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especially for high-handicap women golfers

Most women golfers are extremely conscious of the importance of body action in the golf shot but, probably because they have not had baseball training as many men have, they tend to ignore the importance of hand action. Actually, since the hands are the only part of the body to touch the club, they are superimportant both in starting the swing and controlling it throughout.

Your hands should set the club head in motion with a very gradual wrist cock and at the same time a slight turn of the left wrist. Remember this is a turn—not a roll or a pronation. Women, as well as men, tend to take the club back in an awkward stiff-wristed way which not only hoods the club (shuts the face) but which disastrously restricts the pivot.

The path of the club head should not be in a straight line away from the ball but, because of the slight turn of the left wrist, should angle back, following the arc the left hand naturally moves in as the body makes its accompanying turn. This correct wrist action will be especially helpful also in providing an inside-out path to your downswing. That, as you know, is the absolute essential of the straight, correctly struck golf shot.

from HELEN DETTWEILER, Thunderbird Country Club, Palm Springs, Calif.

ILLUSTRATION

At right: the correct wrist turn

ILLUSTRATION

ILLUSTRATION

Incorrect: stiff wrists hood club

TWO PHOTOS

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