Within the first year of playing, I began to take notice of player's wrist angles at the top of the backswing. Mostly concerning myself with the pros, I noticed they all approached the top differently. Dustin Johnson has a bowed left wrist, Ricky Fowler has a flat wrist, and Nick Watney keeps a cupped wrist. Naturally, I maintained a cupped left wrist at the top. I wondered what a flat wrist would do for me, so I tried to groove it into my swing and within a month or so I began to use it without thinking about it every time I swung. My consistent slice and fade of the ball seemed to straighten out. Fast forward to about 6 months later, slowly the cupped wrist began to creep back into its natural habitat and the fades returned. So, last week I happened to catch another great episode of Golf Channel's "School of Golf" and a fan of the show sent in a question about the difference between a flat and cupped left wrist. The show instructor simply explained that a flat wrist would be beneficial to a slicer and a cupped wrist would be beneficial to a hooker of the ball. This bit of knowledge seems to confirm my experience with the flat vs. cupped wrist. Now, I'm trying to develop more of a draw to my ball flight by getting the clubhead to rotate more through impact and it seems a flat promotes this sort of mechanic in the golf swing. I'll be testing this hypothesis and will surely record my progress at a later date.
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| Flat wrist |
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| Cupped wrist |
