Why You Need This:

If you have ever worked on golf lag before, you have probably been told one thing over and over. You need to hold lag for as long as you can.

This is probably the biggest pet peeve of mine, and also one of the reasons that I get so many customers. Most instructors don’t truly know how lag works.

Follow my tips in this video and find out what to NEVER HOLD LAG again!

What's Covered: How and when to create lag in the golf swing.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 9:41

Video Transcription:

Hi guys, and welcome back. I’m Clay Ballard, and in today’s video we’re going to talk about one of the absolute worst drills for creating lag.

It’s a very common drill that I see. In this drill, what we’re going to do is we’re going to set the wrists very early to create an angle of lag, and then we’re going to try to hold this throughout the swing.

It’s one of the worst things that you can do to build lag. I’m going to talk about the science behind why this is the case, and I’m also going to give you a great drill to help you improve your lag all in this video.

Let’s go ahead and get started.

OK, so the early wrist set lag drill is a very popular drill out there, I see a lot of people working on this. In this drill what we’re going to try to do, or what you’re supposed to try to do, is to create a big angle very early in the takeaway.

So Immediately off the ball, we’re going to set this angle with our wrists, we’re going to hold this angle throughout the swing to try to create some lag, and then we’re going to release the lag.

So there’s a couple things we need to know about why this is counterproductive if we’re trying to create massive amounts of lag.

The first is that lag is not going to give you speed. Lag is potential energy, what’s going to give you the speed is releasing that lag.

So as we’re coming into our downswing, we’re creating a large angle between the forearm and the club, and we’re going to be releasing this angle as we get to the full release.

So just after impact, for those of you are familiar with my system, you fully release the club when the club is about 45° from the ground, that’s when we’re going to lose all these angles in our forearm and the wrist, and we’re completely letting go of all that energy creating a whip-like action with the club.

So the lag is simply a building of energy, the release is when we’re going to let all that energy go and get a lot of speed from that.

So why do we not want to set the club early? The reason for this is what’s called the stretch-shortening cycle.

It has to do with how your muscles work and how you can get speed from your muscles. So what is stretch-shortening cycle? It sounds really complicated, it’s really, really simple.

You’re simply going to stretch your muscles and then immediately fire your muscles, you’re going to be able to fire a lot faster when you do this.

Let’s imagine I’m going to go grab a rebound in basketball, and I see the ball coming, I’m ready to jump up.

Let’s imagine that I’m going to jump down, and I’m simply going to stretch the muscles in my legs by loading into the ground here, and I’m just going to hold this position.

I’m going to hold it, and hold it, and hold it, and then I’m going to try to jump up and grab the rebound.

I’m not going to be able to jump very high, I’m not going to be able to jump very powerful, because my muscles are stretched, they’re held in this position, and then they’re asked to fire sometime way later.

That’s very, very similar to setting the wrists early, trying to hold that angle, and then let go of it.

What I want to do is stretch those muscles and then immediately fire those, that’s how your muscles can fire the fastest, so if I’m going to jump up and grab a rebound, I want to wait and then all of a sudden when it gets close to being jumping up, I’m then going to stretch my muscles and then jump into the air.

I’m going to be able to jump a lot higher if I do it this way versus holding that position. Exact same thing happens when we’re building lag in the golf swing.

So what we want to do is throughout the swing I want to have a very low and wide takeaway. I’m not going to set my wrists early at all.

If you look at a lot of the top players, you look at Adam Scott, very wide takeaway, not very much wrist set at all.

You look at Rory McElroy, you look at Tiger Woods, all these players are using a wide takeaway and not getting very much wrist set so that later in the swing as we start down, we can increase this wrist set and we’re really only going to max out this angle of lag for a split second in the downswing.

So everything until halfway down, I’m building lag, very, very wide as I go to the top of my swing, I’m building lag, building lag, as I start down I’m building more lag until I get to about halfway in my downswing, then I’m maxing it out.

That’s the same as maxing out that stretch when you’re about to jump up and grab a rebound. From there, from this point, now everything’s going to be releasing.

So I need to make sure that I’m not maxing out my lag too early, that way I can save it all and release it and get the max amount of speed.

So I’ve got a three-part drill for you guys now, very, very easy. You follow these steps, you’re going to pick up some speed and you’re going to pick up your lag.

OK, so three-step drill here. Now as we get started with this, I wanted to remind you that the fulcrum in this golf club for getting a massive amount of lag is right at the end of the golf club.

This is where I want my hinge point to be, I want to use the full length of this club to build lag and then release lag.

I don’t want to choke up on the club and be making my fulcrum down here.

So as I’m gripping the club, for those of you who haven’t seen some of the other videos in this system, as I’m gripping the club I want to make sure that the bottom two fingers, my pinky finger and my ring finger on my left hand are where that fulcrum is to create lag and then to be able to release lag.

So keep that in mind, this is where you want the pressure on the club as you’re going through these drills.

So the first piece of this drill is as I mentioned before, is creating that nice wide takeaway. I don’t want to get lag early, I want to be able to create lag as I’m starting into the downswing.

So I’m keeping the pressure in the bottom two fingers in my left hand. As I’m going back, I want to feel like my hands are rotated down, my fingertips would be kind of down toward the ground.

That’s going to make me feel like my thumb has also pointing a little bit down toward the ground as I’m going back, and I’m going to have very, very little wrist set. So that’s going to be our first position here.

So position number one, I’m going to do my takeaway, very little wrist set. I want my club to be about waist height when it’s parallel to the ground.

So if I’m getting my club to set really early, it’s going to be waist high, or parallel to the ground way down here below my waist.

I want to have a nice wide takeaway, so this would be setting too early, hands are waist high, club’s already up in the air.

This would be setting it the correct amount, club’s waist high, my club is also parallel to the ground at this point.

So very, very little wrist set as we’re going back. That’s so later in the swing, position number two, as I start down I’m going to feel like this wrist starts to set.

Again, I still have pressure in the bottom two fingers of my hand here, I’m not pushing on the club from way up here with my index finger on my right hand, which would be a casting motion.

So position number one, very little wrist set, position number two, as I’m starting down I’m now going to let this club drop back.

You may get the feeling, this is only the feeling, this won’t actually happen, that the club is going to come back pretty close to your shoulder here as we’re coming into the downswing.

So as you’re about halfway into the downswing you may feel like this club is really getting close to your shoulder, in reality that won’t be happening, but that’s kind of a good visual to have as you’re starting down.

So position number one, I’m going to pause here and check, club parallel with the ground, that’s about belt high, very little wrist set.

Position number two, I’m going to complete my swing. As I start down now I’m going to feel like I’m halfway in my downswing, I’ve got a nice sharp angle with this club and all the pressure is in the bottom two fingers of my left hand.

Position number three, this is the release. I’m going to come to the full release point, so my body is rotating, I’m getting my hips to clear out of the way, my club is fully releasing.

Now you can see as my club is 45 with the ground, both arms are nice and straight, I’ve fully released this club and my hands are now turning down the other direction.

So I don’t want to see a bunch of wrist set as I’m coming here, I don’t want to be flipping the club up when my hands are pointing down.

I don’t want to be holding this off, this is also what happens a lot times when people try to create lag, they just hold it off, you lose all your speed, you might even get a few shanks on there, you don’t want to do that, but I want to be making sure that I’m releasing this club.

So now you can see everything’s released, I’m into my follow through, and now I’ve been able to take advantage of this whipping action and to get the speed from the lag.

So go ahead and try these out. I want you to do 100 repetitions, pausing in each of these three positions.

Again, I’ll go over them. Position number one, club parallel, wasit high. Position number two as I’m starting down, my weight is starting to shift to the left, nice sharp angle with the wrist, my fulcrum is in the bottom two fingers.

Position number three, everything rotates on through and now I fully release this club, both arms straight, club straight with my arms, 45° angle as I’m coming through the ball.

That’s going to allow it to snap through there. 100 repetitions of this. Once I’ve done that, and now I’m going to make smooth, fluid strokes.

So from there, I’m going to feel these three positions, but I’m going to move right through them in a nice fluid motion.

So here same thing, nice and wide, there we go. Nice smooth swing, you don’t have to feel like you’re killing the ball.

You can see that as I’m starting down I was able to create a pretty good amount of lag and then more importantly to release that lag as I was coming through.

100 repetitions, nice and smooth. There we go.

After you’ve done this, now you can go ahead and grab a golf ball. Again, nice and smooth, we’re not trying to kill the ball, we’re going to go ahead and try to recreate those same feelings we’ve been having with these drills.

I’ll go ahead and try this out. There we go, that’s going to get you a lot of speed, not a whole lot of effort. You’re maximizing that lag, maximizing that whip, and you’re going to hit it farther.

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