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Fix Your Flip

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Shaking Hands With Target Line

Shake hands with the target line is an image that helps convey many key pieces to a solid follow through. It creates trail arm extension. It creates proper shoulder rotation. And it delays trail wrist flexion. Use this image to help you hit a good follow through checkpoint. 

Playlists: Train Your Release, Fix Your Flip, Fix Your Chicken Wing (Bent Arm @ Impact)

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

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This video is looking at shaking hands with the target line.

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Now, when I was first getting into playing golf, it was kind of right before Tiger really hit the scenes.

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So I remember a lot of the early stuff with Tiger vividly.

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And one of the thoughts that Buch conveyed to him was shaking hands with the target line,

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basically having that right arm relatively parallel to the target line.

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And I didn't realize it as at the time,

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but Buch had a lot of brilliance in some of his simple drills.

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So I wanted to kind of take a second and discuss that idea of shaking hands with the target line.

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And how many good little concepts or key movements of the swing

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it builds into one field.

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In order to shake hands with the target line properly,

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I'm going to heat my arm.

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I'm going to have a good white movement in order to get that arm all the way extended

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in order to shake hands.

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And you'll see, I wouldn't shake my shake hands with my hand facing that way or that way.

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Well, many golfers who have more of a roll style release,

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which Tiger kind of had the possibility of falling into,

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would have the hand pointed more that way.

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And you wouldn't step up the shake someone's hand like this.

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You would keep that shoulder more packed in and the arm in shoulder and external rotation

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kind of like this.

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So in order to shake hands, it forces that shoulder into a good position there.

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If I'm shaking hands with the target line,

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you'll also see that my wrist is going to have a little bit of extension.

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I wouldn't shake hands by like, you know, like I would do an arm wrestling and kind of flexing the wrist.

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I wouldn't get into that position.

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I would keep the wrist in more of a neutral or even a slightly extended position here.

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So by trying to get that arm to extend down the target line,

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that forces the chest to continue rotating,

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the shoulder to stay in external rotation and the wrist not to flip as you're extending the arm.

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So like I said, that one image blends a number of really good concepts.

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Now, if you're a, if you've been practicing kind of single arm only drills,

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you can use that as a little checkpoint.

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You can let go and you can see, okay, if I was going to shake hands with the target line.

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Now, it's actually parallel to the target line, but out in front of your body,

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kind of like this.

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From then down the line, you'll see it actually disappear.

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As opposed to if I was truly shaking hands with the target line,

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my wrist would be way out there, which is not what the idea was designed to convey.

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So it's really shaking hands with parallel to the target line,

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but it's still a great feeling and drill.

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You can also incorporate that feeling into single arm, open hand, style release, where you're

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get there.

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That one I had a little bit more wrist flex, but we can use that shaking hands with the target line

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as a really good checkpoint as if you're having a good trail arm release.

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