Why You Need This: Today you'll learn when NOT to "Keep the Club in Front of You"

Something I see being talked about often is the concept of keeping the club in front of your body throughout the swing.

While I think this is okay to do on your backswing...

...it can really cause some bad things to happen on the downswing.

Today you'll learn what bad habits this promotes...

...and two thoughts that will make sure you're in the correct position and creating tons of Lag on the downswing.

The first thought (at 1:05) will help generate the sharp angle of Lag...

...and the second thought (at 3:05) will help you accelerate through impact and smash the ball.

Do you know the point in your downswing that you should have the sharpest angle of Lag?

If not, you will after today!

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 5:09

Video Transcription:

Welcome back, I have an awesome video for you. One of the questions I get all the time, and one of the things I’ve seen a lot out there is talking about keeping the club in front of your body as you swing back and through.

Let me go over exactly what this would be. The idea here and this is something that I’ve bought into in the past, is a really cool-sounding idea.

Then I realized as I got deeper and deeper into it, I used it myself, I watched students use it, it has a few limiting factors and I want you to be aware of those, as it can often lead you down the wrong path.

So the idea here is if I set up to this golf ball, and what I’m going to do in the backswing, if I just get rid of the rotation of my body, I’m just looking at what my hands and arms are doing, and what the club is doing.

In the backswing, the club hands and arms would be doing this, going over my right shoulder. Then staying in front of my body in the downswing. So when I add rotation to that, it looks like this.

Now that’s a pretty nice looking top of the backswing position, but the part that’s left out there is what happens in the downswing.

A lot of times when I see players try to keep the club in front, what happens is the club is in from here, I’m OK with that. That’s fantastic.

But what happens if I keep the club in front of my body as my body starts to open up? My shoulders start unwinding. Now all of a sudden, the club is pushed out here.

If you’re struggling with an over the top move, that is one of the worst things you can do, that pushes that club out even farther.

I often see that club shaft start to steepen up, and now I have to kind of stand up and flip to correct that.

So the idea or the feeling of having the club in front of your body in the downswing, I think can be really harmful.

Now, the proper way or the proper feeling you should get, nothing wrong with feeling like you do this when you go to the top of the backswing.

You can see here as I rotate to the top, that’s a good hard-arm position in relationship to my chest and my body.

But from there, I want to feel like as I’m opening up, as my ribcage, my thorax opens up, my left arm is going to be cinched in pretty tight from that.

I think this is one of the keys from people that talk about feeling connected, that’s a really good feeling to have. Like the bicep or the left arm here is pushing against my left pec starting the downswing.

Now if I raise back up, you could see that club really isn’t in front of me very much anymore, it’s more behind my body, and my arms kind of to the side, trailing along. That’s a good position.

If you want to open up your body, if you want to get in these positions you see the pros doing, where your hips, and body, and everything is opening up, but your club is still from the inside, it’s coming in the slot, that’s the feeling that you have to have.

Again, if I bring that club in front of my body, it’s out here, way out of position. Needs to be feeling like it’s behind my body.

So I want you to do a couple practice reps for me. Go to the top of your swing, you can feel like the club stays in front of your body at the top of your swing.

Pause at the top of the swing. Feel like that club is nice and high here, I’m in a powerful position. As you start down, as the hips and the body start opening up, feel a little pressure between your left arm and your left pec.

Then from there, here’s the key. As you rotate on through, you can go ahead and let that release. Let that flow on through to a good full follow through.

Do 10 reps for me. So it’s going to look like this. Top of the swing, really loaded up, great position there. Start down, feel that pressure in the left side of your body.

Then three, or the third piece to concentrate on, go ahead and let that long flowing finish happen. Do 10 reps, pausing like that.

Do 10 reps again, focusing one fluid swing feeling that pressure in the side of your left arm. It’s going to look like that.

Again, nice free-flowing follow through. Then finally, go ahead and hit a few golf balls. Let’s see if I can crank one out here. Feeling pretty good today, not going to lie.

All right, so hit that one pretty good, right down the left center. Pretty nice shot there.

But one of the things that I see a lot of players struggle with when they’re doing this, so again, as you’re starting down you don’t want that club to come out in front of you, you want that to feel nice and connected, the most connected when your left arm is about parallel to the ground.

So anywhere from here in the downswing down to here, that’s when you’re going to feel the tightest pressure, the tightest connection between your left arm and your left peck as you’re starting your downswing.

That also happens to be the exact same time that you’re going to have the sharpest angle of lag, the biggest angle between your arms and the club here.

Then you’re going to release that after that happens.

So if you want to ingrain this feeling and have it for a lifetime, what I find a lot of times players will do is they’ll watch this one video, they’ll go out, they’ll get started, they’ll start hitting it great.

Then they’ll say OK, I’ve got it, and gradually it will wear away, they’ll lose that feeling. If you want to have that feeling for a lifetime, here’s what you need to do.

Do this drill today, and then commit to going through The Lag section of the Top Speed Golf System.

Start in level one, start chipping away at these drills, and you’ll start to notice your lag get a little better, and a little better, and a little better.

You’ll start to notice your drives get a little longer, and a little bit longer, and it’s really fun working through that. Each of the videos really aren’t all that much work as you’re doing them step by step.

If you stay consistent with that, if you work through that Lag section, you add that to what we’re doing here today, that’s when you can really build this powerful, solid downswing position to where every single day you play golf it feels pretty dag-gone good.

Best of luck, and I’ll see you in The Lag section.