Creating Lag

If you cannot hit your driver shots over 200 yards you are doing it wrongly. Perhaps you are not swinging correctly, scooping the ball by trying to help it up and away. It is also highly possible that you are releasing your wrist into impact too early and when the wrist is released too early, you suffer a power leak when you impact on the ball resulting in poorer shots onto the fairways.

Many golfers do it like how a fisherman would do when he is casting his net or casting his fishing line from a fishing rod, therefore, instead of the proper technique of release it became like casting. This is certainly not done on purpose but because of swing faults that leads you to do it this way. Over-swinging or trying to help the ball up with your own efforts will create such a situation. Remember that each club has a certain length and loft for a certain distance. Picture it this way, upon completion of your back swing, your arm with the club should be something like 9 O'clock in an "L" shaped position just before you begin your downswing with your wrist cocked and club head pointing towards the sky and when you try to scoop it by consciously trying to help the ball up and away, your arms makes a straight line instead without retaining the "L" position and that "L" position is the power position.

Without keeping to that "L" position, power leaks when your cocked wrist is being released too early and all the power to be that is stored in there is lost well before impact. This moment of power would have been lost and your defining shot quickly turn into a lame one.

To prevent this from happening, you have to create lag. Creating lag increases power by using the right muscles to transfer the stored power into your impact zone. Real power from your downswing does not come from a position at the very top but only when your club is about a half-way down where the shaft is parallel to the ground and especially critical in the last three feet before the impact zone and striking the ball.

Picture this in your head - every golf club in your hands from drive to putter when at address and throughout the swing, your hands and shaft are always ahead of the ball position no matter how slight. Since your back lift mirrors your downswing, the sequence of your downswing passing through the line of the ball would be your hands, then grip, shaft then finally and lastly the club head that comes into impact on the ball. This is the opposite of your arms and club coming in one straight line onto the ball. That difference of hitting in a straight line as opposed to a club head trailing behind before impact is the "lag".

The power kicks in from half way down and from the last three feet before impact. This is the lag that is necessary to produce power and increase distance. Creating this lag is one of the least well kept but one of the most important secrets of producing more distance in every shot. You can watch golf on television and you often wonder how the pros including the ladies like Annika Sorenstam swinging quite effortlessly and yet produce such awesome distance. This is the reason - they know how to create lag. Creating lag is part of getting your tempo and playing with a rhythm which some people also call timing. Next time before you tee off at the golf course, hold two wedges together at the same time and swing it as a warm up routine and practise swing. Due to the heavy weight of two clubs, it will help you to get a feel of creating lag. Good luck!

Golf as in life play as it lies.