Question 20

Dear Michael,

The position that you are referring to is that point where the golf club is parallel to the ground and parallel down the target line. The left arm is fully extended, the right elbow is bent and positioned in front of the hip. The lower body has moved left into the forward knee and bent. The hands are positioned directly in front of the right thigh or in extreme positions directly over the golf ball. Your nose will be directly over your right knee and your right shoulder will be considerably lower then your left. You will have the appearance of your body being counter balanced By the upper body facing the golf ball with the head over the right knee and hips toward the left forward foot and left knee bent over the big toe of the left foot.

Now that every one understands the 6/100th of a second before impact your question can be answered but not simply. This action happens so fast that there is seldom, if ever, any conscious thought to contract the flexors. The flexor carpi ulnaris and the flexor carpi radialis along with the palmaris longus contract. This action does not just happen naturally because of the nerve endings in the muscles themselves. The nerve endings in the muscles, called proprioceptors, instruct the body part that has a joint angle and torque on it to straighten out. What this means is that as soon as you put a joint angle in your swing which you must do to get the golf club in to the right position at the top of the swing, your proprioceptors scream for you to straighten out the angle. Therefore, you must train your self to bring the golf club down into this 6/100th of a second position, and train yourself to make a straight line single axis flex to the ball.

Conversely if you try to hold this angle for as long as you can, depending upon your strength and arm speed, you can easily move too far forward and never release the club at all. The result is a pushed shot to the right that lacks distance, or if you are a rotator a huge slice. The impact-backwards drills shown on my video trains your right wrist and arm along with your left wrist and arm to perform this action repeatedly and masterfully. These drills are done separately, first with the right hand only, and then with both hands so that the left hand does not interfere with the right hand. Then and only then, can you release the club for dead straight ball flight and reach that 6/100th of a second properly. Once you have trained the release then you may hold your wrist position until you reach the parallel down the target line position. There have been many different theories on keeping and holding this position before you release the golf club. Moe Norman likes to do what he calls down loading. This is when Moe, at the start of the down swing, attempts to create a deeper more extended position of the right wrist.

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