Why You Need This:

In this video, you get an easy golf lag drill.

Now this is one of the best drills out there for getting lag…

And it’s called the “Stick Behind the Ball” drill.

What we’ll cover in this video is actually version 2 of this drill.

I added a few pointers and you’ll also get answers to some of the questions…

…asked by members from the original drill video.

Let’s get started by walking through this great lag drill.

First grab an alignment stick and hold it against your grip…

…to form a straight line with your club (an extension of your club).

As you move into your downswing, you’ll want to keep the stick pointed to the right of ball as long as possible.

This will help you keep your lag and prevent casting your club early.

If you tend to cast your club, this stick will point well ahead of your ball…

So the stick gives you instant feedback on your lag angle.

Keep in mind that you don’t want to try to hit the ball with the stick.

But after working this drill, you’ll drop the stick…

And hit some balls.

At this point, you should be creating a ton more lag.

So watch this video now to get one of my favorite lag drills…

And start whipping your club through impact with tons of club head speed.

What's Covered: How to effectively build and use lag.

Golf Pros Featured: Dustin Johnson    Rory McIlroy    

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 5:03

Video Transcription:

Hey guys, and welcome back to the Top Speed Golf System. In this video we’re going to go over one of the best drills that there is out there for getting more lag.

It’s the stick behind the ball drill, this is actually version two, I wanted to add a couple of things, I got a few questions that I wanted to have answered that members had chimed in on. Let’s walk through one of the best drills you can do for lag right away.

All we’re going to do is get an alignment stick, I usually throw these down on the ground to get my alignment correct, make sure that we’re getting some good alignment as we’re setting up.

What we’re going to do here is we’re going to take this stick, and we’re going to hold it against our grip here, and we’re going to use this to see about where our club is lining up in the downswing.

So after I set up to this golf ball, now normally my club would be a little bit more vertical, a little bit less forward shaft lean, but it might feel a little bit different here, and that’s OK.

As I make my backswing and I start my downswing, what I want to do is I want to keep this stick pointing to the right side, so anything to the ball or to the right as long as possible in the downswing.

So I don’t want to start casting my club. If I start to use the muscles in the upper right arm, so if I start to cast this club at all, you’re going to feel some pressure in your thumb, you’re going to feel some pressure in your index finger in your right hand, and the bottom of your index finger.

That’s going to be pushing this club out, and these muscles up here that extend your wrist, that’s what’s called ulnar deviation, going to be throwing the club out. Those would be what cause you to lose lag.

Well if I use this same drill with my stick on the club, now as I start to cast at all, my stick is pointing to the left of my ball already.

So what I want to do, is I want to keep that to the right of the ball as long as possible, and then I’m going to go ahead and come down to contact, and then I won’t really be able to swing on through with this stick, this I just to work the backswing and the downswing. So nice wide takeaway, keep that stick pointing to the right.

Now a couple questions here that I want to make sure that I saw some people doing, sometimes they’re a little bit off.

Let’s pretend that I’m going this way, and now where should this stick be pointing as I’m creating this lag? As I start my downswing, as my club is coming in the downswing, a couple things here.

In the moves section we talked about how we’re going to actually flatten this club out a little bit, so on the way back if it’s a little steeper, on the way down that club is going to shallow out, and our hands and our club are going to shallow out.

This left wrist is going to be nice and flat or a little bit bowed. So some people when they do this stick drill, they have a tendency to want to cup this wrist, where now that gets a little bit of an arch in it.

I want to keep that nice and bowed, and now if you look at the stick from this direction, we’re going to see that the stick is pointing kind of anywhere in this zone if I took the target line with the ball, that’s the direction I’m going to be hitting and I took about a six or eight-inch rectangle out through here.

As long as that stick is pointing anywhere in this zone, that’s great. If I get a little too steep, let me go ahead and show you what I mean by this. If I get a little bit too steep, now I’m in here, well yeah, I’ve got a lot of lag, I’ve created some lag there, but now my club is chopping down too vertical.

Again I want to shallow that out, and I wanted to have this stick pointing in this zone kind of outside the ball as it’s coming down, and my left wrist is going to be nice and flat.

Now from there, I’m in a position where I can really come in with some good lag, nice and shallow with the ball. There I’m very late in my swing as my hands are hip height, that club is still pointing to the right of the ball, and then bam, I can go ahead and release that later on the swing.

Now once I get rid of the stick, all I’m going to do is I’m going ahead and let that go, just like we talk about in the straight line release section.

So here, I got the stick to the right of the ball, this is nice and flat, I’ve shallowed out my swing just like we talk about in the moves. Then as I come on through, I’m letting all that go into my straight line release.

So I don’t want to have this stick angle here and then hold off like that, I want to have that there, and then let that rip right on through.

Let’s go ahead and try that out, we’re going to get some fantastic lag, and you’re going to see that ball really explode off the face.

There we go, stick behind the ball drill, one of my all-time favorites for creating more lag. Work this drill, I want you guys to do 100 repetitions pausing as the hands are about halfway down.

Let’s go ahead and grab another ball here. I’m going to pause when my hands are halfway into the downswing. This will be position number one.

I’m going to check to make sure that left wrist is flat, I’m going to check to make sure my club is flattening out, that means that this stick is going to be pointing in this area somewhere.

Then I’m going to lose the stick, and I’m going to go ahead in my straight line release. So I’m going to do about 100 repetitions pausing.

I’m going to do 100 reps recreating that same feel with my full swing, and then I’m going to do 100 shots alternating between practice swings and actually hitting shots.

It’s really going to help you to ingrain this. For those of you who haven’t watched our moves section, we really work on flattening out this club, getting it to bow, that’s the key to getting pro-type problems that I talk about in that video.

So be sure to watch that video also, it ties in directly with this.

Good luck to you guys, work hard on those drills, I’ll see you all soon.