"Increase Lag Drill - Improve Your Lag in the Golf Swing"

Watch the "Increase Your Lag" Video

by Chuck Quinton

A great drill to do both indoors or out, this will get you in positions in your golf swing that you've never dreamed possible! If you've struggled with casting, slicing, flipping and fat shots, you will see instant improve your golf swing with this drill and you only need an impact bag to do it! Increasing lag in the golf swing and getting rid of the dreaded casting motion is one of the most sought after pieces of golf instruction advice there is. While it's not necessary to have lag like Serio Garcia pictured to the left, having sufficient lag in the golf swing is crucial to hitting solid and accurate golf shots and improving your golf swing.

Many people are surprised to hear me say that lag is important for accuracy, but it is and here's a quick explanation why. When you have lag coming into impact as you can see in the screen capture of me on the right, I don't have to do anything to square the clubface with my hands. This is, of course, assuming I have the proper grip. If I release the club early at this point, the clubface is going to be shutting through impact and I will pull the ball. But, by not casting and not doing anything with my arms or hands (watch the passive arms video) the clubface will quietly come into impact square with no conscious interference on my part. You will understand this more clearly after watching the video as it's much easier to explain in pictures than words!

As you can see in the screen capture, there is still a significant angle between my right forearm and the club shaft which is a key to improving your swing and impact position. This angle is what represents lag coming into the hitting area. Often golfers mistake understanding lag by solely looking at the angle between the left arm and clubshaft, but it is incorrect. The left wrist will be uncocking at this point in the swing as the clubhead accelerates and begins to square. However, the angle formed by the right wrist and clubshaft continues to be maintained and is critical, especially for Rotary Hitters, as this is what allows you to control the power of your shot and the angle of the clubface at impact. Improving this angle will go a long way to helping you become a better golfer.

In an ideal world, there is very little going on with the hands coming into impact in a sound, simple and repeatable golf swing. This is simply impossible if you are losing lag early in the downswing as the clubhead will be releasing out of control and you will be "flipping" the club coming into impact. This will not only destroy your accuracy, but your control of trajectory as well. In the next screen capture of this swing, you can see how the hands seem very quiet through impact and a significant angle between the right wrist and clubshaft is still maintained. You can see that I'm not aggressively rolling my right hand over my left to square the clubface nor am I breaking down or "cupping" my left wrist in a desparate effort to square the face.

Think of this in terms of cracking a whip. Once you stop the handle from moving forward any more, the energy is transferred through the rest of the whip and you no longer have control over the end of the whip. The same is true in the golf swing. Once that right wrist angle, or lag is lost, you no longer have control over the clubhead and are simply along for the ride. You'd better have great timing, day in and day out, to play golf this way! If you don't, you need to devote some significant time to the Lag Drill in this video.

In this shot, you can see that my left wrist has fully uncocked but remained flat, while my right wrist has remained bent and the clubhead has not passed my hands. This is the ultimate impact position in golf and in this video, I give you the drills and the explanation on how to properly achieve this desirable position in your own golf swing. Prepare to compress the ball like never before and improver your lag and trajectory with one simple drill!

From left to right, Adrian Wadey, Tiger Woods, Neal Anderson and Mike Weir.

To participate in the forum discussion of the lag video and see more pics and video, click here!