Why You Need This:

All pros have forward shaft lean at impact.

It helps you add distance by de-lofting the club.

But more importantly, it results in a more stable, consistent release.

This video explains everything you need to know to get your impact position looking more like the pros!

What's Covered: Overview of forward shaft lean and how you will naturally get this by releasing the club properly.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 5:20

Video Transcription:

Hi guys, I’m Clay Ballard with Top Speed Golf, and today we’re going to talk about why do we even need forward shaft lean.
When you really think about it, it doesn’t quite make sense, why don’t we just use a club with less loft, and that’s going to take the loft off the club instead of having to have the hands forward.

So we’re going to talk about why we actually need to do this, and how that works into the lag and the release, and how it’s going to help us to hit more solid golf shots.

Let me go ahead and first explain what I’m talking about here. As we’re making our downswing, everything before our maximum lag point here, we’re building lag.

So the angles are getting sharper, we’re loading up the body, and then everything after this we’re releasing to this point at the full release, or the straight line release where everything’s pointed towards our 45 past position.

So when we’re doing this, lag and forward shaft lean, excuse me, forward shaft lean is just going to naturally happen because it’s between those two points.

So as I have an angle with my wrist here, I’m letting go of this angle from this point. I’m starting to let go from here, and my golf ball is simply getting in the way.

Now I haven’t fully let go of that angle, so that’s why you’re going to see some forward shaft lean here at contact.

So you’re going to see my left wrist bowed, my right wrist is angled back a little bit, and I’m in the way of releasing this club. So my club hasn’t fully released, and that’s how I’m hitting down and through.

Now the reason we want to do this has to do with force and mass, so what’s going to be stable.

If you imagine I have this golf club, here’s the mass of the golf club down here in the head, and I’m applying the force, the only place I apply any force to the golf club is at the handle, or the shaft here.

If I’m pulling, if I’m putting the force this way, if I pull this club directly toward me, it’s going to be nice and stable, it’s going to track right to me, I can turn left, turn right and it’s going to follow right along with me.

Let’s turn that around, that would be pulling. So I’m pulling the force on this side, the mass is trailing behind, and that’s very stable.

You can see it tracks along with me. Let’s turn it around and go the other way now.

Now let’s go pushing, and I’m putting the force on this side, and now the mass is in front of it and instead of trailing, instead of the mass trailing the force, now the mass is going to be leading the force.

You’ll see as I start to go, well that club’s going to turn sideways, it could go any direction, and it’s very unstable. Any time you push anything, it can go all over the place.

Imagine a speedboat pulling a skier, the skier is going to track right along with them. Or if you’re trying to push a pushcart in golf, and you push that, it gets wobbly and it’s going to flip out of the way unless you’re constantly trying to steer it in the right direction.

So when the force is in front, it’s very, very stable. When the force gets behind, it gets really unstable.

So let’s go ahead and take this back to golf again, this will all start to make some sense and tie together.

As I’m getting my lag I have this sharp angle, as I’m releasing this when I come to contact, my hands, or the force, are still going to be in front of the mass.

So that way my hands are leading the way and this club head’s going to be very stable and consistent coming through contact.

If I start to flip, I know a lot of people out there struggle with flipping, they start to push with the right hand, they have the release point wrong.

They’re thinking the release point is the golf ball, and they’re trying to help the golf ball through, well now all of a sudden, they’re trying to help the club to the golf ball, now all of a sudden my force or my hands gets behind the mass, and it gets really, really inconsistent.

So it doesn’t that much to do with loft, forward shaft lean will take loft off the club and turn it into a lower-lofted iron, but it has more to do with keeping the club stable, and that’s going to happen all on its own, as long as our release point is out here.

So as I’m coming from lag into the downswing, I’m thinking my release point being right out there, and I’m going to have forward shaft lean as a byproduct.

I’m not even going to have to try to do it, I’m just thinking of releasing there, the forward shaft lean is going to happen all on its own.

So here’s what I want you guys to feel in this drill. I want you to go ahead and go into your lag position, go halfway down, get some lag, really get these hips to start to turn out of the way as you’re getting some lag here.

Then as you’re coming down into impact, imagine everything is going to release there, and you’ll start to notice how the hands will naturally, just instinctively, they’ll start to lead in front of the club.

Now what I don’t want to do, the biggest mistake you can have, is I don’t want to pull it on through like this and try to hold that angle.

When people talk about forward shaft lean all the time they’re thinking, “I’ve got to hold this angle,” and that’s not what we’re trying to do.

We’re trying to release that angle, but we’re releasing it up here, that’s why we have forward shaft lean. If we try to hold this angle, slows down our club head speed, we’re pulling the club through impact, and we’re not going to have any speed at all.

So you’ve got to let that club go, you’ve got to let it release, but the ball is just going to get in the way, you’re naturally going to have forward shaft lean.

So again, lag, I’m going to go down to contact, I have forward shaft lean, and then I’m releasing everything there.

I’m going to do about 25 repetitions of this, really pausing and feeling that forward shaft lean position, and then I’m going to let it release.

25 repetitions of that, get that nice, good feel, and then I’m simply just going to recreate the same thing here when I hit a ball.

There we go, hit that one nice and solid, really low trajectory, I kind of overdid the forward shaft lean a little bit, and that ball came out really low and hot, and had a lot of compression on it.

So, good luck to you guys, get that feeling, let the forward shaft lean happen by having the right release point, and you guys are going to hit it great.

Good luck, and I’ll see you soon.
.