The lie: bow your wrist at the top, keep it bowed at impact, and you'll hit it better. Brian Manzella, Golf Digest's #14-ranked teacher in America, calls it one that just doesn't want to die, and says it's definitely not for 99.999% of the people. Sam Osborne is back in his seat and tends to agree. It only takes a few minutes in some old golf books to see this was kicking about 60 or 70 years ago.
First, the terms. Bowed, arched, flexed: it's all the same thing. Nobody says to bow it at address, but there's a sect that wants forward hands, and Brian's read is that they're in the business of selling push draws. Then the backswing: most of the people who teach arched like it laid off, and it turns out there are two ways to arch a wrist. Sam's problem with it: that's a young man's game, with the stress it puts on your body and your wrists. And try it yourself: flex your left wrist, put your left arm above your shoulders, and you'll almost certainly bend your left arm.
Then the confession. In 1993 Brian wanted a student to flatten his wrist. The student didn't want to do it, Brian wouldn't budge, and the man never took another lesson. He went on to hit balls at City Park three or four days a week, cupping his wrist, and became a single-digit handicap of some note. Brian: he was right and I was wrong. And the era when Lynn Blake called Brian's the flattest left wrist in golf? The worst he ever played.
And what's right. Hogan didn't have much forward lean in his prime. Nicklaus was notorious for not having it. Trevino had his wrist arched, hit the ball low, and had to learn to hit it higher. Lee Westwood had a noticeably cupped left wrist at impact and was a fantastic ball striker over decades. What HackMotion and the old AMM graphs show: slightly cupped at the top, moving toward bowed on the way down, then coming out of it into impact and more past impact. Brian's number: 95% of the golfers in history who could beat him learned that sequence completely organically and have no idea that's what they do. Which is why Sam doesn't believe the motorcycle move is going to help a great many people.
Plus where "flat at the top" came from: Dick Aultman and Square-to-Square, the rock and block, and how it took over golf instruction. Why nobody, Trevino included, plays from shut to open. And the discovery Brian says got the least action of anything he's ever put on the internet: bend the elbow at the top and the wrist arches more while the clubface stays relatively the same.
The fix. Work on your grip. Get it under your heel pad, learn a good left hand grip, point the club at the target at the top with the clubface sort of matching your forearm, and hit the crap out of it. You'll do most of the other stuff. Then the homework: a pair of white gloves and a backhand slap.
No More Lies is Brian Manzella and Sam Osborne: the lie, the argument for, the argument against, and what you really ought to be doing.
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