More on Lag

I think something else that may be a good addition to this topic is artificial lag?

Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously! That's not meant as a smartass comment) but many high cappers, myself included a year or so ago have the notion that they need to "keep the lag" which translates to a mental image of holding tight and holding on to the angle for as long as humanly possible. It's pretty easy for a guy to cock his wrists and maintain the vast majority of their lag throughout the entire swing if they so chose to and then they have to choose when to allow the lag to release which leads to timing issues.

If a player allows the lag to be what it is, this real lag in the swing will be maintained, and even increased slightly as the torso rotates and should release exactly when it's needed to.

I use to flip, it takes some time to get what the hands should do. I found i flipped more when i had a weaker grip, because i would try to square up the clubhead. I went to a stronger grip, now its more natural in my swing to get the clubhead to were i want it. This has gotten me the proper lag to impact.

I do find that the issue with lag, has more to do with how the clubhead comes into impact, rather than trying to hold onto the lag as much as possible. I think it could be said that if you hold onto the lag you might create the condition for a flip, because now the golfer has become anxious in wondering if they will ever release all that pent up stress in there wrists holding that lagging position so long.

I honestly think lag is probably one of the last things that a person should think about in a golf swing, and see if other corrections in making the golf swing better, would improve the lag as a side effect.

Sorry; bad explanation by me. What I meant was if someone cocked both wrists to 90 degrees and then gripped hard and tensed their forearms they'd be able to keep the majority of that lag if they spun around their core and never released or let that 'lag' go. e.g. it's artificial lag or just a retained wrist cock as it's being manually retained by the golfer for as long as they see fit and then allowed to release when they want it to.

'lag' to me is a real phenomenon whereby the clubhead remains naturally behind the hands due to the movement of the hands (see the first minute of the below video)

I say lag must be important, heck it got two articles in this new Swing Thought thread, and this just got started.

I would say more useful would be to keep right hand cupped as long as you can (late hitting), instead of trying to keep your wrists cocked (lag). As a swing thought that is. Even if Zuback looks like casting he still has cupped right wrist at impact and is able to hit hard with right arm.

A great explanation. Thanks for posting. This is one of the issues I faced early this year. From ball to ball, I was going from flipping to too much lag as I had no idea what to do with my hands through impact. I had a vicious cycle going of blocks and pulls depending on the amount of hand manipulation. The key for me was to not do anything with the hands at impact but to continue turning through the shot. My one mental image now is to simply concentrate on reaching impact with my hands ahead of the clubhead.

Totally agree with your last sentence. I went from a chronic flipper to pretty decent lag swing in 3-4 months through having a decent amount of  lessons (an hour every 2 weeks). One day I was filming myself and saw I was lagging pretty good. Where my club used to be fully released and I was starting to flip my wrists now were still fully cocked. A 30-40 yard increase over all clubs was the result along with dropping 4-5 shots (and still decreasing). My instructor never once did anything that was specific to increasing my lag. Just changed my grip and got back to the fundamentals of a good swing. A good swing and lag go hand in hand.

The above is what I was saying about the difference between artificial lag and natural lag.

With artificial lag you can have the worst swing in the world and can still "hold" your wrist cock in the swing, creating what looks like lag but is in fact just a held wrist cock. That held wrist cock can be released as and when you see fit so in the case of flipping, it's being manually released and released too early.

With natural lag it can only occur if the arms and wrists are loose enough for the club to trail behind naturally as a result of the swing.

The first minute of the video I posted above explains it a little better.

I managed to actually hit a few shots with what I would consider extreme lag, i.e. hands well outside of left thigh when viewed face-on, on the launch monitor.  Here are the results:

6-iron launch 11 degrees, 220 carry.  Driver launch 3 degrees, 1000 rpm spin, 160 carry.  I would say that's much worse than flipping and hitting your 6-iron 160 and your driver 220 like a lot of people do.  The 6-iron might impress some, but to people who know how to score, it's the kind of game that provides too many challenges to manage.  Hitting it low when you want the ball to run and get distance can come in handy in windy conditions, but most of the time it's just too hard to judge total distance, and most people don't play a lot of links style courses in Texas in the winter anyway.  There's a reason a lot of shots at the Open championship don't even come close to the pin.  Even in windy conditions I've found it easier to groove a stock medium trajectory and just play the wind.

the cupped trailing hand and the pronated lead hand is the classic move.  The point that you make the move is difficult to learn and is a very individual action.  Dustin Johnson does it at the top, Boo Weekly makes it at transition, Phil and Freddy tend to make it just prior to impact.  To learn what works for you on an individual basis is not easy.  When it works its awesome, but the next weekend ya can't remember what the hell you did.  As Johnny Miller says...WOOD (Works Only One Day).

I started having real lag (as opposed to "fake" lag) when I started focusing on steadily driving the acceleration of the clubhead, based on feedback from the lag pressure in my hands.  In my confused way of thinking, I was always under the impression that I struggled with lag because of flexibility or positioning or whatever.  I thought if I just hit the gym harder, and got even stronger, I would develop lag naturally.  What I found is that as I got stronger and stronger, the throwing issue just got worse.  A huge breakthrough came when I realized that I was accelerating way too fast and explosively from the top of the backswing.  There was no way for me to move all 225 lbs of my body into position fast enough to catch up with the speed my arms generated early on.  The club was completely thrown at that point and it was catch-up from then on.  No wonder strength training made the problem worse.  I consistently neglected to maintain lag pressure in my hands so that I was steadily driving the clubhead instead of throwing it rapidly from the top of the swing.  Now when I watch Tiger on the range:

...and compare it with Tiger in play:

I see someone who is starting slowly, setting up the feeling of steady driving pressures at the range, and then letting it rip out on the course.