Mastering a Flat Left Wrist
BY Paul Smith
Fig 1
Fig 2 
Fig 3 Fig 4 Fig 5 
Fig 6 
Fig 7 
Fig 8 
Fig 9 In the ISG Golf School articles, we promote the need to maintain a Flat Left Wrist (FLW) throughout the swing. In previous articles we have shown what this looks like and how it works with the flying wedges to provide a solid infrastructure for the power we are dumping through the impact zone. In this article, we demonstrate how you can become aware of maintaining the Flat Left Wrist in your stroke by using a training device called the Taly.
The
Taly device allows us to see what the left wrist is doing throughout the swing. It provides an artificial extension of the left forearm with its extensible arm running past the back of the left wrist.
Being able to visualise this relationship is what makes it such a powerful training tool.
To review, Figures 1, 2, and 3 show the left wrist in its 3 conditions relative to the forearm.
The
Taly simply mounts on the left forearm, rather like a cricket arm guard. An extensible arm runs down past the left wrist in front of where the club shaft would be, as shown in Fig 4. This relationship must stay in place throughout the swing.
Figure 5 shows the death of any golf swing. The club shaft has crossed the line of no return and will result in a real X on your scorecard. The arched left wrist is preferable to a bent left wrist as the lag has not been thrown away. The stored power is still your friend. However, that may cause some issues in squaring the clubface through impact. We will examine the clubface alignment issues in another article.
We all know that we are supposed to keep the left arm straight in order to maintain the arm and club radius through impact, with a Flat Left Wrist.
Obviously the radius shortens in the back swing with the left wrist cock. What is less obvious is that the length of the radius also changes if the left wrist bends or arches. This can cause all sorts of problems for the golfer who then has to duck and weave and do all sorts of things to get back to the ball, or miss it completely with an embarrassing swoosh over the ball.
Learning to swing in small steps from chipping to pitching and on into the full swing with this training device allows the player to see where and how the left wrist goes awry in the swing. It gives immediate positive feedback as to correct or incorrect. You can drill on this without hitting a ball until you know the feel of the Flat Left Wrist throughout the swing.
In all the images you can see that the nose of the Taly stays ahead of the club head throughout the motion. Learning this motion, keeping the club shaft behind the nose, indeed keeping the same alignments you started with, in a chip is the key to hitting a crisp shot. Mess with the alignments and your ball is sure to be hit thin or fat, which means that your short game will be inconsistent. It also means that your long game will be inconsistent.
Chipping is the gateway to great golf. It is a simple thing to say “lift the y and bring it back down plane to the finish”, but players get ball-bound and hit at it, scoop at it, flip at it, whatever they will at it, and do not hit down through it. When you can see clearly what you are doing wrong by using this sort of training device it is easier to drill for maintaining the correct alignments.
We will have more articles on using this device. For those good at visualising, head on back to the Chipping and Pitching articles in The Golf School area and we hope some early light bulbs fire up for you. As time rolls on we will be able to use this device all the way up to a full swing.
About the Author: Paul Smith
Paul Smith holds a Master Craftsman's rank certified by the Golf Clubmakers Association in the USA and is one of only 220 Authorised Instructors of The Golfing Machine (Bachelors in Golf Stroke Engineering). Clients get a first class education session whether it be fixing a swing fault or building clubs from scratch to suit a player's ability.
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