Some Further Study...
Since putting this study out there, several others have spoken about it, directly or indirectly. There's been talk about how maintaining the right forearm flying wedge to P8 is not optimal (duh), nor is having too much shaft lean at impact (duh). There's also been talk that we're just being silly, and that the loss of the right wrist bend is a result of other things going in with the way the left forearm rolls, and that throwing the right wrist can't possibly add any speed. Either way, since posting this topic, it's been debated in varying forms across the Internet, again both directly and indirectly.
Before I go on, and to be clear, we're using the term "power accumulator 5" in a way that's not entirely serious. The right wrist folding back may or may not be part of the "power package" depending on how you define it. That's immaterial to us - we're not that serious about it. We're using the term "PA5" in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek fashion, though obviously one grounded in some TGM reality.
All that said, we recently determined that one way to possibly demonstrate the additional "power" (clubhead speed) provided by "PA5" would be to remove as many other power accumulators as possible. By removing the left arm, for example, we remove Power Accumulators #2, #3, and #4 (as TGM literalists see them), leaving only #1 (right arm thrust) as well as what we're calling #5.
The results are telling, and here they are as a series of three images which show the "throwing" of PA5:
Clubhead speed on the left: 60.2 MPH.
Clubhead speed on the right: 68.5 MPH.
That's an 8.3 MPH increase, or an increase of 13.8%.
Dave made no efforts to change his swing. In fact, in the video, the frames line up perfectly in sequence with each other. From P7 to the last image, both videos are twelve frames apart. Yet the clubhead has moved an extra foot or so on the right because, at impact, it was moving faster.
Now, Dave still lost some PA5 in the left images. It's virtually impossible not to and still generate a swing speed north of 20 MPH or so.
Then, and I may have shared this graph before, but here you go: trail wrist angles of Anthony Kim and Steve Elkington. Pay particular attention to the green line. Before, during, and after impact the right wrist is going from flexion into a little bit of extension very very quickly.
One of the keys (ahem) to playing good golf is a flat left wrist, but the left wrist only needs to be flat at impact (and in some rare cases, like Lee Westwood, not even then). What it does after impact - some combination of rolling and dorsiflexing - is somewhat immaterial.
Now again, 95-99% of golfers need more shaft lean. 95-99% of golfers lose a flat left wrist too soon. This advice isn't necessarily for them (and note that if you're on a golf forum, you're likely already better than 50% of people, so this topic will pertain to you more than the general golf population).
The point remains, though: the right wrist being "thrown" does seem to add power (clubhead speed) to the golf swing. In the hands of a skilled player, its application is warranted. For example, you might be surprised to see PA5 showing up in this particular video, but there it is:
And what about Nick Clearwater's video showing the same drill (to an even larger extreme):
Again, some of this right wrist angle occurs naturally. The clubhead weighs a lot, and it's pulled in a straight line (clubhead droop is another example of this). But we believe and now have some more proof that adding to that "straightening" force by actively "throwing" the right wrist flexion can lead to increased clubhead speed.
). This is more theory related, what actually happens after impact. Freddy is obviously on one side of the spectrum but nobody "maintains" the flying wedge into the followthrough. Some preach that you never lose it and deny the reality that we see, not us.
