Wrist Action Breakthrough

Just in case you didn’t know, there is not supposed to be ANY wrist action in putting.

This sounds great in theory and I fully support this, but I have struggled with it through all four versions of Golf I that I have taken.

“Don’t break your wrists on a putt,” said my first golf teacher.

Ok. Good idea. I’ll stop that now.

“Your wrists are still bending,” he said while watching me miss the putt once again.

Here is the problem—my parents spent money on violin lessons. In these lessons, dedicated teachers spent a lot of time training me to move my wrists in particular ways. Especially that right wrist that controls the bow—it has to be loose and fluid or the whole enterprise sounds pretty scary.

For evidence of these scary sounds, we have family stories of my dog Flicka, who stood outside the door of the room where they stowed me for my practice sessions and howled her head off every time I touched the bow to a violin string.

Eventually, I learned to move that right wrist and somewhat soothe the agony of our long-suffering family pet. Now it seems that those lessons paid off to improve my violin playing, but didn’t do much for my golf game.

Coach K to the rescue once again. Watching me struggle on the putting green, he stopped me, took the putter away, and showed me how to reverse my hands on a putting grip. In other words, my left wrist is closer to the ground and controls the swing of the club.

“Try this,” he said.

I tried it. It felt weird. But after a few attempts, VIOLA (sic)(intended)! The ball started going into the hole more consistently. My wrists held tight on the putter.

Sometimes doing things backwards is best.