Why You Need This: Here are "5 Things All Good Golfers Do | Step by Step Drills so You Can Too"

When it come to the golf swing...

...most tend to overcomplicate things.

At many points in the swing the best golfers in the world are doing things differently.

So clearly, there's plenty of unique ways to swing and be good.

But what if I told you that after studying all the major winners of the past couple decades...

...I've found that there are 5 things that they all do the same?

Wouldn't you think that maybe those are the things you need to be focusing on?

In today's video, I'm going to go over exactly what those 5 things are...

...and how you can learn to ingrain them into your swing...

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 17:00

Video Transcription:

Now there’s a handful of things that all great players do, that if you can learn those you can dramatically improve your game.

Let’s start with one of the most important ones here, lag. A lot of people will say that you don’t need lag in your swing, that you really don’t need the sharp angle as you’re coming down.

Well if that’s the case, then why is it that almost every single Pro has that?

From my research, what I have found, is that as you make your downswing when your left arm is parallel to the ground, so my left arm reaches parallel to the ground in the downswing.

If you’re looking from face-on video you can take this right from your phone, you want to see an angle between your left arm and the club shaft of somewhere around 40° to 65°.

So this would be 90° straight up and down, this would be 0°. You want to be somewhere 40° to 65°, that’s the PGA Tour data.

Here’s one of the biggest mistakes I see when people are trying to get lag in their downswing, though. What happens is, in the backswing they want to get this angle of lag really bad, they’re conscious of this.

So they start to set the club really early to get this big angle of wrist hinge going back. Naturally what happens, is your body wants to start releasing that early.

As soon as you get that angle you’re going to want to start letting it go.

Let me go ahead and try to hit one here with my FlightScope, setting the club early and then releasing it as soon as I can, which is what I see the majority of the time.

So early set, release the lag, I lost feel of the club head so much that I even topped that golf ball, went right into the water and my club head speed, according to my FlightScope, was down to 103.

Not the worst club head speed, but very, very slow compared to what my potential that I can get.

What I want you to do, is I want you to focus in on your thumbs. As you make your backswing, I want you to feel like your thumbs are pointing down away from your body.

If I’m getting this early wrist set, my thumbs are pointing up toward the sky in my backswing.

I want you to feel like your thumbs are pointing away from your body, and then in the downswing, when you get back to this same position, I want you to feel like your thumbs are pointing back over your shoulder.

My thumbs are really angled back this way, almost like my thumbs are pointing to the back of my right shoulder in my downswing.

I’m going to do this wide takeaway, and then I’m going to have my thumbs pointing back this way as I do my downswing. Then, here’s the real key, I have to let that go.

I can’t hold on to that angle, or I’m going to lose tons of speed. It’s the letting go of that angle that creates the rea club head speed.

Let me go ahead and try one out with that visual and see how I do. There we go, hit that one well. Dead straight, nice little tiny fade like I usually like to play. It’s going to be a lot faster.

Not only was I able to generate a lot more club head speed at the bottom. I also felt like I was in much more control with this club head lagging behind, it was really easy to feel where this club head is in space.

When you start to flip it a little bit, it outraces my hands and now it feels really unstable up here. Again, like I said, when I did my slower one or my first one, I just couldn’t feel where the club head is.

I couldn’t tell if it was high or low, or where it was at. It made it really difficult to make contact, which is why I topped it.

So 117.6, carry distance was 309, 338 total distance, so pretty dag-gone good, I’m happy with that.

Now the reason the way we found these numbers out, and why I recommended that 40° to 65°, actually did a lot of research on this, my team did.

We took all the major winners from the year 2000, found very high-quality video of their swing, and we started looking at different aspects of that.

We boiled it down to five things that all pros do really well that regular players, mid-handicap players, high-handicap players, even low, low single-digit players, then tend to not do all of these as well.

Lag was the first one. When we measured those players, we paused all those players when their left arm was parallel to the ground.

We found that the average angle was 54.8°, meaning 90°, 45° would be kind of in the middle, this would be 0°, so just a little less than 55°, roughly 55°.

When we took the outliers, so we took these roughly 50 players, we got rid of the top five that had the most crazy angle of lag, maybe they had super, super flexible wrists.

We got rid of some of the players that maybe got rid of a little bit of lag, and then created more in the downswing. Got rid of some of those outliers. Every other player fit in that angle that we were just talking about, that 40° to 65° angle of lag.

You may hear somebody say I don’t think lag is that important, you know golfers all don’t have to have lag. Maybe it’s true, but for my research, from what I found, it’s pretty important. All the good players are doing it.

When I teach players to create more lag, sometimes I’ve had players pick up 50 and 60 yards over a fairly short period of time by getting rid of that cast.

It’s pretty simple, we want more lag, that’s one of the best drills to start you getting some more lag.

That’s piece number one. Piece number two, we did the same thing and measured spine angle.

What I noticed through years of teaching, is a lot of players have this idea if they want to get their weight left, they want to stay centered, and they don’t want to shift off the ball at all, so what happens is their spine angle’s pretty straight up and down.

At the top of their backswing, we’ve got a little of that reverse pivot, so the spine’s kind of angled back toward the target.

Then in the downswing, either they keep this spine angle here and be over the top, or they would realize after a while that over the top isn’t that good and they start to fall back away from it, so a lot of issues with the spine angle.

When I put major winners on the PGA Tour, looked at their spine angle at impact, the average degree, so when they came down and this is all with the driver that I’m talking about, I like to use the same club with these measurements so you can measure yourself against them.

When I looked at a driver, when it came to impact, if I looked at the angle of their spine, so what I would do is find the middle of their hips, measure to the middle of the shoulders, and look at that angle away from the target.

I believe it was 21.58° is what the average was there. So that means that their spine is angled away 21.58° if you take the cumulative of all these players.

Then if you, again, you cut out those outliers that the range that you want to be in, every single other player on the PGA Tour that’s winning majors, with a driver, they were 19° to 25°.

That’s crazy consistent. You think about one minute on a clock face is 6°, that’s about the difference in their spine angle at contact. That’s great to know, how do we do that?

Number one, when you set up to the golf ball, it’s a lot easier to get that angle if you get a little bit of tilt at address.

So if you grab a club, put it on your belt buckle, put the other one on your shirt buttons, tilt away until that club hits the inside of your left leg, that’s about the right amount of tilt you want to have there.

As you go to the top of the swing, feel like you’re maintaining that, and then as your weight shifts to the left, you want to keep your head behind the golf ball.

If I feel like my head is behind the golf ball at impact, that’s going to put me in about that angle that all the pro players are getting.

So at address again, little bit of tilt away. When I swing, I want to go ahead and feel like at contact, my weight is shifted to the left but my head’s behind the golf ball.

That gets me this tilt away like every single good player has. Let’s go ahead and try one out here. Little tilt at address, head away from the golf ball, right center of the fairway.

Hit it pretty dag-gone hard, that one’s going to be pretty long. So let’s see what it says here on my FlightScope, 116, 311 carry, 351, that was a high knuckler, that thing was going to roll.

Let’s go to the next piece, those were the first two pieces. Your spine angle is consistent like the Tour players, your lag is nice and sharp like the Tour players, the next one is going to be what we call the Compression Line.

It’s very related to the last one, meaning that when I take an angle, let’s go to impact here and pause at impact.

When I look at the angle between my left ankle and the center of my left shoulder, that wants to be titled away from the target slightly.

If I get this in front of the golf ball, so I’m trying to hit a drive here, and I’m letting my shoulder get in front of my ankle, I’m dead. I’m in trouble. I’m going to have a hard time.

I’m either going to have to flip to add some loft to this club, or I’m going to be coming over the top. Either one of those results, not going to be pretty when you’re hitting a driver.

We found for the PGA Tour players there again, 5.65° tilted away, so from the ankle to the shoulder at impact, tilt is slightly away from the target.

Again, that range is going to be from 3° to 8° tilted away. Again, you don’t have to get anything fancy here, the same key I would take from the last tip that I gave you, I would use the same thing for this one.

As my weight shifts to the left, if I’m looking at the back of this golf ball, my shoulder’s going to be behind my ankle. If I shift in front, then all of a sudden, I’m looking at the front of the golf ball, I’ve slid too far forward.

So again, get that little tilt at address to get pre-set behind it, and then as your weight shifts to the left, still keep your head behind that golf ball.

You’re going to be in a position to where you can sit some high, long, drives. Let’s give it a whirl.

That might be the best one so far. A little fade down the right-center of the fairway. My FlightScope is lined up a little bit to the left, these may look a little farther to the right than they are.

117.9 club head speed, 312 carry, 343 total. So again, hit that one really well. One of the reasons I’m able to create a really high-launching golf ball, so that ball, see the launch angle here really quickly if it will pull it up.

My launch angle or how high that club left the face, I’m 15.6° launch angle. That’s very high, but it can knuckle low spin because I’m hitting up on it.

Again, that’s from me being behind the golf ball, my shoulder being behind the golf ball, very easy to hit up on it. As we go to wedges, maybe I’d be a little bit more down, that’s completely fine.

Now my Power Turn, this is a big one. The fourth piece of the five pieces that Pro players do. That’s how much your shoulders rotate.

When I make this backswing, I hear so many times, “Limit your hips. Don’t make much of a turn. Make your swing as compact as possible. Don’t make a very big swing, that way you can be in more control.”

Maybe that’s the case, maybe you would be in a little more control, but you’re going to lose 40, 50 yards off the tee.

If I feel like my swing stays nice and compact, let me go ahead and try one here, I’m going to make a hard swing at it, but I’m going to keep it really compact.

There, I didn’t have a huge backswing, decent shoulder turn. Everything looked great. You look at it on camera, it’s going to look like a million bucks.

My swing speed went down to 108, which for most players that would be fine, but we saw last few I’m 10 miles an hour faster than that was my potential.

Maybe you’re swinging 85, 90, 95, 100 miles an hour, but you really could be swinging 10 miles an hour faster, because you have the idea of this compact swing.

Well when you look at PGA Tour players, they don’t have that short, tight, compact swing. Maybe a few outliers do, but when I measured the Major winners, on average they’re getting 106° of shoulder turn.

So this is 90°, they’re getting past 90° with their shoulder turn. Some of the guys were getting well over 120°.

When I threw out those outliers again, the average there, or the range there, every single one of those players got at least 90° and some up to 120°.

So you really want to rotate those shoulders. Here’s the key to that, the secret that’s going to allow you to get more flexible. You have to loosen up the lower body.

If my lower body is stiff, and tight, and rigid, I can’t turn. If my lower body loosens up and I let my legs move, now I can get a bigger turn and I can really hammer it.

As you’re making those swings, loosen up that lower body, you’re going to be able to rotate more, and you’re going to see your swing speed go way up. Let’s try another one out.

There we go, gave it a little extra on that one, let’s see what happens there. Going to be tough to beat that, right down the middle of the fairway.

Pretty straight ball flight, 314 carry, 342 total, almost up to 120 miles an hour on the swing speed. Again, loosen that lower body, get the upper body to turn.

Now finally, this is kind of where I would say the big payoff is with all these things we’ve talked about, something I call the Straight-Line Release.

What this means is, and what I see again as being one of the most common things that players struggle with, the Straight-Line Release means whenever my club splits my forearms in the downswing, so I’m going to choke up on the club so you can see this really easily.

Here when my club is outside my forearms, that would be lag. As I come to impact, club be kind of around my left forearm, that would be kind of a little bit of forward shaft lean related to my body.

But then every club in the bag, the club is going to split the forearms about, I like to say 45° in front to keep the math simple. I’m lagging and then releasing everything out in front.

With an iron, that ensures that you have forward shaft lean, you compress the golf ball, you hit it nice and solid, you’re super consistent because your hands are in front.

With the driver, same thing. My body is tilted back away from it. My body is moving in a way to where everything is releasing out in front, and then my club is just lagging behind for the ride.

It’s accelerating through the ball and whipping to that release point out in front. Again, when I looked at PGA Tour players, the average 39.5° in front.

So again, if this is zero, this is 90° in front, this would be a 45°, they were 39.5° was the very first time the club split their forearms.

I see all the time players in their downswing letting that club split their forearms back here to where their club is -20° and it’s already splitting their forearms.

Kills your distance, kills your consistency, and is simply not what the best players in the world are doing. Again, you knock off a few of those outliers, you take the range the rest of the pros are in, they’re from 28° to 50° in front.

So 28° somewhere around in here, all the way up to 50° up here. Everybody is releasing that club in front.

Here’s the cool thing with that. If you’re focused on that out in front release, you can go ahead and have as much lag as you want.

You can whip that club as hard as you can, because when you change your attention away from hitting the golf ball, to swinging out in front of the golf ball, a lot of things that happen at impact will just happen naturally.

You’ll start to notice that your hips open up more, because you’re thinking about more in front. Your shoulders rotate through the shot better. You accelerate through the shot better, and this golf ball just kind of gets in the way.

All right, hardest swing. Let’s go ahead, I’m going to think about that Straight-Line Release, releasing the club well out in front and we’re going to get in the 120s here. Let’s give it a whirl.

Ah, felt pretty good. I don’t know if it was quite the 120s, a little bit off the toe compared to some of the other ones.

The FlightScope says 121, so hit the swing speed. 305 carry, 343 total distance. Again, it really isn’t that complicated when we come down to it. I’ve done a lot of the leg work for you.

If you’re not hitting these five keys, you’re really going to struggle. I see it with players time and time again. The higher the handicap, the farther they are off of these five keys.

Those are what I call the five fundamentals of the Top Speed Golf System. If you get those five fundamentals down, it’s a direct correlation to your handicap.

The better you get at those five fundamentals as a whole, the lower your handicap is going to be.

So here’s the deal. This video is fantastic to get us started in thinking about these pieces, but it really comes down to doing the simple work of just working through the system.

I’ve done all the legwork for you. I’ve identified the five things that really matter. I’ve laid out programs that are going to work you through those, so all you have to do is go to the Top Speed Golf System.

Click on the instruction tab, right from there, you’re going to be able to focus on these five piece and you’ll work through level one, level two, level three of each one of these, it becomes natural.

You become the player that just steps up on the very first tee without having to think any swing thoughts. You don’t have to think about anything in your golf game.

You make a swing, and all of a sudden, your lag looks really good. Your compression line, your Stable-Fluid Spine, all these things look fantastic. If we want to get there, all we have to do is just chip away at it.

A couple minutes a day, you look back in a couple months, and you’re a totally different player. Let’s go ahead and get start with lag. That’s one that I really see a lot of players struggle with.

I want you to go to the Lag section right now, start on level one, start working through these videos, and that way you’re going to be able to build a PGA Tour-caliber golf swing. I’ll see you in the Lag section.