Improve Your Follow Through with Isolated Ulnar Deviation

This drill trains a part of the release that many golfers overlook: ulnar deviation, or the unhinging of the wrists through impact. If that motion is missing, your follow-through often gets narrow, the club works too high too soon, and you may compensate with a scoop, a flip, or a chicken wing. When you learn to unhinge the club correctly while your body keeps rotating, you create a wider, more extended release through the ball. That wider look is common in strong ball strikers and especially good drivers of the golf ball, because it helps the club shallow, travel through impact more efficiently, and exit with better extension.

How the Drill Works

The goal of this drill is to isolate ulnar deviation so you can feel what it does in the release. In simple terms, radial deviation is the wrist hinge going back, and ulnar deviation is the unhinging that happens coming down and through. Many players think only about rotation through impact, but if the club never properly unhinges, the release becomes cramped and inefficient.

In this drill, you use a 9-to-3 swing to simplify the motion. That means you make a controlled backswing to about waist high and a follow-through to about waist high. Because the swing is shorter, you can focus on what the wrists and club are doing without the extra variables of a full swing.

From the downswing into impact, the first move you want to feel is the club lowering through ulnar deviation. This is not a cast. You are not throwing the angles away by bending the lead wrist into a scoop, and you are not straightening the trail arm early to force the club outward. Instead, you are letting the clubhead lower as the wrists unhinge naturally.

Once that unhinging starts, your body rotation carries the club through the ball. That sequence matters. If you only rotate without enough ulnar deviation, the club tends to stay too high and too close to you. Then you have to make other compensations to reach the ball, usually with the shoulders, hands, or forearms. Those compensations often create the very problems this drill is meant to fix.

Done correctly, ulnar deviation helps the club shallow and move farther away from your body. That gives you the space to keep rotating, maintain side bend, and extend through the strike. In the follow-through, a good checkpoint is that the club appears slightly below your hands and the arms look wide rather than folded in close to your body.

Step-by-Step

1. Set up for a short 9-to-3 swing. Use a mid-iron or short iron and make a normal setup. Your goal is not speed. You are training the release, so keep the motion controlled and compact.

2. Swing back to about waist high. Stop the backswing when your hands are roughly around waist level. The club should still have some hinge in it, but you do not need to think about making a perfect backswing. You are simply creating a manageable starting point for the drill.

3. Start down by unhinging, not throwing. From that waist-high position, feel the clubhead lower toward the ground through ulnar deviation. Think of the wrists unhinging rather than the arms pushing. The club is dropping, but you are not flipping the lead wrist or straightening the trail arm to force it down.

4. Keep rotating as the club lowers. In a real swing, the club does not just drop behind the ball. Your body continues to turn, so the lowering action happens while your chest and hips keep moving through. This is what brings the club into the strike and then out toward the target.

5. Finish with width. As you move into the follow-through, allow the club to rotate naturally. One benefit of proper ulnar deviation is that once the club gets more in line, there is less resistance to rotation. That helps the club release without your arms collapsing inward.

6. Check the follow-through position. At about waist high on the through-swing, the club should look wide and extended. A strong checkpoint is that the club is slightly below your hands and farther away from your body, not steep and cramped.

7. Use a choke-up exaggeration if needed. If the feel is hard to find, choke up on the club and rehearse from a delivery position. Then fully ulnar deviate so the club lowers closer to your lead forearm. This exaggeration helps you sense how much unhinging is really needed.

8. Hit soft shots with the same feel. Once the rehearsal makes sense, start hitting short shots. Focus on the same sequence: unhinge first, then let rotation carry the club through. Keep the speed low enough that you can still monitor the shape of the follow-through.

What You Should Feel

The most important sensation is that the club is lowering through the wrists, not being thrown by the arms. Many golfers are surprised by how subtle this feels. It is not a violent move. It is simply the proper unhinging of the club as you approach impact.

You should also feel that the club is moving away from you rather than staying trapped close to your body. This is one reason the drill can be so helpful for players who struggle with a cramped, narrow release. As the club unhinges correctly, it gains width and gives your body room to keep turning.

Another key feel is that the club becomes easier to rotate naturally. When the shaft and clubhead are better aligned during the release, you do not have to force the face to square. The club can rotate with less resistance, and that helps you avoid the manipulative hand action that often leads to flipping.

Useful checkpoints

• Through-swing width: Your arms should look extended, not pinned in close to your torso.
• Club below the hands: In the early follow-through, the shaft should appear slightly under your hands rather than riding too high.
• No early throw: The club lowers without the lead wrist cupping or the trail arm straightening too soon.
• Body still turning: The unhinging happens while your body rotates, not as a separate hand-only action.
• Shallower delivery: From down the line, the club should look like it is approaching on a lower, more neutral path.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Confusing ulnar deviation with casting. If you throw the club from the top by straightening the trail arm and dumping the angles, you are not doing this drill correctly.
• Adding a scoop. Ulnar deviation is not the same as bending the lead wrist backward to help the ball into the air. A scooping motion adds loft and usually hurts contact.
• Holding the wrists too long. Some players try to keep the hand position frozen deep into impact. That often leaves the club too high and forces a late compensation.
• Using the shoulders to drop the club. If the club does not lower from the wrists, you may tilt or pull with the shoulders to reach the ball, which can disrupt low point and path.
• Stopping body rotation. The wrists unhinge while the body keeps moving. If your turn stalls, the release will still tend to flip or collapse.
• Trying to hit it hard. This is a feel drill. If you swing at full speed too soon, you will usually lose the sequence you are trying to train.
• Ignoring the follow-through shape. A narrow, high, folded finish often tells you that the release was missing the right unhinging action.

How This Fits Your Swing

This drill is especially useful if you often get into a decent delivery position but still struggle through impact. That pattern usually means the backswing and transition are not your biggest issue. Instead, the missing piece is in the release.

If you tend to scoop or flip, proper ulnar deviation can help because it gives the club a better route to the ball. Without it, you often have to add loft and hand action at the bottom just to make contact. The result is inconsistent strike, too much dynamic loft, and poor control of low point.

If you fight a chicken wing, this drill matters for a similar reason. When the club does not unhinge correctly, the arms often run out of space and fold too soon after impact. But when the club lowers, shallows, and releases with less resistance, your arms can extend farther down the target line before folding.

It also ties directly into path and face control. A club that stays too high in the release often forces compensations that alter path, steepen the strike, or change how the face squares. Ulnar deviation helps place the club in a better delivery window, which supports a more predictable strike.

For many golfers, this is one of the hidden ingredients behind a better-looking follow-through. You may admire players who have that long, wide extension after impact, especially with the driver, and assume it comes only from flexibility or timing. In reality, a lot of that look comes from a release that includes the right amount of unhinging at the right time.

The timing is important. You do not want to wait until well after impact to start unhinging, and you do not want to dump it too early from the top. In this drill, the feel should begin around the delivery zone and continue until you are fully extended in the follow-through. That creates a release that is both efficient and athletic.

As you blend this into your full swing, think of it as a missing link between transition and extension. You are not trying to manufacture a pretty finish. You are improving the motion that creates that finish. When the club unhinges properly and your body keeps rotating, the through-swing becomes wider, the club exits better, and the release starts to clean up on its own.