Pronation in the Golf Swing - Supination, Too

Golfers who like to go into technical matters concerning the golf swing love to talk about wrist cock. That's fairly simple concept to understand. The right wrist bends in the direction of the right thumb, and the left wrist hinges backward in the direction of the forearm. That's all there is to wrist cock. Then they hear about pronation and supination, and the plot thickens.

These terms are easy to understand, too. Hold one arm straight out in front of you with your thumb up. Now rotate your arm so the palm faces down. You just pronated your hand. Go back to thumb up and turn your arm so the palm faces the sky. You've just supinated your hand (first syllable rhymes with "soup").

Getting this into the golf swing is trickier, but necessary if you want to change from someone who just hits the ball around the course, into being a real golfer.




Ben Hogan, in his book, Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf, talked about supinating the right hand at impact. (He said "left," but we're reversing this for you.) This is seen when the right wrist is bowed out, and not arced inward. A supinated right wrist keeps the club accelerating, keeps the clubface traveling directly at the ball, and ensures a clean hit. All the good things that can happen at impact are encouraged.

The trouble is, this is fairly difficult for amateurs to learn how to do. It involves leading the club into the ball with the right hand, but you want to hit the ball with your left hand. Learning to switch this tendency around takes practice time and skill missing for most recreational golfers. Fortunately, there is a way.

If the right hand supinates, the left hand pronates. It has to, and it is fairly easy to learn how to pronate the left hand, which, in reverse, leads to the right hand being supinated. That way is to hit wedges -- lots of wedges. Hundreds of wedges.

When you hit that wedge, say it's a 75-yard shot with your gap wedge, concentrate on your left palm staying down as if it were hitting down on top of the ball. Johnny Miller calls this covering the ball. That's a wonderful image. What should happen is that the left palm will face forward at impact, and turn down immediately following contact. Your hands will turn over so the back of the left hand is parallel to the line of flight and the clubface points behind you, as shown in this picture.

The result will be that the right wrist at least stays straight at impact, which is perfectly fine and within the capability of most recreational golfers. Getting the right wrist to bow out is a bonus, but if you can't get to that point, don't worry.

Here's your challenge. Go to the range and get a bucket of 100 balls. Warm up with ten of them, maybe hitting a 7-iron, and then hit 80 pitches of varying lengths. Work on nothing in your pitches but pronating your left wrist. Then pick up your 7-iron again and hit a few shots with your new habit.

Notes on learning this technique:

(1) This is a difficult move to learn and it will take a lot of practice to install it in your swing. Start with your 9-iron, and when you are hitting good shots, move up to your 8-iron. Learn this technique one club at a time.

(2) Start your practice session with short swings, taking your hands back no further than hip height. Gradually lengthen your swing as you make good contact and hit good shots, but if you lose your touch, go all the way back to the start.


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