Golf Smart Academy
If you tend to flip, scoop, or let the clubhead race past your hands through impact, this drill gives you a much clearer job for your trail wrist. Instead of trying to “hold lag” forever or actively snap the wrist through the ball, you’re learning how two motions work together: trail wrist extension and trail wrist ulnar deviation. When you blend those correctly, you can keep the clubface more stable, deliver better shaft lean, and strike the ball without that weak, scoopy release that so many golfers fight.
How the Drill Works
The key idea is simple: your trail wrist should keep some extension as you move into the impact zone, but the club still needs to lower and move through the ball. That lowering happens through ulnar deviation—the motion of the wrist moving more toward the pinky side.
This is where many golfers get confused. One player is told to “hold the angle” and ends up dragging the handle with the club stuck too high. Another is told to “release it” and starts actively flexing the trail wrist, which often turns into a flip. Neither one is the real pattern you want.
The better move is this:
- You maintain the sensation of trail wrist extension.
- At the same time, you move into ulnar deviation.
- That combination naturally reduces some of the extension without you having to actively throw it away.
In other words, you are not trying to forcibly bend the trail wrist forward through impact. You are keeping the wrist “back” while the wrist also moves into ulnar deviation. Because of how the joint works, that motion brings the club down and through in a much more functional way.
This creates a very useful delivery position: the trail wrist is still slightly extended, but now it is also fully or nearly fully ulnar deviated. That blend gives you a stable, precise feeling in the hands. It’s one reason this motion tends to improve clubface control and make impact feel more organized.
This drill is typically trained in two stages:
- First, you learn to preserve the feeling of trail wrist extension through the strike area.
- Then, you add ulnar deviation so the club can move through properly instead of getting stuck or dragged.
That second piece is what cleans up the common flip pattern. It also helps prevent the opposite mistake—holding the wrist angles so rigidly that the club approaches too steeply or too far over the top through the bottom of the swing.
Step-by-Step
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Start with a short swing. Set up normally, then make a rehearsal backswing only to about waist high. This is a parallel-to-parallel style drill, so you do not need a full swing to learn it.
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Create trail wrist extension. At waist-high in the backswing, feel that your trail wrist is bent back slightly, almost like a subtle “stop sign” shape. This gives you the sensation of supporting the club rather than throwing it.
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Rehearse the first stage. From that waist-high position, slowly move toward impact while trying to keep the feeling of trail wrist extension. Let your body pivot carry the motion. For now, don’t worry about a full release—just learn the sensation of not immediately losing that wrist bend.
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Pause in a held-off follow-through. Stop around waist high on the through-swing side. This is an exaggerated checkpoint, not your final real release pattern. The purpose is simply to teach you what it feels like when the trail wrist does not instantly dump its angle.
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Add the second stage: ulnar deviation. Go back to the same waist-high backswing position. Again, keep the trail wrist extended, but now as you move through, feel the wrist moving into ulnar deviation. This helps the club travel down and out properly instead of staying too high.
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Finish with the hands more up and out. As you move into the follow-through, your hands should work into a more natural, slightly higher position from a down-the-line view. A useful image is that your hands are moving toward a “shake hands with the target line” finish.
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Check the trail wrist in the finish. In this short finish, your trail wrist should feel only slightly extended, but clearly ulnar deviated. You should not feel as if you actively flipped it into flexion.
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Hit short shots. Start with small pitch-length swings. The goal is not power. You are training the correct release pattern through the impact zone. Crisp contact and a more stable face are better signs than distance.
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Gradually blend it into longer swings. Once the short motion feels natural, let the swing get longer. Keep the same concept: maintain the extension feel while allowing ulnar deviation to move the club through the strike.
What You Should Feel
This drill works best when you pay attention to the right sensations. The motion can look subtle, but the feel is often very distinct.
1. A “held” trail wrist without stiffness
You should feel as if the trail wrist is not immediately dumping its bend. That does not mean locking it rigidly. It means the wrist still feels supportive and organized as you approach impact.
2. The club lowering through wrist motion, not a throw
As you add ulnar deviation, the club should feel like it is being guided down and through rather than tossed past your hands. This is a major difference between a controlled release and a flip.
3. Tension in two directions
A useful sensation is that there is a little tension from preserving extension and a little tension from moving into ulnar deviation. Together, those create a feeling of stability in the clubface through impact.
4. Better shaft lean without digging
When you do this correctly, you can get the handle slightly forward at impact without driving the club so steeply into the ground that contact becomes harsh. The strike should feel compressed, not jammed into the turf.
5. Hands working more naturally through the strike
From a down-the-line view, your hands should not look trapped low and inside. The addition of ulnar deviation tends to let the hands move more up and out through the ball, which is a healthier release pattern.
6. A more precise clubface feel
The combination of slight extension and ulnar deviation often gives you a very clear sense of where the clubface is. If you normally feel the face twisting or rapidly overtaking your hands, this drill should make impact feel quieter and more predictable.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Actively flexing the trail wrist through impact. If you try to snap the wrist forward, you’ll usually add the very flip you’re trying to eliminate.
- Holding extension without adding ulnar deviation. This often leaves the club too high and can lead to pulls, steep contact, or an over-the-top look through the strike.
- Making the drill too full-speed too soon. This is a precision drill. Learn it in slow rehearsals and short shots before expecting it to show up in a full swing.
- Using only the hands and no pivot. The body still needs to turn. The wrist motion works with your pivot; it is not a hand-only rescue move.
- Confusing “hold” with “freeze.” You want to preserve the extension feel, not lock the wrist so hard that the club cannot release naturally.
- Letting the handle stall. If your body stops and your hands stop moving, the clubhead will still try to pass. Keep the motion flowing through to the short finish.
- Expecting a dramatic visual change instantly. The release pattern is subtle. Focus more on cleaner contact, a more stable face, and a better through-swing structure.
How This Fits Your Swing
This drill is not just about your wrists in isolation. It helps connect several important pieces of the swing into one organized impact pattern.
First, it improves your release. A good release is not about either endlessly holding lag or throwing the clubhead. It is about delivering the club with structure, then allowing it to move through the strike in a way that matches how the joints actually work. Trail wrist extension plus ulnar deviation is a big part of that.
Second, it helps you control the clubface. A flip usually makes the face and loft inconsistent. One shot adds too much loft and floats weakly. The next closes too fast. When your trail wrist stays more organized and moves into ulnar deviation, the face tends to behave more predictably through impact.
Third, it sharpens your impact alignments. You can get the hands leading enough to compress the ball, but without creating the steep, digging strike that often happens when golfers try to drag the handle while never letting the club properly work downward and outward.
Fourth, it directly addresses the scoop/flip pattern. Many golfers who scoop are not simply “casting” in a generic sense. They often do not understand what the trail arm and trail wrist should be doing near the bottom of the swing. This drill gives that side of the body a clear assignment.
Finally, it ties the whole motion together. If you only learn to preserve extension, you may improve structure but still get too steep or too held-off. If you only think about releasing freely, you may lose the face and throw away the strike. When you blend the two correctly, you get a release that is both stable and functional.
That is the bigger picture: you are training a trail wrist motion that supports the clubface, improves strike quality, and makes your impact look and feel much less scoopy. Start small, exaggerate the checkpoints, and let the motion become natural before you add speed.
