Instruction blog: Using Mickelson's Hinge and Hold

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Phil Mickelson is able to use a Hinge and Hold shot from thick rough.

After his win at the World Golf Championships-CA Championship at Doral, Phil Mickelson is no longer the greatest player to never win a World Golf Championship (for those of you who were keeping track). With solid wedge play and a very hot putter, Mickelson took full advantage of one of his best ball striking weeks to earn the title.

Listen to Travis Fulton

PGA TOUR Golf Academy's Travis Fulton breaks down the keys to Phil Mickelson's win on the PGA TOUR Network (XM 146, SIRIUS 209). Click to listen

In addition to Mickelson, we were also treated to some additional fine golf by rising star Nick Watney. Watney, who won earlier this year at the Buick Invitational, miss a playoff by an inch after his putt on the 72nd hole stopped short of the hole.

This win now moves Lefty into No. 2 into the Official World Golf Rankings behind Tiger Woods. This is the narrowest spread between Phil and Tiger in a long time and sets the stage for a season-long battle between the two players.

What Can We Learn
In April, Phil Mickelson will release his book titled, Secrets of the Short Game. After watching his incredible play around the greens at Doral, this may be a very thick volume. At the TOUR Academies, a common request is "How do I hit the big flop shot like Phil?" The flop shot, of course, is a fun shot when you can pull it off as Phil, and other PGA TOUR players make it look easy on television. Although we saw a few high-spinning wedges this week from Phil, it was the lower and more conservative shot that Phil really put to use to save par after par all week.

On Thursday, Mickelson holed out from just off the green on both the 17th and 18th holes to finish his round. Both situations forced Mickelson to pitch the ball a short distance at a medium trajectory and allow for some roll. I have heard Mickelson refer to these shots as a "Hinge and Hold." It's called "Hinge and Hold" because the backswing calls for an immediate hinging of the wrists and the downswing demands holding the angles through impact.

The neat thing about a Hinge and Hold is that you can hit it from the fairway like Phil did on the 17th, or the rough as he did on the 18th. When learning to hit this shot like Phil Mickelson, there are three things to focus on.

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Mickelson's brilliant short game was firing on all cylinders at Doral.

1. Preset your impact position. Set-up in a manner that mimics the proper impact position. Here is how Mickelson pre-sets his impact position at address:

A. Club shaft forward, so the shaft is in line with the lead forearm.
B. Trailing wrist is bent, and the lead wrist is flat.
C. Weight forward, with 60 percent of the weight on the lead foot.

2. Hinge
During the backswing, hinge the wrists immediately. A wrist hinge allows the clubhead to work up the plane so it can then strike down on the ball at impact. A good checkpoint is when the club shaft reaches parallel to the ground, it should also be parallel to your stance line. This will allow the clubhead to be in line with the hands and also slightly above the hands. A proper wrist hinge makes this shot much easier and allows the shot to be played from any type of lie.

The most common error during the backswing is when amateurs take the clubhead too far to the inside. With the clubhead off plane on such a short motion, it is difficult to recover from this critical error leading to inconsistent results.

3. Hold
With the proper wrist hinge, you now have the luxury of holding these angles until post-impact. A key with this shot is to maintain the bend in the trail wrist until impact. One of the most common errors is releasing the bend in the trail wrist too soon disrupting the proper club shaft angle at impact.

Mickelson does a great job on the downswing delaying the release of the clubhead by keeping the trail wrist bent. This allows the shaft to return back to impact angled forward reestablishing its relationship to the lead forearm. With the proper impact position in place, Mickelson sustains this dynamic all the way to his abbreviated finish by rotating his upper body towards the target.

The Hinge and Hold is a very useful shot and nobody is better at it than Phil Mickelson. Not only can this shot help your short game, it is a great building block to a better full swing as well. At the TOUR Academies, we often use the Hinge and Hold to help train the proper impact conditions before building the swing to its full motion.

Just Because
Let me be the first to welcome everyone to the beginning of the greatest tournament in sport -- the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. I can hear the music now, "One shining moment, I reached for the sky, One shining moment...."

Alright, you get it. As you know -- unless you are on an expedition to Antarctica to study the eating habits of penguins -- the brackets were set on Sunday, millions of office pools are being completed and the work week unofficially ends this Thursday afternoon.

This year I am looking to improve upon my second-to-last place finish in last year's company pool. Fortunately, one of my friend's girlfriend thought it was a football tournament, which spared me a last place finish. Nevertheless, I feel more confident this year and plan to pick teams with no personal emotion or West Coast bias. So, allow me to reveal to you this year's Final Four:

Midwest Region: Arizona
East Region: UCLA
West Region: Washington
South Region: Gonzaga

Everybody now: "One shining moment, you were willing to try -- One shining moment."

Go Zags!