What Happens if You Don't Release the Golf Club?

Failing to release the golf club costs you power, accuracy, and solid contact, often resulting in that weak, high slice that every golfer dreads. A proper release isn't some complex, forced wrist manipulation, it’s the natural, athletic unhinging of the club through impact powered by a good swing sequence. This guide will clarify what a release actually is, why you might be struggling to do it, and provide simple, actionable drills to help you finally find that effortless power and a straighter ball flight.

What "Releasing the Club" Actually Means

Let's clear up one of the most misunderstood concepts in golf. "Releasing the club" isn't an active, timed flip of the wrists. Instead, think of it as the natural byproduct of a good golf swing. It's the moment when the momentum you've built up in the backswing is quite literally 'released' into the ball. Physically, this means your forearms and hands rotate naturally through the impact zone, allowing the clubface to move from an open position on the downswing to square at the ball, and then to a closed position in the follow-through.

Imagine skipping a stone across a pond. You wouldn't keep your wrist locked and rigid, would you? Of course not. To get that stone to zip across the water, your arm and wrist naturally release at the bottom of your throw. It’s the same basic athletic motion in golf. Resisting this natural rotation is what gets so many amateur golfers in trouble. You're not actively trying to 'flip' it, you're simply allowing the rotation to happen as your body unwinds toward the target.

The Unwanted Results: What Happens When You Don't Release

When you hold on and prevent this natural rotation, your golf swing suffers in very predictable ways. It's the root cause of many of the most frustrating shots in golf.

• The Destructive Slice or Push-Fade: This is the number one symptom. By holding the clubface open through impact - preventing it from squaring up - you swipe across the golf ball from out to in. This imparts a massive amount of sidespin, sending the ball curving weakly to the right (for a right-handed golfer). The ball starts high and has no penetrating power.
• Chronic Thin and Fat Shots: A failed release often goes hand-in-hand with poor swing sequence, particularly a scooping motion. In an attempt to "lift" the ball into the air, players stall their body rotation and flip at the ball with their hands. This moves the low point of the swing behind the ball, leading to chunks, or raises the low point too much, resulting in thinly struck shots that shoot across the green.
• The Dreaded Shank: When the clubface remains wide open for too long, the club's hosel gets dangerously close to connecting with the ball. A complete failure to rotate the face can lead to that devastating shank shot, where the ball shoots directly to the right off the hosel.
• Massive Loss of Power and Distance: Holding on strangles your swing. You're effectively putting the brakes on just before the most critical moment. A square clubface at impact is the most efficient transfer of energy. An open face is like hitting the ball with a glorified spatula - it glances off instead of being compressed, robbing you of yardage you didn't even know you had.

Why Most Golfers Struggle to Release the Club

Understanding why you hold on is the first step to fixing the problem. It rarely occurs in a vacuum and is usually a symptom of a deeper issue in your setup or swing motion. Here are the most common culprits:

1. The "Steering" Mentality

This is probably the biggest cause. Many golfers instinctively try to guide or "steer" the clubhead to the ball and then toward the target, believing this is how you hit a straight shot. This conscious effort creates tension in the arms and wrists, preventing gravity and momentum from doing their job. A good golf swing feels more like a "whoosh" than a "hit." You have to trust that if your body rotates correctly, the club will do what it needs to do.

2. Poor Grip

As covered in our simple guide to holding the club, your grip is the steering wheel. If your top hand (the left hand for a righty) is turned too far under the club in a "weak" position, it puts your wrist in a difficult spot. From here, it’s physically harder to rotate the forearms and square the face. You're starting handcuffed. A more "neutral" grip, where you can see the top two knuckles of your lead hand, allows your arms and wrists to rotate much more freely and naturally.

3. Bad Body Sequence (The "Over the Top" Move)

A failed release is often a golfer's desperate attempt to save a shot that started incorrectly. The correct downswing sequence starts from the ground up: hips turning, followed by the torso, then the arms, and finally the club. Many amateurs start the downswing an with aggressive lunge of the shoulders and arms. This throws the club "over the top" of the proper swing plane. From that position, if you were to release the club naturally, you’d hit a massive pull-hook to the left. So, your brain subconsciously holds the face open to try and get the ball back toward the target, resulting in weak slice.

4. The Infamous "Chicken Wing"

This is when your lead elbow (left elbow for a righty) separates from your body and bends outwards immediately after impact. It’s a classic look that signals a stalled body rotation. When the body stops turning, the arms have nowhere to go but up and away from the torso. This action completely blocks any chance of a natural release, as the arms can't extend toward the target. You have to keep turning your chest through the shot to give your arms room to swing and release properly.

The Fix: Drills and Feels to Master the Release

Enough with the problems. Let's fix this. A good release is a feeling, and these drills are designed to help you discover it. You don't need to overthink it, you just need to train your body to do what feels natural and athletic.

Drill 1: The Split-Hands Drill

This is a fantastic drill for feeling how your arms and hands are supposed to work together.

1. Grip the club normally with your top hand.
2. Slide your bottom hand down the shaft about 6-8 inches, leaving a big gap between your hands.
3. Make slow, smooth half-swings.
4. As you swing through the impact area, you will feel the clubhead wanting to "overtake" your hands. Your trail forearm (right forearm) will naturally rotate over your lead forearm (left forearm). Because your hands are separated, this motion becomes much more obvious. It's the release in action! Hit a few half-shots this way to ingrain the feeling of the clubhead passing the hands through impact.

Drill 2: The 9-to-3 Swing

This drill isolates the impact zone, where the release happens, and eliminates other complicating thoughts.

1. Take your normal setup.
2. Make a short backswing, only taking the club back until your lead arm is parallel to the ground (the 9 o'clock position).
3. From here, swing through, rotating your body towards the target and finishing when your arms are parallel to the ground in your follow-through (the 3 o'clock position).
4. The key is to pay attention to your clubface. Through impact, you should feel your arms rotate. In the finish position, look at your clubface. The toe of the club should be pointing directly up at the sky. If it's still pointing open toward the right, you held on. This drill trains the correct rotation in manageable pieces.

Focus on This Feeling: Toss a Ball Underhanded

If you get bound up in technical thoughts, just grab a golf ball and stand sideways. Now, toss the ball underhanded toward a target about 15 yards away. Pay attention to how your hand works. Did you lock your wrist and try to push the ball there? No, you let your forearm and wrist naturally unhinge and 'release' towards the target. That's the feeling you want in your golf swing. It’s passive, not active. It’s an uncoiling, not a forced snap.

Final Thoughts

True release in a golf swing is a sign that everything else is working correctly. It is not an isolated move but the beautiful, powerful outcome of a good grip, proper setup, and correct body sequencing. By training your body to stop steering and start rotating, you allow the club to do its job, unleashing a powerful and accurate strike without any extra effort.

Diagnosing your own swing faults on the range can feel like a guessing game. If you're not sure whether a failed release, an over-the-top move, or even a bad grip is the real cause of your slice, it’s hard to know what to practice. We built Caddie AI to take the uncertainty out of a golf improvement. With our real-time feedback and analysis, you can get an expert opinion on your swing right from your phone, helping you pinpoint the real issue and start working on the fix that will actually lower your scores.