Left Wrist Position at the Top: 86 Major Champions

With seemingly more players winning on the PGA Tour with flat to bowed left wrist angles at the top I thought it would be interesting to go through my accumulated model swings to see how all the major winners I have film of looked at that position. I counted 86 major champions (I stuck to only the men) from Bobby Jones and Gene Sarazen up to Collin Morikawa and Bryson DeChambeau. Here is what I found. One note of importance, and I will go over this in the video, is my opinion of what these categories of wrist positions look like. I have broken them down into 7 groups, and the differences between them can be subtle (I’m sure there will be debate as to my choices). The groupings are as such:

1. Cupped
2. Neutral/cupped
3. Neutral
4. Neutral/Flat
5. Flat
6. Flat/Bowed
7. Bowed

My good friend Jeff Mann explained to me that there are two types of flat wrists: a geometrically flat wrist, and an anatomically flat wrist. If you hold your left forearm straight up in front of you and stretch your fingers out your wrist will be geometrically flat. If you hold your forearm up the same way and make a fist where your fingers curl in, your wrist will be anatomically flat, which mean it will appear to have a bit of cup, or extension. Thus, a cupped wrist will be one that has added extension. A neutral/cupped wrist will have some, but less extension, a neutral wrist no extra extension (like the hand making a fist), the neutral flat wrist would be a fist slightly moved toward flexion (I have chosen this position as the middle ground), the flat wrist will be geometrically flat like the hand with the stretched out fingers, the flat/bowed wrist will edge into flexion, and the bowed wrist will have a lot of flexion. So here is what I came up with:

1. Cupped- 13
2. Neutral/Cupped- 35
3. Neutral- 15
4. Neutral/flat- 8
5. Flat- 3
6. Flat/Bowed- 7
7. Bowed-4

So, let’s start with the bowed type wrist and go through them listing the players I have in the category:

-Bowed: Trevino, Lehman, Morikawa and Dustin Johnson
-Flat/Bowed: J Thomas, Koepka, McDowell, Palmer, Spieth, Watson, Weiskopf
-Flat: Furyk, Mcilroy, Frost
-Neutral/Flat: Charles, Duval, Lema, Olazabal, O’Meara, Player, Woods, Woodland
-Neutral: Scott, Boros, Bubba, Garcia, Harrington, Day, Nicklaus, Stewart, Snead, Sutton, Thomson, Goosen, Strange, Toms, Tway, DeChambeau
-Neutral/Cupped: Bradley, Calcavecchia, Love, Dufner, Els, Finch, Floyd, Hogan, Kaymer, Kite, Daly, Langer, Leonard, Littler, Mickelson, Miller, Immelman, Molinari, Nelson, Norman, Oosthuezin, Price, Rose, Lyle, Ballesteros, Sluman, Stadler, Ogilvy, Hagen, Venturi, Singh, Walker, Weir, Yang, Z Johnson
-Cupped: Azinger, Bolt, Cink, Couples, Devicenzo, Elkington, Cabrera, Jones, Reed, Sarazen, Schwartzel, Stenson, W. Simpson,

It’s important to remember that these are the major winners for whom I have video. It’s also important to remember that I have not taken into consideration grip type or clubface angle at the top of the swing (the two obviously go together). I just wanted to make an observation, and you can make of it what you will.