The Power of the Cock

That would be wrist-cock, of course. 

Discover your inner slugger. Learn to use whatever body composition and condition you have to stabilize your hands, so that they can release and square up the clubface with minimal effort and maximum effect.

If you've seen pix of Ben Hogan or Sergio Garcia as they began their downswings you will note that the clubhead is still visible behind and on the target side of the body when their arms are parallel to the ground. That's called "lag", and they maximized it. Decades earlier, almost 100 years ago, Bobby Jones did the same thing. 

The difference is that Jones let the club lag by releasing the grip with the last three fingers of his left hand a bit at the top, then regripping on the way down. But what they all did was cock their wrists fully -- meaning they brought their left thumbs as close to, and IN LINE WITH, their left forearms -- at the top of the swing, or the end of the backswing.

The next step is critical. Every top golfer does exactly the same thing: he (or she) begins the downswing, or more properly the forward swing, by relaxing the hands while rotating the torso counterclockwise (if right-handed). Some start the torso rotation by turning the hips first, some slide the hips, some just rotate the upper chest and use the hips and legs to stabilize the upper body. Those are stylistic, not functional, differences. The important thing is the relaxation of the hands.

As one rotates the upper body, one pulls the arms and hands around and down. The left thumb, which supported the club's weight at the top, being directly under the shaft, stays under the shaft until the weight of the club (and the eccentric clubhead) start rotating, and the thumb is passively rotated from below the shaft to above it. 

The function of the right hand in this movement is to SUPPORT the left hand. Hogan's phrase was "one corporate hand." I find it indispensable to think of ONE CORPORATE HAND, rotating through impact, as if there was a giant, ten-fingered, two-wristed golf glove into which I'd inserted my hands. 

If this is done properly, there is very little effort involved. The legs turn the hips, the hips turn the chest, the shoulders follow, then the arms, then the hands rotate through the ball. My intention is to keep on turning the chest through the ball at a constant rate; everything else follows. And I stay balanced throughout. There's no sensation of diving forward (like Tiger Woods) or falling backward (Like Jack Nicklaus). Those individuals play a different game, Power Golf, because their body composition -- lots of well-developed fast-twitch muscle -- lets them generate much higher clubhead speed than ordinary, middle-of-the-normal-curve individuals. The tradeoff works for them. Tiger's long drives are around 350 yards; mine is 100 yards less.

But what we have in common -- all good golfers have in common -- is ONE CORPORATE HAND that pours and rotates smoothly through the hitting area.