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Point Trail Elbow at Trail Hip

A great way to learn the movements of the trail arm and shoulder is to make sure that the trail elbow points at the trail hip throughout the swing. Players who tend to drag the club inside at the start of the takeaway, get disconnected at the top, or allow for the arms to dominate transition will benefit the most from this drill. With these faults and others, it is easy to notice if the trail elbow starts to get off track; monitoring this will not only develop a great trail arm pattern, but help keep the body and arms in sync as well. If you tend to exhibit the aforementioned swing faults, do not be afraid to start slowly and "chunk" the swing into several checkpoints. You may notice that some positions are easier or harder at first, but this is normal. As you get more comfortable, make sure to add speed and power while continuing to maintain awareness for this relationship. Ultimately, this should help clean up any issues with low point, improve face control, and allow for a more body-driven and passive release of the club.

Tags: Poor Contact, Not Straight Enough, Not Enough Distance, Drill, Intermediate

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This video is pointed trail elbow at your trail hip.

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So many golfers work on trail arm training.

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Either the trail arm kind of pulls behind them in the backswing and take away or at the

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top of the swing that trail elbow starts flying at the top and kind of gets across the line

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or the trail arm tends to get stuck behind and go into more of a flip pattern.

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So this is a video that I used to work on just kind of the global awareness of that

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right arm and specifically it's targeting more the visual of you know where is that elbow

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pointing.

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So some golfers have a hard time feeling all those different movements of the shoulder

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but they can usually gravitate towards this one little visual.

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So if I imagine that I had like a laser beam shooting out of my elbow I want to keep

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that elbow pointing roughly at my right hip or that right ASIS during the entire golf swing.

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So what would happen is if I have more of an arm take away like this you can see that

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that elbow is pointing behind.

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If I have more of a one piece take away this elbow is still pointing at my trail hip.

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Next when I go to set the club so I get to here and then I pull the arms behind.

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Again that elbow is pointing directly behind me or behind my back instead of if I have

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to keep that arm more in front of my pack and let the arm rotate this elbow will be pointing

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more down towards the trail hip.

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When I get into transition if I get in a steep movement again that elbow gets pointing behind

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you'll notice that's the trend.

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It's rare that a golfer will struggle with the elbow pointing too far in front or pointing

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at the left hip.

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What usually happens is at some point the elbow starts pointing behind.

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So some golfer happens in transition where it gets pointing behind kind of like so and

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then it becomes really hard not to have the hands go flying out to the right from way behind

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unless I'm really patient and use much more of a body hit with just some subtle arm extension

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on the way through.

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So in transition I'm keeping that elbow pointing at that trail hip and then through the

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release I'm keeping it pointing at the trail hip.

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Some golfer have it perfect all the way down until here and then that arm tends to fly

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away and they get more of kind of a really extreme end out which can cause shanking or

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load a high so topping it can cause the club face to get really closed and hit shots

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way over there to the left.

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Where if I keep that arm in a little bit more of external rotation then when I come

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through this elbow is still pointing closer to the trail hip instead of pointing behind

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me or out towards that camera or towards the target line.

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So if you're working on your right arm at all whether it be single arm drills or whether

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it be nine to three or full swings you can use a simple visual of keeping that elbow pointing

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at that trail hip and see what that does as far as helping you use more of your hips,

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helping you use more of your core as opposed to dominating the arm with pulling that elbow

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too much behind.

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This can be a problem for low point control or face control with primarily your full swing.

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Short game it's less of an issue to get that arm behind because that's going to be dominated.

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That motion is going to be dominated more by the shoulders and less by the legs.

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So if you're struggling with contact and ball play to the full swing and you're working

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on your trail arm mechanics with a simple little visual helps you make your practice drills

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a little bit more specific or a little bit more focused on the key movement.

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So in demonstration you can either do just regular swings really just focusing on the location

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or you can do more of a stop kind of checkpoint drills.

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You're going to do the tip.

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It's pointed at the hip, pointed at the hip, pointed at the hip, pointed at the hip, pointed

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at the hip and I can basically work my way through little stop or checkpoints making sure

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that it's pointed at the hip.

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It's a little frustrating at first but it will make you aware of the timing of when you get

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off which will hopefully make it that much more focused for where you need to train the

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trail arm awareness in your swing.

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