This section is from the book "The Golf Swing, The Ernest Jones Method", by Daryn Hammond. Also available from Amazon: The golf swing, the Ernest Jones method.
"I draw it (the club) back close to the ground with my wrists. ... I turn the face away from the ball with my wrists. This turning of the wrists* imparts greater speed to the club-head, and is the great secret of long driving. To master this turn of the wrists is to add many yards to the long game. . . . After my arms have been allowed to follow through a reasonable distance I turn my wrists and finish the stroke over the left shoulder." - Jerome D. Travers.
"Now we have seen the operation as it should be - the inward turn of the left wrist. . . .
* Any "turning" is, or course, a turning of the forearm, not of the wrists.
The left wrist has not turned sufficiently."- Vardon.
"The first movement must come from the wrists. They and they alone start the head of the club moving back from the ball.
"The initiative in bringing down the club is taken by the left wrist. ... At this point - about a couple of feet from the ball - there should be some tightening up of the wrists. . . . I am certainly one of those who believe that the work done by the wrists at this point has a lot to do with the making of the drive. . . ."- Braid.
"The movement of the upward swing must be begun entirely with the wrists . . . the majority of beginners, instead of letting their wrists do the work ... It is the left wrist begins the downward swing. ... At that moment (when the head of the club is separated from the ball by a space of twenty inches or thereabouts) the two wrists come into play." - Arnaud Massy.
Figs. 30 and 37. - Two movements of the wrist joint.
"Bring it (the club-head) behind the ball with a fairly flat swing, and give it a little flick with the wrists so as to introduce plenty of vim.
"When the club is about eighteen inches from the ball I hit with the back of the left hand, and at the same time put in that right wrist flick which counts for so much." - Herd.
"The most notable changes with regard to the swing are . . . the wrists come much more into the stroke, the body much less. . . . We note the strong flexion * of the wrists. ... It is very nice to be able to drive a ball two hundred yards with this power of fingers and this turning of the wrists. . . . Taylor, though he uses his wrists freely, has not the Vardon flex or flick, but he gets there just as well with his forearm work. . . ." - John L. Low.
"The left wrist takes the club back ... If the left wrist is not turned as it should be . . . This turn of the left wrist is a gradual movement. The club-head should meet the ball, the wrists having, in bringing the club down, accelerated the speed at the moment of contact. ... If control of the club is not lost, leverage from the wrists is so much more easily acquired." - J. H. Taylor.
* Here used in its popular sense.
"The object of this book is to show that the mechanism of the golf swing depends on forearm rather than wrist action. Indeed, apart from putting, it will be contended that there is no such thing as a pure wrist shot in the whole domain of golf.
"The exposition, as well as the performance, of the golf swing is a comparatively simple matter, provided the action of the wrist-joints can be excluded from the movement.
"The wrist-joint, so far from coming into play, is passively rotated backwards and forwards en bloc with the hand and forearms.
"The pace and power of the club-head at the moment of impact are greatly increased by the incipient pronation of the right handwhich contributes the whip-like snap to the movement . . . it is a pure forearm action which takes command of the wrist and hand together.
Fig. 38. - Straight position.
"At the moment of impact the sudden tightening up of the muscles of the forearm brings the right hand and forearm from the position of slight supination to the position midway between pronation and supination; and this movement, in conjunction with the straightening out and extension of the right elbow, imparts the characteristic flick to the club-head.', - Burn ham Hare in "The Golfing Swing."
"First and foremost, and one might almost say simply and solely, there is in proper manipulation the feeling that one is hitting the ball by means of the wrists.
"Take thought only of smiting the ball as with the wrist, and the proper twist or roll, the turn of the right hand over the left at the impact, follows automatically.
"Let everything be contributory to what is called and felt to be wrist action . . . forearm action though it be in reality.
"Let the gentle reader be warned against any conscious effort to twist or roll his forearms.
"It is very hard * for the average man to believe that the feeling of wrist action which produces forearm action is a central feature of good golf action." - R. S. Weir, Golf Illustrated, March, 1918.
It will thus be seen that according to Messrs. Braid, Taylor, Vardon, Travers, and Low, and, indeed, ninety-nine first-class golfers out of a hundred, the essence of the shot is to get the wrists into it; that according to "Burnham Hare" (who may be taken as fairly representing the anatomical school) the essence of the shot is to keep the wrists out of it; and that according to Mr. R. S. Weir, an engaging exponent of the humanistic compromise, the essence of the shot is to get the forearms into it by aiming at getting the wrists into it. In a word, Messrs. Braid and Co. say the action is a wrist action, so work the wrists; Messrs. Hare and Co. say the action is a forearm action, so work anything but the wrists; while Messrs. Weir and Co. say the action is a forearm action, so work the wrists.
 
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