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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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Handle Forward Face Control

This video answers a question from one of our members: Does shaft lean really open the club face?Tyler dives into the mechanics of how moving the grip forward affects the club's position and face orientation during the swing. He also gives tips for achieving more consistent contact and improving ball-striking ability, particularly with irons, by controlling the club face through proper technique.

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This concept video is answering the member question.

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Does shaline really open the club face?

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Uh, so, uh, I've talked about the club face a number

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of times, uh, but I got another question about if

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Shaline opens the club face.

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There seems to be some debate on Instagram.

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Um, so I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in here.

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Uh, I got a few different images that we're gonna look at,

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um, and then we will talk about it from a kind

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of mechanics point of view.

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Uh, but I think the first step is to kind

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of understand what's happening when you move the grip

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forward or, or when you create shalene.

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Um, so because, uh, there's a number

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of different factors I could, I could create shalene, um,

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while moving the grip straightforward like this,

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but is that really what's happening in the golf swing?

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I could create shaline by moving it that way,

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but some would say that you're rotating the face.

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Um, so let's discuss this.

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So here we have a golfer kind of at impact

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with some shalene.

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So the club is kind of in a position like this.

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If you were to create more shalene

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by moving the grip forward, essentially

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what you're doing is you're moving the club further back

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along the swing path.

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Um, so if I had the trustee hula hoop here, um,

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at the, at the bottom of the swing here would be kind

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of the widest point.

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If I move the bottom of the swing forward

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and keep the grip kind of in the same spot,

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essentially what's happened is I've moved the club further

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back along the swing path

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by moving it further back along the swing path.

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I've done a couple things or a few things.

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I've moved the club back, I've moved the club up

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and I've rotated the club face.

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Um, because we know that every golf club swinging

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into impact on a full swing.

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Uh, at least everything that I've seen on, um, A MM is going

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to show some amount of club face closing.

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I've never seen one actually opening, um, through impact.

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And so that means if you move it backward,

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you are opening the face

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and when you create shalene, you're moving

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the club back a long time, basically earlier in the swing.

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So the club face would not have closed

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as much at that point in time.

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Um, so the club, when I go from here

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and I move it, uh, create some shuffling,

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what should happen is if I'm following this geometry,

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I should not just move the grip forward,

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but I should move the grip forward and down

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and out just like that.

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And you'll see that the club face is gonna twist

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open as it does that.

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Um, so by hitting it early in the arc, earlier in the arc,

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the clubface is closing at a slower amount

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and I've created some slack

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or some room to be able to widen things

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and create more of this flat spot on the way through.

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So that helps with consistency.

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Um, so it helps with club face control

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and it helps with consistency of contact, low point.

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Um, so it does some really good things, especially

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for iron play, but it helps the driver as well as long

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as we just tilt the model back this way.

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So now the club is in shaft lean compared to the golfer, um,

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but fairly vertical compared to, uh, the golf ball.

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Now one other thing to to talk about would be

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mechanics wise, again, if I'm pressing rewind, we know

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that we want the lead arm

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to have some supination coming into impact

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that fits the model of getting some

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of this club face rotation.

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So if I was to move the club backward anatomically I should

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undo some of that supination, or I should pronate the arm.

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And when I pronate the arm, um, that's going

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to open the club face.

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Uh, so yes, you could just have it here

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and move the grip forward, um,

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move the grip forward in space, keep the shaft, uh, kind

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of perpendicular as I do that.

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But in order to do that, I actually have to twist it.

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And effectively what I would be doing is in order

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to move the grip a hundred percent forward, sideways,

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not forward and out,

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but forward sideways,

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I would actually be shifting the path of the club.

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Um, so that's often what's missed in the discussion is if I

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kept the swing path or the swing plane essentially the same

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and just move the grip forward,

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then moving the grip forward, uh, would move it down

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and out kind of like this.

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And I'm balancing it, um, in the actual swing

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by moving the body up

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and away so that the handle is actually moving this way

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as the grip is moving, uh, slightly down and out, um,

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or as sorry as the club head is

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moving slightly down and out.

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That's what helps create the, the 3D flat spot

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that gives us a little bit more consistency, uh,

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but hopefully this, um,

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helps you understand what's happening mechanically, yes,

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shafting or hitting it earlier in the arc,

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which happens from getting good body rotation,

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delaying the extension of the arms, um, getting into

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that good kind of tor impact position does open the face

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relative to um, any other position.

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Uh, and it allows for some of these elements, uh,

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through the release that creates this flat spot,

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creates a low point further ahead of a golf wall.

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But with more kind of brushing, contact the ground,

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some traits that we're used

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to seeing from really elite level ball strikers.

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