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Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America. Meet your new instructor.

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Trail Arm Stop Sign

The trail arm is one of the big keys to a solid release. Many golfers who struggle with a flip do so because of their trail arm release pattern. Two main issues the trail arm creates are early trail wrist flexion and early internal rotaiton of the shoulder. This drill helps train both aspects.

Tags: Poor Contact, Chicken Wing, Iron, Follow Through, Release, Drill, Intermediate

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This drill is trail arm stop sign. So I've got the disk catcher out in this time of just

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taped a foam noodle to it so we can kind of have a better idea of exactly where it's

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pointing. What I tend to see that a lot of golfers have a scoop or an early release

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down at the bottom and what I've found over the last few years is that it tends to

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be more of the trail arm. So right arm for a right hand and golfer that creates

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that problem. And so just trying to motorcycle and get a flat-ish left wrist at

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impact doesn't always fix the problem because then the right arm sabotages it.

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So if you have that scoop and or early release you either have to train more

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control with the left arm so the right arm doesn't mess it up or you need to

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train that right arm to work properly because as long as the right arm is

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sabotaging your efforts you're going to struggle with the early release or

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scoop mispattern which is typically fat and thin contact and more of a pull

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start line or potentially leaving the face open. So the pull comes more from the

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path getting left from that early release of the right side or you can leave the

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face open and hit more of a weak push off to the right. So pull, push fades, fat

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thin. If you struggle with that there's a good chance you've got some right arm

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training or trail arm training that would help. So the trail wrist stop sign is

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basically it's very similar to the finger release but I'm going to use I'm going

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to put more of the emphasis after impact instead of right at impact. So with the

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finger release I focus on keeping the extension of that right arm or the right

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wrist as I go into impact and just beyond. So basically seeing how the fingers are

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pointing behind. The stop sign is focusing mostly on the rotation of the forearm

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while still keeping that extension. What I find that a lot of golfers do trying to

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break the habit of an early release is they try to keep the extension of the

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wrist but the direction that they're using the wrist is more going under like this

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and trying to keep the extension pointed at the target like that as opposed to

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letting it rotate. What that looks like is when I put a club in my hands is if I

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keep the extension and go more under it like this you can see that the club starts

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coming up very quickly and the bottom of the arc is behind the golf wall. So even

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though my practice wing I have a good amount of extension there when I apply speed it's

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going to bottom out behind the ball and have more of a fat thin contact pattern to it.

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In order to get the bottom this wing forward I need to work on this lead wrist stop sign

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pattern or sorry the trail wrist stop sign pattern. So I'm going to get more of that

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rotation feeling like that right wrist is covering and it's almost pointing at the target

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in a stop sign movement kind of like that similar to the shake hands with the target line

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but exaggerating it a little bit more. Now I'm making sure that I'm not getting it from

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the shoulder so I'm not turning my hand and letting this arm fly away. I'm reaching

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out towards the target but through kind of the inside of the shoulder blade. Once you have that feeling

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you can do either single arm training or 9 to 3 or 3 quarter or full swings.

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So with the single arm training I'm going to try to get that feeling of more

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that right arm extending through but that wrist rotating through more like that. So keeping the extension

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as it rotates through and what you'll see is from the face on video that'll have a look like it

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has really good extension and width on the follow through as opposed to if I tried to

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extend the wrist but was still coming more up. So if I tried to keep the extension of the wrist

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really holding back the flip but I was working more up you could see that it's going to be virtually

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impossible to be strong enough to resist that movement and even if I did the bottom of the swing

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is still going to be behind the golf wall because of the direction that my arm or my hand path is

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swinging. So let's do another good one where we're going to get that stop feeling more in that follow

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through so I'm getting really good arm extension and I'm feeling like that hand rotates over more like that.

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Next I'm going to try it in more of a nine to three version so I'm going to bring it and I'm just

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going to allow the left hand to support that movement of the right hand. You'll see as I do this

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I'm attending to have a little bit more of a lower launch than if I had more of a scoot pattern.

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That's a good sign that I'm doing that trail risk properly. I'll be able to get the launch back

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when I take bigger swings and add more of a bracing component. So now we'll move it up to about three

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quarter. So a little late on that one but what you'll see from the video is that I still got the

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bottom of the swing forward hit the ball pretty solidly just didn't quite get the face closed so

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flared it a little bit off to the right. Now we'll go close to full swing and I'm still trying to

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feel that arm extension keeping the wrist hinge and letting that right arm rotate after impact

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so that it feels like my palm is facing more towards the target. It's a similar to a lot of the

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other trail arm release drills or hinge and hold kind of nine to three feelings where I'm keeping

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that extension and instead of just trying to hold back the flip I'm redirecting it with more of a

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rotational movement. So pretty solid one there getting that good arm extension in the

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follow-through. If you struggle with more of a trail arm scoop or early release you can use the

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disk catcher you can use the finger release or you can use this idea of more of the trail

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arms stop sign in order to ultimately solve that right arm problem down at the bottom.

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you

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