By: Alan B on April 23, 2022, 2:33 p.m.
Hi Tyler,
I was a little confused about the trail arm after watching the trail elbow wedge swing video. It seems that for the distance wedges you want to straighten the trail elbow. However, in the finesse swing you want to keep the elbow bent except for specialty shots, like the low launch, high spin shot. Is this correct?
Thank you,
Alan
By: Tyler F on April 24, 2022, 8:34 p.m.
Hi Alan,
With the distance wedge, it's hard to make a backswing higher than belly button height without having any trail arm bend. To handle that extra arm bend in the backswing, most golfers will straighten the arm early in the downswing as part of a casting motion. It might not feel like a dominant move but holding on to the arm bend too much usually causes too much axis tilt and poor contact. Since the finesse wedge is a shorter backswing and the arm doesn't bend as much, it's much easier to feel like the arm just stays bent during the whole motion.
In either case, though, you don't want a rapidly straightening trail arm through impact. It's better to have it feel more consistent through impact and the power source coming from the body rotation rather than a punchy arm extension.
