Lag????

[outlaw1984]

Does anyone have any good youtube movies on to create lag in the downswing and when to release....this is where i feel i get lost is the top of the backswing down.......im one of those that flips his wrist at the ball.....how can i prevent this....

am i just suppose to take the butt of the clubhead down in the ball....i mean looks are decievable and i feel like this is my week point.....

can someone break this down for me.......

thanks so much!

[senorchipotle]

go watch shawn clements' videos on youtube. he's got 5 vids for whatever you need to learn.

[outlaw1984]

i guess lag is what separates the swingers from the hitters...

the thing is i think i get scare that im not goin to hit the ball so i throw my hands down at the ball which leads me into shanking....im not even suppose to think i got a club in my hand and keep my left arm straight and let the club do all the work???

im also affraid im goin to leave a huge divot if i have too much lag, and my mind starts ticking and i throw my hands down at the ball and cause myself to hit a fatsie or top it.....

so i just let the club do the work???

[mvmac]

Some golfers just have it and some have to train to get it.  Lag is just a function of good sequencing, weight forward and the position of the right elbow.  Spend some time doing this and it will get better.  Smash the ground with the hands forward and never let the club get above belt height on the followthrough.  Right elbow needs to be forward, for you maybe feeling like it's in front of the rib cage.

[Zeph]

Some golfers just have it and some have to train to get it. Lag is just a function of good sequencing, weight forward and the position of the right elbow. Spend some time doing this and it will get better.  Smash the ground with the hands forward and never let the club get above belt height on the followthrough.  Right elbow needs to be forward, for you maybe feeling like it's in front of the rib cage.

Indeed. I worked a lot on lag some time ago, but didn't get anywhere until I started working on my other components. You can of course work on lag by getting rid of any conscious flipping, but you might want to look at other components first. Lag happens when you get the rest of the swing going. It if is of course highly individual what you should work on if you don't have lag. I used to believe you could get lag by holding the flying wedges or something like that, which might be true, but I'd say most people lose lag because of other factors. Here are a few that helped me achieve lag. Steady head - A head moving around just make things more difficult. Weight forward - Helps om getting your swing bottom farther forward. Upper-lower body sequence - If the hips outrace the arms or the hips never get it going, you'll have a harder time achieving lag. Length of backswing - A longer backswing may give you trouble with the aforementioned sequencing. Speed of the arms - The arms must have some speed to keep the clubhead behind. Also a part of the sequencing component. Transition sequencing - If the hips or arms outrace the other from the top of the backswing, it could lead to trouble. Swing plane - If you're coming from the outside a lot, you may have to flip just to hit the ball somewhat decently. Today my head is more steady, weight is more forward at impact, backswing is shorter, hips don't spin out as fast, I have a small pause at the top and my arms move faster on the way down. And I got lag. :-) You can achieve lag without perfecting these parts, but they will make it a lot easier to get the lag you want. If you're prone to flipping to subconsciously get the ball in the air (I did this for a long time), getting the other parts in place will make it a lot easier to get rid of it. Doing the drills Mike posted is also a good way to find the feeling of lag and the feeling of leading hands into the ball. You may not fix it with only those drills (or you may), but it helped me understand what was going on and what feelings I was looking for. Another drill, or swing thought, I like is to imagine the ball being a nail you are trying to beat into the ground at a very horizontal level. If you're ever going to have a chance of getting the nail into the ground, you have to lead with the hands. It is pretty much the same position you want when hitting a golf ball.

[Mr3Wiggle]

Check out Brian Manzella's web site.  He has a bunch of videos you can download.  He shows you how to build a good pivot and then works up from there.

[swanny903]

From my understanding, lag is a pretty simple concept.  I think some people try and make it more complicated than it needs to be.  Lag is the effect of keeping your wrists cocked (not releasing) as long as possible on the down swing prior to impact.  This keeps the clubhead behind your hands.  The longer you can go through the downswing without releasing, the more lag you have and the more clubhead speed you will have.  The key I have recently learned is that you can't release the same time with each club; especially the driver. For those of us who aren't pros, if we release the driver late into the down swing, at or past the ball, as we can do with a short iron, there isn't enough time to get the clubhead around and back square at impact, causing severe slices.  The key to lag is knowing when to release with the different club lengths.  With a pitching wedge I release the club when my hands are well past the ball, somewhere around my bellybutton.  Until a few days ago I thought this was the proper way for every club.  From watching a couple of instructional videos I learned that that isn't correct for a driver or other longer clubs.  The longer the club, the longer the swing patch and the the longer it takes to get the clubhead back around and squared.

Back to lag specifically, think of your swing as multiple gears with lag being the highest.  Your wrists are the higher/fast gears and your shoulders/spine/arms the larger/slower gears.  Try this, don't cock your wrists at all and take a backswing only to where the club is parallel to the ground.  Then swing through to impact (still zero cocked wrists).  Thats gear one.  Now, take the club back parallel and cock your wrists to where the club is perpendicular to the ground.  Bring the club down keeping your wrists cocked until your hands are near your waistline.  Now beging to uncock your wrists while still swinging with gear 1.  Your arms travel the same distance, at the same speed but because you had lag and held on to it until the last minute the clubhead actually travels faster from point a to point b then by just using gear 1.  That is lag and the key is learning how long you can hold on to it throughout each swing with the different lengths of clubs.  So for me, creating lag is simple math, its learning to control it and release at the proper time so I don't slice the ball that is the high level calculus!  Hope this helps.