight shift/rotation and more importantly PASSIVE arms. I feel like my arms are now along for the ride, as opposed to them dominating my golf swing. This will take me some time to ingrain, but with my commitment to practice, I know I will get this, and have already seen some positive results on the practice range.

So when you are making your golf swing transition, and you want the proper sequence coming down, think passive arms, and a lower body shift/rotation. I think it will help you.

This no backswing approach is one that’s been used as a golf drill by golf instruction professionals for years, so it’s kind of comical this is the new craze in golf swing improvement.

It has a lot of merits to consider. The short backswing makes your transition and sequence of motion in the downswing much easier. It enhances solid ball contact which maximizes distance; so what you think you might lose from backswing coil, you gain in ball/clubface contact.

Unfortunately the negative is the golf swing requires a take-away. This no backswing golf swing removes that, so you might have a difficult time carrying over from the drill to can actual swing from address.

This may or may not be an issue, but I think doing the No Backswing Golf Swing is worth a shot. Who knows…you may dramatically improve your golf swing consistency and mechanics.

This is not so! It’s becoming more common to see the touring pro’s not reach parallel at the top, even with their golf driver. As long as you get a 90 degree shoulder turn with about half that in hip turn, you will have maximum clubhead speed, and better yet, more control over your golf swing.

I want to show you a drill you can do in your home, garage, office and of course on the practice tee.

See the club I have on the ground to the left of my right foot? See the club across my shoulders?. Match those up and you know you’ve made a full shoulder turn on your backswing.

Give it a try!

I am always on the lookout for golf swing trainers that will help golfers add more power and distance, and this one “fits the bill” completely!

It is now part of my power training routine, and I can already feel a difference in my flexibility and power.

It’s ONLY a fraction of the cost of a weighted club, and it’s the most portable of all of them!

When I think of lag from the wrists, I think of Sergio Garcia. He has the most impressive, nearly impossible wrist lag (delayed wrist cock) on tour. It’s absolutely amazing to see him with his hands near impact, and his wrists still fully cocked.

One of the LONGEST hitters on the PGA Tour is JB Holmes. He is another perfect example of gaining maximum power through your wrists.

Hinging and unhinging (rehingeing) the wrists is ONE motion. This is where golfers get it wrong!

I took a quick picture(s) to show you the very SIMPLE motion of the proper wrist hinge.

In the picture near the top, I’m hinging. The image below, I’m unhinging. That’s it!

Another common term for wrist hinge is wrist cock. Look how my wrist is bending only ONE way! This is SO important. It doesn’t break side-to-side, only up and down. Combine the turning of the shoulders, dropping of the arms, and this hinge, unhing and rehinge of the wrists at the right time, and you’ve got a TON of POWER!

Recommend Golf Swing Aid

Want to finally learn the proper wrist hinge for better ball striking? Check out the swing aid for improved golf swing power and consistency.

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The course and the greens look kind of trashed, but for some reason the video is doing some of this. The greens are much better than the video shows. Do I sound like I’m defending my course <grin>?

The Power Golf Swing Trainer we had Morrie try turned out so good for him, that he bought one right here on the site, and here’s what he had to say about it:

“Mike let me try his Power Golf Swing Trainer the other day…..and wow! It keeps your triangle and right arm in tact all through the swing. I added imediate distance and I could get through the ball with out trying to steer it. I ordered one for my self!

Many of you have been following “Mondays With Morrie” I’m Morrie, and this simple comfortable trainer worked for me in just a few swings I could see the triangle. Check out
my next episode tomorrow….you’ll see some mighty powerful results.”