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AXIOM Lag in the Golf Swing
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Producing incredible lag has never been this easy - or fast
if you're watching this video you're probably like most golfers who think that lag is some elusive black art in the golf swing and you're either born with it or you just don't have it and you're never going to have it it's not true I promise you but for many lag is like they define their golf swings by in fact I've seen golfers on internet forums change their username to have something to do with this issue they call themselves club caster 64 club head throwaway guy or you know fly fishing caster guy or whatever it might be but the truth is lag is incredibly simple and anyone can create lag that's the easy part the hard part about lag for most golfers is understanding how and when to release it and with rotary swing just like everything else you've learned it's actually incredibly simple but before we talk about how to release lag at the right time let's talk about this common misconception that's circling around out there that lag is a an illusion it doesn't really exist that's nonsense but let's talk about why that illusion is going around and what's really going on in the swing first of all what is lag well lag is nothing more than the club head lagging behind your hands as it comes into the impact area so you can see here I would have lag the club heads lagging about six or eight inches behind my hands and here I would be flipping scooping chunking it probably coming into impact because now the club head is overtaking my hands that's the opposite that's scooping it we want lag in the swing but we only want so much we need to release that lag so the moment you do anything from setup where the hands and club are perfectly in a line and you set that club behind your hands it is now officially lagging behind see look you can have lag anybody can create lag that's easy so as soon as you do anything like this the clubs now lagging you have lag that's not the important part the important part is getting rid of it at the right time as I mentioned lag by itself is useless it's all about what lag really is so rather than thinking about lag as some elusive thing perhaps we should redefine what lag really is and what it really is is leverage and leverage is nothing more than potential energy it's stored energy if my hands are like this I really can't do much to make the club go anywhere with my wrists but as soon as I set my wrists now there's potential energy because I've created an angle that I can then release to get the club to accelerate so think of lag rather than as some elusive thing think of it like it's like an atomic bomb it's got tons of potential energy but until it's detonated it's completely useless it's just wasting a bunch of space lag is much the same way in the golf swing if you have lag and you get rid of it at the wrong time it's like exploding a nuclear bomb way up in space sure it'll still have some destructive force but it's nowhere near as potentially damaging as when you explode it on the target lag is exactly the same way if you have lag in your swing which we all do at one point or another and you get rid of it up here in the atmosphere it doesn't do you a darn bit of good because by the time you come into impact the club is actually decelerating through the hitting air you want that lag to be released close to the target and in golf the target for us is the ball that's where we're directing all of our energy all of that stored up energy all of that potential leverage is being directed to be released at the back of the ball in fact that's really your number one priority in the swing is to create maintain and release this leverage that you've created at the right time and timing in the golf swing such as in life is everything so let's first understand what causes us to have bad timing when we release the club at the wrong time which is typically for most golfers way too soon so first of all what are some common causes that cause you to cause cast the club and lose lag too soon well for the lead arm typically what happens is people are pushing against the shaft with their thumb if you see a wear spot on your grip right underneath your thumb pad no that's exactly what you're doing you're trying to force the club to release with your thumb and not only are you casting the club but you're putting yourself at risk for an injury the other way that people cast the club is that when our trail armor is loaded up in the swing we've got a lot of tension what does your body want to do with that tension it wants to get rid of it so if you go to the top of your swing and you're all tight you can't breathe like we see all the time in our golf schools I'm like whoa relax breathe go to the top and relax because the more tension you create early in the swing the more it's going to predispose you to want to be pushing against that shaft with your right hand your trail hand and that's also if I take my left hand off what I'm going to do so if this arms all loaded up the only thing I'm going to do is release that club too soon and that's going to cause me to cast the club as well the last thing is taking my shoulders and trying to rotate them hard from the top this again comes from a common misconception that that's what you're supposed to do in the swing go to the top and then rip your shoulders through as hard as you can that's not going to produce speed that's going to cause you to create a lot of centripetal force very early as you create rotation which will create centrifugal force that will act on the club and cause you to throw it away it's a complicated way of saying don't spin your shoulders you create a lot of rotation soon all of that force is going to act on that club and wanted you to make it throw away too soon you may find that you have one of these issues or perhaps a combination of all three but until you address them you will always always cast the club because you can't overcome physics so if you start spinning early as you know with the axiom we're not trying to do much of anything with our shoulders so if you find that you're still trying to motor the swing with power from your upper body rotation go back to the axiom go back to the compression drill and shorten and slow down your swing go back to the compression drill where you're making little half swing so you can get the feeling of not being so loaded up and tight because what happens a lot of times as people just try to make this huge powerful turn they build up so much tension they just can't overcome the urge to fire from the top for a lot of golfers they have that's what is a hit instinct for them they create a lot of tension and they load and unload way too soon and at the wrong time if you're the golfer that's tending to push against the shaft with the trail arm then you've missed a really important part of the axiom that's the exact wrong direction of force that you're trying to create in the swing with the axiom what are you doing with your trail arm well it's not doing this right I didn't say anything about this what did I say about your trail arm what is it doing it's rotating clockwise all right my shoulder my elbow my wrist my wrist rotation the club it's all rotating clockwise right as soon as I do this why would I ever do this that's not a motion that is in the axiom at all I'm just rotating this wrist clockwise rotating my elbow clockwise and now all of a sudden I've got all the lag in the world that I know what to do with if you're pushing with the lead thumb then all you need to do is take it off now I don't mean cut your thumb off or anesthetize it I mean actually take the thumb off for a moment and simply make swings without it on the club Ben Hogan used to talk about doing this all the time he would take his thumb and forefinger off so he could get the feeling of letting the club release naturally rather than getting the tendency to push against the shaft with the thumb so again check that wear spot on your grips so how do we start putting this all together in order to get the feeling of maintaining lag and then releasing it at the right time well the first thing as I mentioned a moment ago is you have to get the feeling of this clockwise motion with your wrist this is the opposite of casting the club this pushing against it with my hand and my arm because my elbows loaded up is casting but this how would I ever cast the club if the whole motion in my swing is clockwise rotation I couldn't has nothing to do with each other and what's really cool for those of you who have really struggled with casting the club a couple simple fun things that you can do as I mentioned earlier take the thumb off and you'll see immediately look how much lag I can create now combine this with that clockwise rotation and now all of a sudden you can see as I go up I can have a very wide wrist angle at the top doesn't really matter then as I start down as I let my wrist set and this clockwise rotation happen look at how much lag it looks like I have now this clockwise rotation here's the shaft angle and now as I rotate it it looks like I have more lag this is where that misconception of lag is an illusion it's down cocking an extreme amount is really what the illusion is but the truth of the matter is you all have lag you're just getting rid of it at the wrong time so as you combine getting this clockwise rotation with your forearm when we look at it from down the line it's very easy to see as I'm going up you can see my takeaway move and I'm gonna exaggerate this so it's easy to see that clockwise rotation creates the falling motion of the shaft that you see in all the pros most amateurs go like this and pros go like this you want to take an extreme example of that take a look at Matthew wolf he makes this clockwise circle really big Ryan Palmer does the same thing but you can see how the club naturally shallows again it's just this clockwise action it's the opposite of casting the club so take heart Club caster 64 you don't have to cast the club anymore so how do you then get rid of it we've already understood what the release feels like well in the quick start section as you're going through this motion now that you know how to create lag and stop getting rid of it you now know what it feels like to release the club so now that you know the three most common causes of casting the club and how to get rid of that and combine that with the axiom and the release you're off to the races now let's take a look at some tour pros to see how they create lag maintain lag and release it in the downswing let's look at a fun one to start Lucas Glover let's this guy produces lag like nobody's business so he'll be a fun one to study so let's first look at just a quick reminder look at the takeaway here from down the line note how he's doing what we've talked about keeping those the hands in the club out you can see the lead arm kind of angled in a little bit more toward the body he's not breaking that imaginary plane line so the clubs looking great there and this is key if you set your wrists early in the swing then the only place that they have to go is out so what you'll see most better players do is they set their wrists very very late you can see at this point still got a very wide angle in his arms and then as he starts down you're going to see the massive flattening of the shaft and that rotation so look at how much that shaft drops from where he is at the top and look out shallows out with that clockwise rotation you can very clearly envision this in your head watch that clubhead make this clockwise loop as he starts down and then when you look at it from face on look at how that shaft looks because he's flattened it like he's got and he does have an insane amount of lag but it looks even more compared to where he was during the backswing because of how much rotation he's put in there so now you can see this in action he's got tons and tons and tons of lag and and so at this point his primary job is just getting rid of it he's got to get rid of all of that angle in there in order to get the club face squared back up and release all that energy but he's a great exaggerated example of seeing this motion where the club is going up and then shallowing and rotating as he creates lag rather than pushing against the shaft like so many golfers do you can see that he's definitely in no hurry to start casting that club or throwing it away from the top he's just showing you the exact motions that you just learned he's not pushing against the shaft with his left thumb he's not clearly not pushing against it with his right arm look at how it's still got this nearly the same angle that it did at the top of the swing he's just rotated it which creates this crazy look of tons of lag here and then he's just got to get rid of it all right let's take a look at Justin Rose here so on the right I've drawn a line that represents his hand path the yellow line is going up through the center of his hands during his backswing and see there he's tracing that pretty much with the gloved hand the whole time and then the red line represents his hand path on the way down it's very clear that he has made a clockwise circle there right there's no question that his hands have shallowed out what's interesting about this is that if he didn't rotate his body they would shallow out much more but of course as he begins turning his shoulders back to the left using his hips then that is going to pull his hands further forward toward the ball but yet his hands are still tracing a shallower path on the downswing that they did on the backswing so this is really clearly indicating how much clockwise rotation there is in that hand movement and again if he didn't rotate his body at all you would see his hands drop way down here but of course that rotation pulls them forward out toward the ball now as we see this so we know that that clockwise motion is happening but it's not happening just in the arc that his hands and elbow and shoulders and arm are traveling on but that rotation in his wrists is also doing that so now when we look at him from face on you can see just how much of an angle he has created not just by setting his wrist but by that shallowing by the club rotating flattening as his right wrist left wrist both are working together to shallow out that club which is why he has the appearance as I showed you of having a lot of lag as he flattens the shaft angle you can see that as he starts down notice how much further the club ahead is back here behind him this is a flattening motion so as he goes back and then his shoulders begin to turn which should pull the club forward the club is still much shallower coming in on a much flatter plane and again this is just showing that the idea when you have lag and you're creating lag is not to try and do something with your wrists to hold the angle you never ever want to try and hold lag you're simply just not doing anything that would cause you to get rid of it and that is rotation as you add that rotation in that right wrist you're gonna see that club shallow out so go in the mirror and check this out for yourself go to the top of your swing and then simply don't push against the shaft to try and widen the angle simply rotate your wrist clockwise as a right-handed golfer and watch what happens you'll see that club shaft look like you have tons and tons of lag because you're just not getting rid of it at the wrong time and then as you as your speed builds and everything starts to release that lag will release at the right time every time automatically all right now let's take a look at a student of mine to see this done in action as you start to understand the feeling of letting that club fall away from you due to that clockwise motion you can see it in his swing watch as the club sets at the top and now as the club head now begins to move essentially back toward the house back behind him rather than being pushed out away from him in this direction like most golfers do they feel that you know you need to push against the shaft to try and get a lot of speed but the truth is you need to release the speed at the right time and you also don't need crazy amounts of lag to hit the ball a long ways but this is how you start to create that feeling let that club shallow out let that rotation of your right arm continue and then you can see my suit now has more lag than he knows what to do with and then he's able to release it in time and get into a nice beautiful follow-through at the same point as I mentioned you don't need insane amounts of lag this is my swing on the right from face on and you'll see I'm not shallowing out the club radically I'm not trying to create crazy amounts of lag but again you know I hit the ball very very long ways for my size you don't have to create insane amounts of lag in order to hit the ball long ways the more important thing is using the lag that you have effectively in order to get it released at the right time so that you get the club squared up and have proper power that's the goal in the swing so don't think that you need to go out and create crazy amounts of lag you can see in my swing I definitely don't try to create crazy amounts of lag but I have tons and tons of power to swing well over 120 miles an hour with my driver lag is something that you need to understand the feeling of how to create it rather than get rid of it at the wrong time and understand how to release it properly to get it to get the club to square up and release all that energy in the swing