The Importance of the Waggle for Speed
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The waggle is is far more useful than you think, you just have to know how to use it correctly and you will feel more leverage on your wrists for increased swing speed.
Ben Hogan thought that the waggle was an extremely important part of the golf swing.
And everybody probably has some sort of waggle, but what is it really for and what is the benefit of it?
It is hugely important for creating speed.
Yep, that's right.
The little waggle is really critical for helping you understand how to create speed.
Because it's going to teach you one very important concept that you've heard me talk about for 20 years now, is that your body should always be moving in the opposite direction you want the club to go.
And that starts at the waggle.
Now, what do I mean by that?
Just really quickly, as the club head is swinging around, if your body is moving in the same direction that the club is going, it's going to obviously pull you off balance.
This driver, the club head, which weighs only a couple hundred grams through impact at tour level speeds, effectively weighs about a hundred pounds.
That's a ton of force being pulled on your body.
So your body obviously has to be moving in the opposite direction, but this is not just for balance.
It's for speed because it creates leverage.
You've seen some of my videos.
I was talking about how you can use your whole body as a lever, as your head and everything works together to put leverage on the club.
You simulate that feeling before you ever hit the ball with your waggle.
Let me show you how.
So a lot of times people kind of waggle the club and they're just kind of picking the club up like this with their wrists.
And so what's going to, what I'm trying to feel here is actually moving in the opposite direction.
So if I slow it down, look at my weight, the club head's going this way.
I'm back on my heel, on my right heel.
The club head's going this way.
I'm on my left heel.
This is a proper waggle because all of your speed is going to come from your wrist.
If you want an efficient golf swing, of course you can swing really hard at it and use your body and your arms and take your wrist out of it.
But if you want real speed, like I'm going to show you here in just a moment, I've got my swing speed radar set up here.
That's the swing caddy pro, which you can practice indoors with, with just a swing speed mode setting, which I have it on here.
And you'll see that on the screen here in a moment, what, uh, how, how this is going to affect my swing speed.
But what I'm trying to do is get in my head that I'm doing this throughout the entire golf swing.
Now that seems kind of crazy, but yes, in the backswing, I am trying to go this way because that's going to load me up to go this way.
Wait a second.
This seems really weird, right?
But if you grab a club and you start to feel this in your trail hand, you'll feel how the club starts to work and your wrist is starting to get levered against your body.
That's going to move this club head.
This is a waggle.
So when I'm setting up to the ball, all I'm trying to feel is the opposite motion.
So just get a feel for your right wrist or your trail hand setting back.
And just to be clear, the way that this wrist has got to work in the swing is through supination.
Now this is another really confusing concept for a lot of golfers understand, but I covered it in the Jay release video that your wrist at the top of the swing is going like this.
This is where all the forces, your speed is there.
Look how fast I can snap my right hand.
Now this is why a lot of golfers who are really powerful players like Nicholas and Freddie couples that are flying right elbow.
Why?
Guess what that's going to do is my arm is up here.
That's going to give me leverage leverage to snap this wrist down in a supinated fashion.
Watch.
So if I go up here and I start to bring my arm down, use the goat drill to contract my core, all of these things working together is going to allow me to snap my wrist down this way.
This is why you see really good ball strikers.
Some who may have kind of a funky looking golf swing look really laid off at the top and then they still shallow out coming down.
It's because they're just using supination to leverage the club head.
Now most golfers use pronation and they try to supinate the left hand throughout the swing and that just does all sorts of weak stuff.
It's not going to give you any power.
Any power is coming from this.
This motion is the most powerful motion you're going to make in the golf swing.
A lot of times golfers also think of it instead of supination, they start going into deviation.
So there's a big difference between snapping my wrist this way.
This is how you cast the club.
This is why people get confused when I say throw the club head from the top and they start going into ulnar deviation instead of supination.
Supination, ulnar deviation will cast the club.
That's dumb.
Don't do that.
There's no power there.
You're going to have, you're going to be like this coming through.
But when you supinate, You whip the club through and that's what you're trying to set up in.
The waggle is I'm trying to get a feel for my wrist supinating and or setting basically this way and then supinating on the way down.
But I'm using my body to do that.
And when I do it really fast in the back, this is why most golfers, you know, they try to kind of shift into the right side and then they pick the club up and then they have to push really hard off the right side.
That's a push swing and that's very hard to produce a lot of speed and it's much more work and effort.
A efficient swing is doing this.
I'm going back this way and then I'm going to use my whole body this way.
That's why you saw Tiger in that drill that nobody really seems to understand what he's doing there.
What he's doing is this, that squish the bug motion is what's happening in the downswing, but I have to get this way first.
And that's why, again, when you see golfers who you look at force plate data, like by the time the takeaway is done, that's as much pressure as they're going to shift to the right, a good ball striker, they're done and they're already beginning to recenter or move back.
The reality is that happens so fast, you're not going to really feel it.
What I'm actually feeling is my waggle at the top of my, or as I start to swing, I'm starting to load this way because then in the downswing, I'm going to go this way.
Now, of course it doesn't look like it's some big reverse shift like this, but that is what it feels like when it happens at speed.
So I'm going this way and then I'm going to go back in the opposite direction, squish the bug, supinate the wrist, and that's where speed comes from.
So now let's see, let's make a couple of swings here.
So I've got my swing speed radar up here.
Uh, we're going to recording the speed.
So you'll be able to see what's, uh, what's going to happen when I swing in different patterns.
Okay.
So here's the first one.
I'm going to make kind of a pushy swing.
So I'm going to shift to the right, pick my arms up and then push off my right leg, shift to the left and try to push the arms through.
And I'm going to swing at it fast.
I'm not going to try and, you know, swing at it easy.
I'm going to try to put real effort into it without hurting myself.
So shift to the right, kind of off balance.
Okay.
106 miles an hour off balance, no control, not very efficient.
I worked pretty hard at it, but it's no speed.
Okay.
Now I'm going to do the opposite.
So instead of shifting and shifting in the downswing, I'm going to reverse and reverse and squish the bug.
And let's see what happens to my club head speed.
So I'm going to preset this in my mind.
I'm, I'm just doing this.
I'm exaggerating this of course, but I'm getting my wrist to start to set like in the J release video to supinate on the way down.
And so I'm trying to feel my hips moving in the opposite direction.
That's what I'm trying to feel in this little waggle.
Now, of course, as I do it for real, it's really just kind of rocking back and forth on my heels here.
Nothing too crazy.
Keeping my feet going, feeling that set of the wrists so that I can supinate on the way down.
And let's see the speed.
Alright, so 127.
So a 20 mile an hour difference.
And there was way more efficient.
Now my wrist worked hard.
You've got to have some speed and some strength in that right hand, the trail hand to supinate that wrist with speed.
But as you use your whole body to throw it, you'll feel a tremendous amount of speed without a lot of effort.
Even though I swung at 127, it was really just coming from my wrist and then using my whole body to lever it.
And that starts again at the waggle.
The waggle is starting to preset that wrist to supinate on the way down.
And that's where you get tons of killer club head speed without any effort.
Tony
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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