Note that the pictures of Bertholy demonstrating the "claw" position of the trail hand/wrist/arm show him with his trail elbow at his trail side,, his trail arm bent at the elbow apx 45 deg, his trail wrist bent back (in extension) apx 90 deg and his trail fingers bent into a hook shape.
Peter, the use of the expression "claw" is not clear to me. You have previously referred to the hand as being the claw. Now it is a position of the hand/wrist/arm. Does it perhaps also refer to the hook shape of the trail fingers ?
If you want to get the hands ahead of the ball as much as 14-15 inches, I can only see this being accomplished with the trail elbow moving down in front of the trail hip such as shown by Joe Dante (p115) in ‘Four magic moves'.
