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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 Hand Shadow

Trail hand shadow is similar to open trail hand, except it allows no input from the trail hand. However, even though it involves no input from the hand, the trail side of the body must work correctly in order to stay close to the lead hand. If you struggle with an overly dominant trail hand, use this drill to create balance.

Tags: Release, Drill, Advanced

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The drill is left arm swings right arm shadow.

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So I'd like to do a lot of these splitting hands

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when we're doing the release training.

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And you can typically see when a person has a release issue,

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when either there's a lot of kind of bending narrowing

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or not really good bracing patterns.

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But a lot of golfers struggle with the release

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because they tend to be too much trailside dominant.

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There are many good golfers where the trailhand

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actually comes slightly off the grip during the hitting zone.

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And but I haven't seen any really good golfers

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where the lead hand comes off the grip.

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So at the very least, you need your hands to be working together

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at the other end of the spectrum.

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You could be almost lead side totally

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and still be a pretty good golfer.

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So this lead hand hitting with the trailhand being a shadow

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works really well for golfers who tend to have a little bit

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more of a right side release that gets into kind of this

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little chicken wing style finish look.

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Because you will rarely see when you're hitting these one arm

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left hand only, you'll rarely see that same amount of bending

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or bracing or kind of breaking the elbow or a chicken wing.

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So what we're going to do for this drill

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is you're going to take your right hand

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and you're going to put it within a couple inches of the grip

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but not actually on the grip.

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So this is kind of a cousin to the open trailhand

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where I'm working on how the right hand pushes against the grip.

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So I'm going to keep those in space

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and I'm just going to try to have that right hand

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follow the left hand very closely

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as I do some of these left arm single arm drills.

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Many golfers are going to feel either the right side

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continuing rotating a little bit more shoulder activity

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abective or you may struggle

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and you'll find that your body just wants to stall

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in order to let that right hand really square the club face.

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So this is a good kind of awareness drill

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for feeling how the weed arm can control the release

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and how the trail arm would have to support that

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or how the trail side of the body would have to support it

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if you're hitting more of these left arm only shots.

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So the way I would work through this drill,

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I'm going to hit a few just lead arm only.

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And then I'm going to take my trail hand and put it

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just off the grip.

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So I'm basically doing that lead hand only

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and then taking the trail hand and placing it just off the grip

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so I can get a sense of where I'm going to try

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to get in that follow through position.

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And then I can try and hit a lead hand only shot

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while letting the right hand kind of follow.

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And this is definitely a little bit more of a mental puzzle

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for a lot of you because you've got to coordinate both sides

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of your brain making the right movement

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while hitting a golf bar while you're letting a golf ball

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get in the way.

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But for a lot of you, that's actually a good challenge

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because it forces you to not really talk yourself through it

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but you just have to feel it and just kind of trust it

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and go with it.

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So I'm going to do the left hand open

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or sorry, the left hand, single arm with a right hand

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shot shadow where basically I'm trying to just let that right hand

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follow that left hand motion.

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Once I have a feeling or a concept of what it feels like

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to kind of lead it, now I'm going to put my right hand on

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but I'm going to put it on very softly

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and I'm going to feel like I hit this more

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with my left hand emphasis.

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What I tend to see when I have golfers do this

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is hitting more with this left hand emphasis,

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you'll almost never see someone go into a chicken wing style motion.

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You'll tend to see a really good arm extension

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and then the challenge is getting bigger swing

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so going from waist height to up to three quarter

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and then up to full swing and then adding intensity

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or at each position, adding intensity and feeling like I can swing hard

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from that with that left hand being a little bit more in control.

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So if you're struggling with your kind of chicken wing

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or the release and you're having trouble especially when you swing hard

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play around with this drill and put some of the intensity

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into what the lead hand is doing sometimes that helps overcome

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trying to control it with the trail hand.

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If that doesn't work, you can always try the trail hand

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only solid drills and really work on the control pattern

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but sometimes this is a much faster fix

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for being able to take it to the course.

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