Why You Need This:

Have you ever wanted to have huge amounts of lag in the golf swing?

It’s kind of a no-brainer, since we need tons of lag to create a lot of clubhead speed.

In this video I show you how to create huge golf swing lag by using your thumbs. It’s even easier than it sounds.

What's Covered: How to use your thumbs (wrists) to create lag in the golf swing.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 7:05

Video Transcription:

Hi guys, and welcome back. In today’s video we’re going to talk about thumb up and thumb down, and how this works throughout the swing.

This is probably the most important piece to lag, as lag is thumb up and thumb down, a radial and ulnar deviation.

I’ve got a great drill for you, and probably most common mistake that I see in golf when working with lag is getting that wrist to set too early.

Going thumb up too early instead of waiting into the downswing like we’re going to see with a lot of pros, waiting into the downswing to set their wrist and then immediately releasing them.

So one thing that you need to know is whenever the wrist gets fully set, whenever we get the most amount of wrist angle we have to immediately let that go because of something called the stretch-shortening cycle where those muscles in the forearms need to be stretched out and then immediately fired.

If we hold on to these positions, if we ever try to hold a wrist angle, we’re going to slow down the club, we’re not going to get our maximum distance, and we’re going to struggle with lag, and we’re going to struggle with the release, and really getting compression on the golf ball.

So let me go ahead and explain what I mean by this. As we set up, let’s go over thumb up and thumb down again.

As our thumbs go up, that’s what’s called radial deviation. Thumb up. And then thumb down is what’s going to be ulnar deviation.

As we set up to the ball, our thumbs are going to be slightly down at address. So if we go ahead and set up naturally in a good posture, our thumbs are going to be a little bit down.

As we go into the takeaway, I want to make sure that I don’t get a lot of wrist set or thumb up as I’m going back.

So as I do this properly, as I get to about waist high, my club’s going to be parallel to the ground around waist high.

It’s not incredibly important to do this, but it’s really important to not go thumb up, because remember, as soon as I max out that angle, as soon as I max out to full thumb up, I have to release it right away.

Because I’m going back, what I feel like I’m doing is staying thumb down, my thumbs are down all the way throughout the backswing, and then as I start the downswing, then my thumbs are going to full set up.

My thumbs are going to turn back toward my body to max out my full angle of lag there.

So if you watch this in slow motion I’m going thumb down, thumb down, thumb down, thumb up, so I’m starting to let those thumbs come up, and I’m maxing that out in my lag position which is when my left arm is parallel from the ground from here.

Now from here, I’m pairing this up with the release and I’m going thumb down. I’m immediately going thumbs full down, so I went from this position when I had lag, to this position I’m turning that down as I release lag.

That helps me to get the speed from the club and to really get that club to whip through contact and to get to my release point correctly.

So I’m going thumbs down, fully setting halfway down, and then I’m doing thumb down and really releasing that as I come on through, and again, the golf ball is just getting in the way.

We’re not trying to hit the golf ball, we’re just making the proper motions and letting the golf ball get in the way.

So if you watch this in slow motion. I’m really going to be setting my wrist fully only when I start down, so my weight is going to start to shift to the left, start unwinding first, then my arms are going to come down fully setting the wrist angle, and then all I’m thinking about from here is going thumb down to the release.

Got my forward shaft lean, my compression, hitting the golf ball only getting in the way of that, and then I’m just going to let everything come back through relaxed and my thumbs will set back up again naturally.

So let’s go ahead and try about 100 repetitions of this, and all I’m going to think about is thumb down, really, really slow.

We’re going to do a super slow motion repetition, were you go about a tenth of your normal speed, and you can follow right along with me, I’ll do two or three of them real quick for you guys.

So thumb down, thumb down, very little wrist set. As I go to the top now my wrists are starting to set. I’m maxing it out, thumb up the full amount now with both hands, and now I’m releasing thumb down, thumb, thumb down.

Fully getting thumb down into what’s called ulnar deviation, we’re calling this full thumb down as I get into my release here, and then everything’s just going to relax back up.

I’ll go ahead and do the same thing again. Not setting my thumbs yet, now my thumbs are fully set after my weight’s starting back to the left.

Now from here I’m releasing everything down, golf ball, forward shaft lean, all that stuff is just getting in the way of me going to my release point, then I’m going to fold back up and go nice and loose.

Do about 100 repetitions of these super slow motion drills, and that’s going to help you to get the feel for this, and to really give yourself the time to think through the proper motions.

Then we’ll gradually start to speed it up. As we go a little bit faster, now you can start to hear the whoosh coming through contact.

I’m going to have that forward shaft lean, all that’s just happening as a result of me doing the proper wrist motions and letting the release happen, letting that lag max out, and then letting go of it.

So as soon as you max out that thumb up, you’ve got to go thumb down as you’re going into release, that’s going to allow you to get a lot of lag.

The biggest mistake before I leave here, that I see people do, is they’ll set thumb up right away and they’ll try to hold onto this all the way on through.

Get a bunch of lag, bunch of forward shaft lean, they’ll hold all the way on through the shot. Your body won’t let you do this, because it knows it can’t get speed doing that.

If you did that, and actually made a swing, you’d block it way out to the right and you’d also lose about 30 or 40 yards, so none of us want to do that.

Your body senses that, and as soon as you try to set the wrist, it immediately starts to fire and go thumb down way back here, and you start to scoot the club, lose a lot of distance, and struggle with losing lag.

So we’ve got to make sure we get lag in the right spot, which is as we start the downswing. This is when it maxes out, this is when we go to the most thumb up, and then from there – bam, we’ve got to let it go, and let it release.

So good luck to you guys, get a couple hundred repetitions in, first slow motion, then full swings without a ball, ,and then we can go ahead and start to hit some shots.

OK, so here we’ll take a look at the same wrist action from Rory McElroy. You’ll notice his wrists don’t set very much going back, the thumbs are relatively down in the takeaway.

His club reaches parallel about waist high. As he continues to the top he’s gradually setting the wrist going thumb up, and even though he gets parallel to the ground he’s continuing to set those wrists more and more until he’s about halfway down.

The left arm is going to be parallel to the ground here, and that’s where he’s going to be fully in the thumb up position. Now from here he’s going to be releasing to that 45 release angle.

You can see that as he gets farther and farther in the downswing, his wrists are losing that angle, and as he comes all the way through to the 45 release, now the thumbs are fully down, the angles of the wrists are gone, and then he’s going to simply follow through.

So if we go back to the top again, we’ll see as he starts back, very little wrist set going away, now the thumbs are gradually going up and up more and more until he’s in about the halfway down position.

Then from there he’s going to fully release everything to the straight line release, and then come through to a nice full finish.

So if you do that, that’s going to allow you to get a lot of speed, create a lot of leverage from the club, but you can do it in an easy way.

You’re using leverage of the club to create speed instead of trying to force it with a lot of strength and muscular effort.