Gotta say, it feels pretty damn good to hit the ball the right way. I've had ups and down since I got back into the game last year, always going from extreme frustration to (what I thought was) good ball striking back to even more frustration. Whenever I made big improvements, it would stick around for maybe a couple of weeks, and then my swing would go straight back down the toilet. After a recent bout pretty much the shittiest ball striking I've experienced since I was a kid, e.g., maybe 20% of shots were crisp, the rest were chucked, topped, or shanked, I got some excellent advice regarding keeping my hands much closer to my waist at address.
I don't believe in quick fixes for any aspect of golf, but this one was an outlier. I'd been working on keeping my back swing on plane as I had a tendency to separate the hands from the body and take the club back way too far to the inside. For some reason, this proper method never felt comfortable, and I think the way I was doing it was leading to the terrible contact I was experiencing. However, once I moved my hands in at address, the takeaway felt almost effortless. Club stays on plane with little effort, and best of all, is right where it's supposed to be at impact. I taped my swing, and for the first time I can see significant flex in the shaft in the downswing, and lo and behold, I maintain lag all the way through impact. This (clearly) allows me to strike the ball solid right on the sweet spot, and then take a divot in front. I've had to adjust my wedge swing/selection because I'm getting 15 additional yards on all my wedges.
So, my thoughts are this: there are a million different things you can do to try to achieve good contact, lag, etc., but really it's as straight forward as keeping the club on plane and rotating properly (not swaying in back swing). Purposefully holding the lag will wreck you swing (at least it did mine), if you rotate and keep the club on plane, you will maintain the proper wrist angle without thinking about it. That's not to say I don't still top or chunk one here and there, it's golf, and this shit is hard. But at least when I DO flub a shot, I can immediately feel why.
Now, if I can just get rid of the stupid chicken wing...
