Some Help from Chris Wood

As many of you now know, Chris Wood finally got his first ET win at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters this weekend. Chris is one of those REALLY tall players at 6' 5", so what he does looks somewhat exaggerated to most of us and it can be a bit tricky to learn from his swing.

But I've got something for all of you lucky readers out there. This video is one of those Mizuno Masterclass mini-lessons -- I've used some of Luke Donald's before -- but I'm not using this one the way it was intended. This one's about swing planes.

I, however, am going to focus on wrist cock, a topic I've written about a couple of times this week already. I'm using this video because it shows my point so well.

Although you can see what I want to show you at several places in this video, you can see it very clearly at the :37 to :39 mark. You'll note that Chris is using the ever-present one-piece takeaway, which he demonstrates at the :37 mark. You'll also note that he is demonstrating an early wrist cock at the :39 mark.



Now THIS IS IMPORTANT. I know it's going to seem obvious but so many players miss it that I need to point this out. When Chris makes his one-piece takeaway, his trailing elbow stays away from his side; and when he cocks his wrists, his trailing elbow moves close to his side.

HERE'S THE OBVIOUS THAT YOU MAY BE MISSING: Wrist cock is caused by bending your trailing elbow. Please note the word "caused." This is a matter of cause and effect. You don't cock your wrists to bend your elbow. NO! You bend your elbow to cock your wrists.

This has several important implications for your swing, and here are the two most important ones:

1. You control when your wrists cock in your swing by choosing when to bend your trailing elbow.
2. If you want to "hold" your wrist cock until later in your downswing, you need to keep your elbow bent until later in your downswing.

I'm not going to beat these into the ground. You, my dear readers, are intelligent people; you can understand why these implications are so important. But I rarely hear instructors state them this clearly. How are you supposed to know them if nobody tells you?

So just to make sure you got it: You bend your trailing elbow to make your wrists cock. That's a large part of the reason you want your grip to be as relaxed as you reasonably can -- so they can cock easily when you bend your elbow.

Any questions?