Fix Your Follow Through with Longer Unhinge Drill

If your follow-through tends to look cramped, rolled over, or overly bent, this drill can clean it up fast. The longer unhinge drill teaches you to keep the club unhinged a little longer after impact instead of letting it rehinge upward too soon. That small change can improve your width, reduce a scoopy or flippy release, and help eliminate the chicken-wing look that often shows up when the club passes your hands too quickly. It also tends to improve low-point control, which is why this drill is especially useful if you struggle with heavy contact or a hit-at-it motion through the ball.

How the Drill Works

Many golfers lose structure in the follow-through because the club starts working upward too early. When that happens, the wrists rehinge quickly, the lead arm narrows, and the clubhead can overtake the hands in a way that looks like a flip. On video, this often shows up as bent arms, a rolled-over clubface, or a follow-through that lacks width.

The goal of this drill is to train a different pattern: keep the club unhinged longer through and after impact. In simple terms, you want the club to feel like it stays “down the line” and extended for longer before it folds upward. That does not mean you hold the face off or freeze your wrists. It means you delay the upward rehinge so the club can release with more width and better structure.

The feel is usually centered in the lead wrist, especially for a right-handed golfer. You want to sense that the lead wrist stays unhinged through the early follow-through, with just enough natural rotation and extension to let the club release without immediately popping upward. Some players feel this better in the trail wrist, but the pattern is the same either way.

When you do it correctly, two things usually improve:

From a face-on view, your arms look wider and less collapsed.
From a down-the-line view, the club exits more left with the lead arm staying more connected to the shaft plane instead of folding into a chicken wing.

This is not a manipulation drill for fancy release mechanics. It is a practical way to stop the club from jumping upward too early and to encourage your body rotation to carry the motion through.

Step-by-Step

Start without a ball and shorten the motion. Begin with a small 9-to-3 swing. That means the club travels back to roughly waist height and through to roughly waist height. A short motion makes it much easier to feel what the wrists and arms are doing.
Set the club into an unhinged lead-wrist position. For a right-handed golfer, feel as if your left wrist stays unhinged as the club moves through impact. Don’t worry yet about a lot of forearm roll. The first objective is simply to stop the club from rehinging upward too quickly.
Move through impact and keep the club “down” longer. As you swing through, feel like the clubhead does not immediately shoot upward. Instead, it stays lower and extends out in front of you for longer. You are resisting the urge for the shaft to fold up right after contact.
Allow a small release, but not an early rehinge. This is important. You are not trying to lock the wrists. If you do nothing at all, the motion becomes stiff and artificial. Let the club release naturally, but feel that it releases while staying longer. In other words, it can rotate some, but it should not instantly hinge upward.
Match the longer unhinge with chest rotation. As you hold that wider shape, your chest and shoulders need to keep turning. If your body stalls, the club will want to pass your hands and flip. The rotation is what supports the longer, wider exit.
Swing to a waist-high follow-through. In your 9-to-3 rehearsal, try to keep the club unhinged until the shaft reaches the follow-through position around waist height. You should feel that the club stays extended and relatively low before it finally folds upward later.
Check your arm structure. At the end of the drill motion, your lead arm should look wider and less collapsed. If the lead elbow is already bending sharply and the club is wrapping around your body too soon, you likely lost the unhinged feel early.
Add slow-motion shots. Once the rehearsal makes sense, hit soft shots at reduced speed. Keep the same intention: unhinged longer, club staying down longer, chest turning through. Don’t rush to full speed until the motion starts to look and feel organized.
Gradually lengthen the swing. As you move toward a fuller motion, preserve the same release pattern. The club should still feel as if it stays down and extends before it folds up. The bigger swing should not bring back the old flip.
Use video if possible. A face-on and down-the-line check can be very helpful. Look for more width, less lead-arm collapse, and a cleaner exit instead of a roll-over or chicken-wing finish.

What You Should Feel

This drill is subtle, so the right sensations matter. Here are the key feels and checkpoints you want:

The club stays down longer after impact. It should not feel like it bounces upward immediately.
Your lead wrist stays unhinged longer. For many golfers, this is the main feel that changes the follow-through.
The release happens without a flip. The club can still rotate and release, but it should not rapidly overtake the hands.
Your lead arm feels longer and wider. Instead of collapsing inward, it extends through the strike.
Your chest keeps turning. The body rotation helps carry the club through so the arms do not have to rescue the motion.
The club exits left with structure. From down the line, the club should work around with the body rather than popping out and up too early.
Contact feels shallower and less diggy. If you tend to stick the club in the ground, this drill often helps widen the bottom of the swing.

Some golfers also notice an unusual sensation in the trail hand. If you are used to rehinging very early, keeping the lead side down longer can make it feel as if the trail wrist throws slightly through the ball. That can be a normal byproduct of the new pattern. The key is to judge it by the overall structure: wider arms, less flip, better ground contact.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Locking the wrists completely. The goal is not to freeze the club. You still need a natural release; you are simply delaying the upward rehinge.
Holding the face open. Taking too much rotation out can create a blocked, weak shot. Let the club release naturally while keeping it extended longer.
Stopping your body rotation. If your chest stalls, the hands and club will take over and the flip returns.
Trying it first at full speed. This is a feel-based drill. Start with rehearsals and short swings so you can actually sense the change.
Confusing width with tension. A wider follow-through should come from sequence and structure, not from stiff arms.
Letting the lead elbow fold immediately. If the elbow bends too soon, the chicken-wing look usually returns.
Forcing excessive forearm roll. Too much roll can make the club look turned over and narrow even if you intended to stay wide.
Ignoring low-point feedback. If you still hit heavy shots, chances are the club is rehinging too soon or your body is slowing down through impact.

How This Fits Your Swing

This drill matters because the follow-through is often a window into what happened through impact. If your finish is narrow, bent, or rolled over, the problem is usually not just cosmetic. It often points to a release pattern where the clubhead passes too quickly, the body stalls, or the wrists get overly active at the bottom.

By learning to unhinge longer, you improve more than just your finish position. You also influence:

Release timing — the club does not dump all its speed too early.
Ground contact — a longer, wider release often creates a shallower strike.
Face control — less frantic hand action usually means more predictable clubface behavior.
Arm structure — the lead arm can stay more extended instead of breaking down into a chicken wing.
Body-driven motion — you rely more on rotation and less on hand throw.

This is especially useful if you fit one of these patterns:

You look good approaching impact, but then stall and flip.
You tend to scoop the ball and add too much wrist action through the bottom.
Your follow-through has a rolled-over look.
Your lead arm gets narrow quickly and produces a chicken wing.
You struggle with heavy contact or a digging strike.

Think of this drill as a bridge between impact and finish. It teaches you to keep the club moving through the ball with width and structure instead of letting it fold up and pass too soon. If you can own that pattern in a 9-to-3 swing first, it becomes much easier to build a full swing that looks cleaner, feels more connected, and produces more reliable contact.

In short, if your follow-through feels cramped or overly handsy, this is a very effective fix. Keep the club unhinged longer, let it release without jumping upward, and keep your chest moving. That combination is often enough to transform both the look of your finish and the quality of your strike.