Why You Need This:

Tell me if this sounds like something that happens to you. You are super-excited to go out and start practicing your lag. You can’t wait to start picking up some huge distance.

You pull out your iron and start making some lag swings….

You block to the right. Whoa that was odd…

Another block… weird.

Shank!! What the heck is going on!!??

When trying to increase your lag, it is often common to block to the right or even shank.  This is because, most people aren’t used to having that much forward shaft lean and they often leave the face wide open through contact. I will show you how to combat this in this video.

What's Covered: How to create more lag and release that lag without the fear of shanking.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 5:43

Video Transcription:

Hi guys, and welcome back. We’re going to attack one of the biggest issues with creating lag in today’s video, and it’s a very common issue. Why am I shanking the ball when I try to create lag?

We’re going to go over the cause of this, I’m going to give you some great drills to start releasing that club, maximizing your lag and release so that you can get more speed.

Let’s go ahead and get started.

All right, so when we’re creating lag in the golf swing, as we create this angle, the only purpose of creating lag is that so we can release that lag and get a lot of speed through the contact area.

So when I’m coming in my downswing, if I have a bunch of lag, I’m creating a sharp angle between my forearm and the club.

Now from here, from when my hands are about in front of my right leg all the way into the full release of the golf club to when I’m about 45° past impact, my hands are only going to move about a foot to a foot and a half.

So my hands aren’t moving a very long distance. My club on the other hand, my club head, from when my hands are in front of my right leg, club head’s way back here all the way on through is going to move a pretty long distance.

So it’s moving a good six or seven feet, so my hands are only moving a short distance, a foot to a foot and a half.

Because I have this angle, now as I release the angle my club’s going to move a good six or seven feet. That’s creating a whip-like action that allows the club to greatly accelerate coming through contact.

Now what we don’t want to do, let me go ahead and give you two examples, what we don’t want to do is if we’re casting, now as my hands are in front of my right leg, the club is already way down here.

So it’s only going to be a few feet moving forward as I go from casting and almost scooping a little bit until my club is fully released.

So I’m slowing the club down, I want to retain this energy so that I can wait until the last second, bam, then release that energy and get a lot of speed from it.

That’s the idea of why we even want lag, so that we can release it, we can create that whip-like action, and we can get a lot of speed from it.

What I see time and time again when people try to create lag, and it’s a very common problem, I used to think this myself as I first started looking at lag, is that we want to hold onto this angle.

So as we’re coming down we’re going to create some lag here in our downswing, and then as we’re coming through impact we’re going to just hold on to this angle all the way through impact so that maybe we can get some forward shaft lean, maybe we can get some compression on the golf ball, that’s a lot of the ideas that people have with it.

But that’s not the case, that’s not why we’re creating this angle. We’re creating this angle so that we can let go and get a lot of speed through contact.

So if you’re holding on to that angle, if you feel like you’re creating lag and just holding and pulling it through, you’re probably going to start blocking the ball to the right, you’re probably going to even start shanking the ball, and here’s the reason why.

Let me go ahead and grab a golf ball here, and I’ll show you from down the line also.

But as I’m holding this angle, I’ve got some good lag and now I’m pulling, pulling, pulling, I’m holding this angle as I’m coming through, look where my club face is.

My club face is pointing way out to the right, and look what’s leading to the ball. So as I’m coming down, now my hosel is leading the way and it is shank city from here.

I mean you’re just asking to shank the ball. I have to let go of this club, let it release to get that energy and get that club to turn on over.

So if we’re looking from down the line, let me go ahead and turn sideways, the same thing.

So I’ll go ahead, I’m going to create some lag and now I’m going to be pulling it, pulling it, pulling it through, and my hosel is coming right for the ball here.

And I could easily get that ball to shank, or top, or go way out to the right, a lot of things that you don’t want to happen.

Here’s what we need to do to make sure that we’re doing this correct. As we’re coming into the downswing, let’s go ahead and pause as we’re about halfway down, and we’ve got this nice angle of lag.

This is where you’re going to be maxing out your lag in your swing.

Everything after this point in the swing as I’m shifting my weight to the left, as I’m unwinding and starting the downswing, everything from here on is going to be releasing this lag.

So from this position where I have a nice sharp angle between my forearms and the club, now I’m thinking to release those angles, release that lag.

So I want you to go ahead and come from 45 past contact here, and now I want to see both forearms and the club dead straight.

So I’ve released all these angles as I’m coming through. So go ahead and feel those positions a couple more times.

Number one, good angle of lag, I’m halfway in my downswing. Number two, I’ve released these angles, both arms are straight, fully release the club, everything’s coming on through and I’ve gotten rid of all my lag.

You should also see the face of the club instead of being open and holding off like this, club’s pointed to right, I want that club to go ahead and rotate on over.

My club should be about 45° closed as I’m fully released here in this position.

So go ahead and work on that, I’ll show you from the down the line also. Here’s my lag position, here’s my release position, club face rotating on over.

That’s going to get you more speed, that’s going to allow you to maximize your lag, that’s going to hit nice straight compressed shots, you’re going to stop blocking, and stop shanking them, and hit overall a lot more powerful balls.

So go ahead and work on those two positions about 100 repetitions, pausing in each one of these positions. That way you can really get a feel for where those are.

After you’ve done that, we’re going to take some nice smooth swings, we’re going to get those same feelings again, we’re just going to take all the pauses out.

Another 100 repetitions doing that, so now you’re going to be pretty comfortable with this.

Then you can go ahead incorporate a ball, start getting more lag, start releasing the club, and hitting a lot better.

Good luck to you guys, I’ll see you all soon.