Eliminate Flipping: Hinge & Hold Drill with Your Putter

This drill teaches you how to stop flipping the club through impact by using a putter to train a better release pattern. A putter’s flat face makes it easier to see and feel what the club is doing, so you can learn how your body leads the arms instead of throwing the clubhead past your hands. If you struggle with fat shots, thin shots, scooping, or a bent lead arm through impact, this is a simple way to improve low-point control, cleaner contact, and a more stable strike.

How the Drill Works

The idea is to rehearse a more organized delivery position and then move the club through impact with your pivot rather than a hand throw. In a flip pattern, the clubhead races past your hands too early. When that happens, the bottom of the swing becomes difficult to control, and your lead arm often breaks down through impact. That is why players who flip tend to hit a mix of heavy and thin shots.

This drill gives you a different picture. Instead of letting the clubhead overtake everything, you keep the clubhead more behind your chest as you approach impact. Your hands do not have to be trapped behind your body, but the clubhead should not be passing your hands and sternum too soon. That relationship is what creates the look many golfers describe as hinge and hold: the club retains its angle longer, the lead wrist stays more stable, and the body rotation carries the club through the strike.

Using a putter is helpful because it removes the urge to hit a full shot. With an iron, many golfers immediately switch into “hit” mode and throw the clubhead at the ball. With a putter, you can make a controlled motion and focus on precision. You are not trying to create speed here. You are training sequence, face control, and where the club bottoms out.

The drill also exposes two common problems:

If you try to hold the angle but the club stays too high above the ball, it usually means you have been relying on an early release to help the club reach the ground.
If you shove your body forward to avoid flipping, you may create a cramped impact where you run out of room and still have to throw the arms to find the ball.

The solution is to stay reasonably centered, stay down enough to keep the putter on its proper level, and let your body rotation move the handle through while the clubhead remains slightly trailing.

Step-by-Step

Set up as if you were hitting a short iron. Even though you are holding a putter, take a posture and ball-striking setup more like a 7- or 8-iron motion than a normal putting stance. This helps you organize the drill around your full-swing impact pattern rather than a standard putting stroke.
Make a small backswing to about shaft parallel. Bring the putter back until the shaft is roughly parallel to the ground. Keep the motion compact and controlled. You are not trying to build momentum.
Add a touch of lead-wrist flexion if needed. A slight “motorcycle” feel can help keep the face organized, but the main priority is not wrist manipulation. Your real focus is the relationship between the clubhead and your hands.
Rehearse the delivery position. From the small backswing, feel that the clubhead stays behind the hands as you begin down. Picture the handle leading while the clubhead trails in a circular motion. Do not drag it artificially, but do not let it sling out past you either.
Use your body to move through impact. Turn your chest through the ball and let that rotation carry the putter forward. The strike should feel like your torso is transporting the club, not like your hands are throwing the head at the ball.
Hit a very short putt. Send the ball only about 10 to 15 feet. That short distance is important. It forces you to stay precise and keeps you from adding a last-second hit with your hands.
Finish just past impact. On the first few reps, keep the follow-through short. You want to feel the club moving through with structure, not racing off into a long finish. A compact finish helps you sense the hinge-and-hold pattern.
Check your impact alignments. Through the strike, the lead wrist should look stable, the trail arm should not immediately overfire, and the lead arm should remain extended instead of collapsing into a chicken wing.
Gradually add motion. Once the short putt version feels natural, extend the drill into a slightly longer stroke. Then move toward a 9-to-3 swing, then a 10-to-2 or three-quarter motion. The goal is to preserve the same release pattern as the swing grows.
Transfer the feel to an iron. When you switch back to an iron, the look will change because of the loft and shaft angle, but the intention stays the same: body leads, clubhead trails, and the release happens later and more around you instead of down at the ball.

What You Should Feel

This drill often feels very different from what you are used to, especially if you normally release the club by throwing the head past your hands. In fact, many golfers say it feels like they are not releasing the club at all. Usually that is not true. You are still releasing it, but in a different way.

Instead of a throwaway release, you are learning a rotational release. The club is being delivered more by the motion of your body and less by a last-second hand action. That changes how the strike feels and how impact looks.

Key sensations

The clubhead stays behind your chest longer. It should not feel like the head is racing to the ball.
Your sternum keeps moving through. Your chest is not stalling while your hands flip.
The handle leads the strike. The putter shaft should appear more forward through impact than in a scooping motion.
Your lead wrist feels flatter or slightly flexed. It should not look cupped as the club passes the ball.
Your lead arm stays longer. A flip often creates a bent lead arm or a chicken wing. A better release keeps the arm structure more intact.
The strike feels compressed and controlled. Even with a putter, contact should feel organized rather than slappy.

Important checkpoints

The clubface should be reasonably square and stable through the hit.
Your body should remain centered rather than lunging toward the target.
You should stay down enough to let the putter reach the ball without needing a hand flip to “find” the ground.
Your finish should look compact at first, with the club still appearing supported by your body turn.

If you get those pieces right, you will start to understand how a later, more body-driven release improves impact and contact quality.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Trying to hit the putt too hard. The point of the drill is control, not speed. If you blast the ball, your old hand action will usually return.
Letting the clubhead pass the hands too early. This is the flip pattern you are trying to eliminate. It often comes with a scooping look and a bent lead arm.
Holding the angle so much that the club never gets down to the ball. If the putter stays too high, you are not controlling low point with your pivot and posture.
Sliding your body forward. Some golfers try to avoid flipping by drifting toward the target. That creates spacing problems and leaves no room for the arms to move through.
Standing up out of posture. If you rise through the strike, the club will tend to miss the ground unless you add a compensating flip.
Over-manipulating the wrists. A small motorcycle feel can help, but this is not a wrist drill. The main engine is your body rotation.
Making the motion too long too soon. If you jump straight to a big swing, you will lose the precision the drill is meant to build.
Expecting the release to feel natural immediately. If you have flipped for years, a better release may feel strange at first. That does not mean it is wrong.

How This Fits Your Swing

This is more than a putting exercise. It is a bridge into a better full-swing impact pattern. The short putter version gives you a clear, low-speed environment to train how the body swings the arms through the strike. Once you can do that in a small motion, you can start expanding it into your normal swing.

That matters because many full-swing problems are really impact-management problems. If you flip, you often do it to solve another issue at the last second. Sometimes you need the flip to get the club down to the ground. Sometimes you need it because you have moved too far toward the target and lost space. Sometimes you simply have a habit of trying to add speed with your hands. Whatever the cause, the result is the same: inconsistent low point and weak contact.

This drill gives you a cleaner model. You learn to approach impact with the club more organized in the delivery position, then rotate through while maintaining structure. As you scale that up, you should begin to see:

Less scooping at impact
More forward shaft lean
Better control of the strike location on the ground
Fewer fat and thin shots
Less lead-arm breakdown and chicken wing through the finish
A release that looks later, stronger, and more connected

When you move from the putter to an iron, do not expect the motion to look identical. The club has more loft, the ball is struck differently, and the follow-through will naturally become longer as speed increases. But the core pattern should stay the same: the clubhead does not dump past your body early, and your pivot continues to lead the strike.

A good progression is to start with the short 10- to 15-foot putt version, then hit little chip-like shots, then move into 9-to-3 swings, then three-quarter swings, and finally full swings. At each stage, ask yourself the same question: is my body carrying the club through, or am I throwing the head at the ball?

If you keep the answer focused on body rotation, centered motion, and a clubhead that stays behind your chest a little longer, this drill can completely change the way you control impact. That is why it is so effective for golfers who struggle with flipping, poor low point, and inconsistent contact.