How to Stop Bowing the Wrist in Golf

A bowed wrist at the top of your golf swing can feel powerful, like you’re loading up for a massive strike. But for most amateur golfers, this position subtly closes the clubface, leading to a relentless hook or a low, smothered pull. This article will show you exactly what a bowed wrist is, why it’s likely causing your inconsistent shots, and provide a clear, step-by-step plan with drills to get your wrist back to a stable, neutral position for squarer impact and straighter shots.

What Exactly is a Bowed Wrist (and Why is it a Problem)?

Before we can fix it, we have to understand it. A bowed wrist isn't some complex biomechanical term, it's a simple physical position. Seeing it and understanding its effects on the clubface is the first step toward correcting it.

Defining the "Bow," the "Cup," and the "Flat"

Let's use your lead hand (the left hand for a right-handed golfer) as the reference point. At the top of your backswing, your wrist can be in one of three main positions:

• Bowed (Flexion): This is when the back of your lead hand is rounded or arched toward your forearm. If you were looking at your wrist at the top, it would look like you're trying to point your knuckles down toward the ground.
• Cupped (Extension): This is the opposite. The back of your lead hand angles away from your forearm, creating a small "cup" or angle in the back of your wrist. This tends to open the clubface.
• Flat (Neutral): This is our goal for most players. The back of your lead hand and your forearm form a relatively straight line. It's a neutral, stable position that helps keep the clubface square at the top of the swing.

While a flat wrist is the ideal checkpoint for consistency, the most destructive of these positions for the average golfer is, by far, the bowed wrist.

"But Dustin Johnson Does It!" The Pro vs. Amateur Dilemma

This is the most common rebuttal, and it's a fair one. Yes, tour pros like Dustin Johnson and Jon Rahm play world-class golf with a distinctly bowed wrist. The difference is that they are elite athletes who possess something most of us don't: outrageously fast and perfectly sequenced hip rotation.

A bowed wrist shuts the clubface. To counteract this, a player must aggressively clear their hips and get their body wide open at impact. This holds the face off and prevents it from snapping shut too early. These pros repeat that move thousands of times a day. Their entire downswing is built to accommodate that bowed position.

The average amateur doesn't have that rotational speed. When you combine a bowed, shut clubface with a normal amateur rotation (or worse, a stalled rotation), the result is almost always a hard hook or a shot pulled dead left. You're simply bringing a closed clubface into the ball without the compensaory moves to square it up.

Why is Your Wrist Bowing? Finding the Root Cause

Your bowed wrist isn't happening randomly. It's an effect, not the initial cause. In golf, the body is an amazing compensator. One small flaw early in the swing often leads to a series of corrections later on. Your wrist is bowing for a reason, and it's usually one of these three culprits.

1. Your Grip is Too "Strong"

The grip is the steering wheel of your golf club. An improper hold is the leading cause of a bowed wrist. A "strong" grip means your lead hand (left for a righty) is rotated too far to the right, away from the target. From your point of view, you might see 3, 4, or even all 5 knuckles of your left hand.

When you take a strong grip and swing to the top, your wrist naturally wants to revert to a flatter, more neutral position. But because your hand started in such a rotated state, this "flattening" motion actually bows your wrist and severely shuts the clubface. Your attempt to feel neutral is actually putting you in a difficult spot.

2. The Takeaway is Incorrect

The first few feet of the backswing set the stage for everything that follows. A common fault is rolling the club excessively to the inside and opening the face on the back way. When the club gets this far inside and the face is pointing to the sky, many golfers make an instinctive compensation: they bow the wrist at the end of the backswing to try and turn that open face back toward a "square" position. It’s a good intention with a bad outcome, trading one problem for another.

3. Your "Engine" Isn't Working (Lack of Body Rotation)

The golf swing is powered by the body's rotation - the turning of your hips and torso. When a player fails to rotate properly and instead relies on just lifting their arms, the swing gets very narrow and disconnected. To try and create a sense of power or "lag" from this weak position, many golfers will manipulate their hands and wrists, often forcefully bowing the lead wrist in an attempt to manufacture power that should come from their body.

Your Action Plan: The Step-by-Step Guide to a Flat Wrist

Fixing the bow isn't about using your wrist muscles to hold a new position. It's about fixing the chain reaction that leads to it. Follow these steps methodically, focusing on how each one feels different from your current swing.

Step 1: Check and Neutralize Your Grip

Let's fix the steering wheel first. A neutral grip is paramount.

• Lead Hand (Left for R-H): Place the club in the fingers of your left hand. When you close your hand, you should be able to look down and comfortably see only two knuckles - the ones on your index and middle fingers. The "V" shape formed by your thumb and index finger should point roughly toward your trail shoulder (your right shoulder).
• Trail Hand (Right for R-H): The palm of your right hand should face your target. A great feel is to place the lifeline in your right palm directly over your left thumb. The "V" on this hand should also point toward your right shoulder or chin.

This will feel strange - perhaps extremely weak - if you've been using a strong grip your a long time. Stick with it. This is the foundation.

Step 2: Master the One-Piece Takeaway

To prevent the club from rolling inside, we need your arms, hands, and chest to move away from the ball together as a single unit.

Imagine a triangle formed by your shoulders and hands at address. For the first two or three feet of the backswing, maintain that triangle. Resist the urge to use only your hands and wrists. Feel like you are pushing the club straight back away from the ball with the turn of your torso. When the club shaft is parallel to the ground, the toe of the club should be pointing up towards the sky, and the clubhead should be directly in line with or slightly outside of your hands.

Two Simple Drills to Ingrain the Flat Wrist Position

Knowing what to do is one thing, feeling it is another. These two drills are excellent for building the muscle memory of a flat wrist at the top.

Drill 1: The Top-of-Swing Pause

This is a brilliant feel-based drill you can do at home with no ball, or at the range. The goal is to visually and physically confirm the new position.

1. Take your new, neutral grip and your normal setup.
2. In super slow motion, perform your backswing, focusing on the one-piece takeaway.
3. When you reach the top of your swing, STOP.
4. Take your right hand off the club and look at your left wrist. Is it bowed? Cupped? Or flat?
5. If it's bowed, use your right hand to gently adjust your left wrist into a flat position. Notice how this changes the clubface - it will likely move from looking at the sky (shut) to being parallel with your lead forearm (square).
6. Hold this flat wrist position for 5-10 seconds. Try to build a memory of what this feels like in your wrist, hand, and forearm.
7. Bring your right hand back onto the club, and slowly swing down and through, trying to maintain that feeling of a stable left wrist.

Repeat this 15-20 times. It's a re-calibration exercise for your hands.

Drill 2: The Split-Hands Drill

This drill immediately exposes any hand and wrist manipulation and forces your body to be the engine of the swing, which promotes a more passive, stable wrist position.

1. Take your normal grip on a mid-iron, but then slide your trail (right) hand about three to four inches down the shaft. You now have a gap between your hands.
2. Start by making very slow, short swings - from your right thigh back to your left thigh.
3. You'll get instant feedback. If you try to roll your wrists on the takeaway or flip them at impact, the club will feel wobbly and uncontrollable. Bowing the wrist feel especially awkward and disconnected here.
4. Focus on using your torso turn to move the club. Feel how quiet and passive your hands and wrists must be to keep the swing synchronized. This drill connects your arms to your body turn and takes the emphasis off your hands. It's a fantastic way to develop a swing that is lead by the big muscles, not the small, Twitchy ones.

Final Thoughts

Changing a years-long swing habit like a bowed wrist takes patience and repetition. Don’t get discouraged. Attacking the root causes - your grip and takeaway - and then using targeted drills to build the new feeling is the only way to make a lasting change. You’re not just stopping the bow, you're building a more stable, reliable, and consistent golf swing from the ground up.

As you work through these new feelings and positions, getting objective feedback is a game-changer. We built Caddie AI to be that on-demand coach you can turn to anytime. If you're on the range and forget the checkpoint for a neutral grip, or you want to know if the drill you're doing looks right, you can ask for immediate, simple guidance. This turns frustrating guesswork into confident practice, so you know the time you're putting in is actually making you a better, more consistent golfer.