DON'T hold the lag?

[upanddown]

Hi all... I recently discovered that letting the club release naturally from the top (vs holding the angle) has really help my ball striking and especially, my short game.  I'm not talking about throwing it from the top but more a gradual letting it unhinge coming down.  The way I got on this kick was fooling around swinging a baseball bat with a golf grip.  Because of the weight you can't really hold it.  This would be similar to swinging a momentus weighted club.  That seems to help release the club from the inside, tracing the right forearm and promote a nice shallow release.   Any thoughts? I'm a 10 hcp.  thanks

[Itsjustagame]

If my swing is sequenced properly I get all the lag I need. Don't ever think about lag when I'm swinging.

[Righty to Lefty]

Fantastic...There should be no conscious holding or firing of anything in the swing motion.  Lag is a byproduct of the club acting upon you and not something that you make happen as is the unloading of that stored energy.  Stay in tune with the rhythm of the swing motion and the club and you will quickly find that your efficiency will dramatically improve.  

[iacas]

Lag happens, and the club pulls with 80, 90, 100+ pounds of force near the bottom of your swing. "Holding" lag is sometimes something you do on a chip shot or something, not something you do with a full swing.

[GoGoErky]

13 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Fantastic...There should be no conscious holding or firing of anything in the swing motion.  Lag is a byproduct of the club acting upon you and not something that you make happen as is the unloading of that stored energy.  Stay in tune with the rhythm of the swing motion and the club and you will quickly find that your efficiency will dramatically improve.  

the golfer actually makes the club move and not gravity or anything else. Theres no passive anything in the swing. But you refuse to accept this measured fact

[Opie Taylor]

28 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

the golfer actually makes the club move and not gravity or anything else. Theres no passive anything in the swing. But you refuse to accept this measured fact

Actually TW in his book talks about how amateurs use to much arms at the top and says to just let the club drop from the top. So there can be a small amount of gravity involved from the top. 
 

Please don't shoot the messenger. 

[CTgamer]

Don’t agree with the way Paddy describes everything here, but his point about “dragging” and holding lag is spot on. It feels like you’re releasing it almost as soon as the downswing starts. The shaft lean, and the hands in front of the club at impact, is a dynamic position not a static one

 

 

[GoGoErky]

18 minutes ago, Opie Taylor said:

Actually TW in his book talks about how amateurs use to much arms at the top and says to just let the club drop from the top. So there can be a small amount of gravity involved from the top. 
 

Please don't shoot the messenger. 

This topic of gravity dropping the club has been discussed over the last 6 months or so in numerous threads in this section. It’s has little to no affect because of how short the downswing swing is.

 

There is the correct way to move the arms and the wrong way. Most amateurs use them the wrong way because of old saying like hold the lag, fire the hips and so on.

 

Search gravity and by author iacas and you can read all the discussion on this topic of gravity 

[GoGoErky]

22 minutes ago, CTgamer said:

Don’t agree with the way Paddy describes everything here, but his point about “dragging” and holding lag is spot on. It feels like you’re releasing it almost as soon as the downswing starts. The shaft lean, and the hands in front of the club at impact, is a dynamic position not a static one

 

 

Exactly. It’s the same as Monte’s NTC, it’s what’s been shown numerous times in 3d by AMG. I’m sure it’s elsewhere, yet despite all this being measured and demonstrated some people refuse to accept it and hold on to ideas that have been shown to be wrong 

[upanddown]

I think with pitch shots I was holding the angle and then would have to use my hands to throw the club at the ball last second, either skulling or hitting it fat.

[SNIPERBBB]

1 hour ago, Opie Taylor said:

Actually TW in his book talks about how amateurs use to much arms at the top and says to just let the club drop from the top. So there can be a small amount of gravity involved from the top. 
 

Please don't shoot the messenger. 

Definitely a feel thing for Tiger. I can't remember which iteration of Tigers swing it was but he used to get stuck really badly at times.

[CTgamer]

26 minutes ago, SNIPERBBB said:

Definitely a feel thing for Tiger. I can't remember which iteration of Tigers swing it was but he used to get stuck really badly at times.

Just to support this point, Tiger may be talking specifically about amateurs using too much arms as a general rule. But for his own swing, here’s a great video of him and Butch where he specifically talks about feeling the club release as early as possible in the downswing. Don’t think anyone would accuse 2000 Tiger of “not having lag”…

 

 

Edited June 7, 2024 by CTgamer

[ferrispgm]

 

28 minutes ago, SNIPERBBB said:

Definitely a feel thing for Tiger. I can't remember which iteration of Tigers swing it was but he used to get stuck really badly at times.

 

FWIW Tiger also talked about actively trying to get his hands to his belt buckle and then feel the hips firing.  Definitely a stark contrast the to passive arms crowd.  Goes to show that when something isn't natural, it needs to be trained and felt actively.

[Righty to Lefty]

3 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Fantastic...There should be no conscious holding or firing of anything in the swing motion.  Lag is a byproduct of the club acting upon you and not something that you make happen as is the unloading of that stored energy.  Stay in tune with the rhythm of the swing motion and the club and you will quickly find that your efficiency will dramatically improve.  

Apparently I have to quote myself because others insist on taking my comments out of context.  

 

3 hours ago, GoGoErky said:

the golfer actually makes the club move and not gravity or anything else. Theres no passive anything in the swing. But you refuse to accept this measured fact

Are you kidding me? I made no mention of gravity, or active or passive anything so you should go back and reread what I posted because the following quote below is basically the same thing that I said that is bolded in my statement above.  

 

3 hours ago, iacas said:

Lag happens, and the club pulls with 80, 90, 100+ pounds of force near the bottom of your swing. "Holding" lag is sometimes something you do on a chip shot or something, not something you do with a full swing.

 

[phizzy30]

Holding the angle/lag is crap when done improperly, IMO.  I used to have that problem and I blame it on my first swing coach who emphasized holding the angle for as long as possible.  Well, as I found out, my ball striking as a kid growing up was very inconsistent as a result.  Went to go see Mark Taylor at El Caballero CC and he told me I actually needed to unhinge from the top rather early.  Like magic, my ball striking improved tremendously and my handicap dropped a ton as a result.  The unhinging has to be done at the right time and correctly obviously or else you'll cast the club and that can lead to all sorts of problems. 

[KD1]

.... Here we go. ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!

 

DO NOT ENGAGE! I REPEAT, DO NOT ENGAGE!

Edited June 7, 2024 by KD1

[GoGoErky]

54 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Are you kidding me? I made no mention of gravity, or active or passive anything so you should go back and reread what I posted because the following quote below is basically the same thing that I said that is bolded in my statement above.  

You apparently can’t read. I didn’t say anting about gravity in my reply to you.

 

you don’t have to say active or passive anyone familiar with your thoughts knows you believe the arms just fall and not pulled or moved by the golfer.

 

and pretty sure what you said is nothing the golfer does regarding lag whereas @iacas is saying it’s because of what the golfer does

[iacas]

 

1 hour ago, Righty to Lefty said:

because the following quote below is basically the same thing that I said that is bolded in my statement above.

 

No, it's not; the club is not going to exert 100 pounds of force on your hands if you're passive during the downswing and then try to slam on the brakes as you've said too many times to count. The club exerts so much pull because the arms are active and firing.

 

To get it back on topic… "lag" actually increases when the arms are fired, as the clubhead COM wants to line up behind it, and when the hands slow (partly due to the club acting on it, and partly as the body segments get to the latter half of their range of motion and are sequencing to transfer speed outward).

 

Often… if a golfer wants more lag… the prescription is to move the hands (and arms) faster.

[Righty to Lefty]

27 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

You apparently can’t read. I didn’t say anting about gravity in my reply to you.

 

you don’t have to say active or passive anyone familiar with your thoughts knows you believe the arms just fall and not pulled or moved by the golfer.

 

and pretty sure what you said is nothing the golfer does regarding lag whereas @iacas is saying it’s because of what the golfer does

 

5 hours ago, GoGoErky said:

the golfer actually makes the club move and not gravity or anything else. Theres no passive anything in the swing. But you refuse to accept this measured fact

You didn't say anything about it though...I also never said...nevermind. 

 

38 minutes ago, KD1 said:

.... Here we go. ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!

 

DO NOT ENGAGE! I REPEAT, DO NOT ENGAGE!

Lol

[MK7Golf21]

4 hours ago, Opie Taylor said:

Actually TW in his book talks about how amateurs use to much arms at the top and says to just let the club drop from the top. So there can be a small amount of gravity involved from the top. 
 

Please don't shoot the messenger. 

 

He doesn't say that from what I recall and I just checked the book and couldn't find anything like that. He says not to rush with everything from the top with the shoulders outracing the arms. He says he likes to start his downswing by shifting his weight to left side and letting his arms "fall" downward in front of his chest before they start to unwind. Mentions he wants his arms to have a little head start so they can apply speed with his shoulders coming into the ball.

[Righty to Lefty]

22 minutes ago, iacas said:

 

 

No, it's not; the club is not going to exert 100 pounds of force on your hands if you're passive during the downswing and then try to slam on the brakes as you've said too many times to count. The club exerts so much pull because the arms are active and firing.

 

To get it back on topic… "lag" actually increases when the arms are fired, as the clubhead COM wants to line up behind it, and when the hands slow (partly due to the club acting on it, and partly as the body segments get to the latter half of their range of motion and are sequencing to transfer speed outward).

 

Often… if a golfer wants more lag… the prescription is to move the hands (and arms) faster.

Welp @KD1....here we go and let the countdown to this thread being shutdown begin!  Lag does not happen because of the "firing" of the arms, it occurs because the club head is going in one direction while the body is going in another. How much lag would be created without a club head on the club...very little is the answer.  If what you are saying were true then you could create lag without a club head on the club if you just "fire" your arms. The change of direction and the weight of the instrument being used is what creates lag. Man I was finding common ground with your post, and even liked it,  but you just refuse to believe that I can contribute to these threads in any way.  You agree with the kinematic sequence I would assume because you are math guy, yet you can't comprehend that hands apply a braking force to the handle end of the club in order to transfer as much energy onward to the club as possible?  The hands are working in direct opposition to each other, and Dr. Sasho said it in his own words but you just ignored that part of your own post.  

Edited June 7, 2024 by Righty to Lefty
Added some bolded content for GoGoErky !!!

[Righty to Lefty]

42 minutes ago, MK7Golf21 said:

 

He doesn't say that from what I recall and I just checked the book and couldn't find anything like that. He says not to rush with everything from the top with the shoulders outracing the arms. He says he likes to start his downswing by shifting his weight to left side and letting his arms "fall" downward in front of his chest before they start to unwind. Mentions he wants his arms to have a little head start so they can apply speed with his shoulders coming into the ball.

Exactly...I stated that the arms/upper body need to be passive long enough for the club to regain the plane that the ball is on to avoid coming into the shot over the top and certain people take it so far as to say that I said that the arms should fall at the rate of gravity throughout the entire swing, which is in no way what I said.  Oh you are about to get shots fired in your direction I assure you so brace yourself!! 

Edited June 7, 2024 by Righty to Lefty

[GoGoErky]

12 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Welp @KD1....here we go and let the countdown to this thread being shutdown begin!  Lag does not happen because of the "firing" of the arms, it occurs because the club head is going in one direction while the body is going in another. How much lag would be created without a club head on the club...very little is the answer.  If what you are saying were true then you could create lag without a club head on the club if you just "fire" your arms.  

More nonsense which is why threads get shutdown. You haven’t tried be right on anything or show any data that supports your thoughts.

[GoGoErky]

9 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Exactly...I stated that the arms need to be passive long enough for the club to regain the plane that the ball is on to avoid coming into the shot over the top and certain people take it so far as to say that I said that the arms should fall at the rate of gravity throughout the entire swing, which is in no way what I said.  Oh you are about to get shots fired in your direction I assure you so brace yourself!! 

That arms at not passive at any point in the swing. 

[Opie Taylor]

10 minutes ago, MK7Golf21 said:

 

He doesn't say that from what I recall and I just checked the book and couldn't find anything like that. He says not to rush with everything from the top with the shoulders outracing the arms. He says he likes to start his downswing by shifting his weight to left side and letting his arms "fall" downward in front of his chest before they start to unwind. Mentions he wants his arms to have a little head start so they can apply speed with his shoulders coming into the ball.

Yeah, I think we're getting into semantics with arms "fall" or "drop" I thought it was clear I was paraphrasing, I interpret "fall' or "drop" as the same thing. For me, his advice helped me not to be so snappy or too quick to downswing which usually results in OTT.

 

The arms dropping or falling in front of his chest was invaluable advice for me. I apologize if I created any confusion with my choice of words. Peace.

[Righty to Lefty]

8 minutes ago, Opie Taylor said:

Yeah, I think we're getting into semantics with arms "fall" or "drop" I thought it was clear I was paraphrasing, I interpret "fall' or "drop" as the same thing. For me, his advice helped me not to be so snappy or too quick to downswing which usually results in OTT.

 

The arms dropping or falling in front of his chest was invaluable advice for me. I apologize if I created any confusion with my choice of words. Peace.

You didn't create any confusion and you shouldn't apologize. I am the main one on here that is targeted.  I have said in other threads that the upper body should be "passive" long enough to allow the body to get out in front and lead from the top of the backswing motion  and to allow the club to regain the plane that the ball is on, and it was taken out of context. 

[MK7Golf21]

26 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Exactly...I stated that the arms need to be passive long enough for the club to regain the plane that the ball is on to avoid coming into the shot over the top and certain people take it so far as to say that I said that the arms should fall at the rate of gravity throughout the entire swing, which is in no way what I said.  Oh you are about to get shots fired in your direction I assure you so brace yourself!! 

 

well what Tiger is saying in his book is to keep his shoulders closed while the arms come down in front and then to turn shoulders on once the arms have a head start. He says if the shoulders spin open, then the arms get stuck behind and the speed is misplaced. Apologies if I didn't type it clear but that is what he says in his book. 

15 minutes ago, Opie Taylor said:

Yeah, I think we're getting into semantics with arms "fall" or "drop" I thought it was clear I was paraphrasing, I interpret "fall' or "drop" as the same thing. For me, his advice helped me not to be so snappy or too quick to downswing which usually results in OTT.

 

The arms dropping or falling in front of his chest was invaluable advice for me. I apologize if I created any confusion with my choice of words. Peace.

 

no problem, you just mentioned Tiger said not to use the arms too much from the top which isn't true. He says not to use the shoulders too much before the arms come down.

Edited June 7, 2024 by MK7Golf21

[iacas]

28 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Welp @KD1....here we go and let the countdown to this thread being shutdown begin!

 

Threads are closed because of you, my man.

 

28 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Lag does not happen because of the "firing" of the arms, it occurs because the club head is going in one direction while the body is going in another.

 

Imagine the left arm of a righty golfer. At the top of the backswing, the golfer pauses and the angle between the shaft and the left arm is 110°. From a standstill, the golfer begins to move his arms along an arc (it's not a perfectly circular arc because the left shoulder is moving on its own arc). The angle narrows, because the clubhead is trying to line up behind the direction of the motion of the hands.

 

Very simple stuff:

 

 

What's more, if the club is already in line with the green arrow, as seen here, accelerating the arms will essentially keep it there, but as soon as the hands slow… the club will kick out. Which, for good players, is how they then get rid of the lag, and why the game's best players accelerate the hands EARLY in the downswing so that they can sequence letting them slow earlier than bad golfers in the downswing.

 

28 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

How much lag would be created without a club head on the club...very little is the answer.

 

Because the force trying to line the clubhead up in line with the motion would be greatly reduced. The COM might be in the hands, not 2+ feet from it.

 

28 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

If what you are saying were true then you could create lag without a club head on the club if you just "fire" your arms.

 

That's not what I'm saying. You can tell this simply because I never said anything about a club without a clubhead. It's an entirely different physics problem when the COM gets to a point where it's inside or very, very close to the hands as the moment arm is greatly reduced.

 

But I will say this: if you have an alignment stick or something where the COM is some distance from the hands… the same things occur. To different degrees given the physics of simple motion, but still…

 

28 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

The change of direction and the weight of the instrument being used is what creates lag.

 

You can create lag starting at a pause per my image above. This stuff isn't complex - a weight wants to line up "behind" the instantaneous direction of travel.

 

28 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Man I was finding common ground with your post, and even liked it

 

That's probably another clue that you maybe didn't understand my post.

 

28 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

but you just refuse to believe that I can contribute to these threads in any way.

 

Trust me, man, it's got nothing to do with "belief" and everything to do with what we know about the golf swing, physics, etc.

 

28 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

You agree with the kinematic sequence I would assume because you are math guy, yet you can't comprehend that hands apply a braking force to the handle end of the club in order to transfer as much energy onward to the club as possible?

 

Off topic for this, and we've been over this many, many times. I'm not doing it again (and certainly not here). You continue to confuse cause and effect, active and passive, what object is acting on what other object…

 

28 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

The hands are working in direct opposition to each other, and Dr. Sasho said it in his own words but you just ignored that part of your own post.  

 

OMG, for the twentieth time (at least), you completely misunderstood that video. More off topic stuff, though.

[Opie Taylor]

10 minutes ago, MK7Golf21 said:

 

well what Tiger is saying in his book is to keep his shoulders closed while the arms come down in front and then to turn shoulders on once the arms have a head start. He says if the shoulders spin open, then the arms get stuck behind and the speed is misplaced. Apologies if I didn't type it clear but that is what he says in his book. 

 

no problem, you just mentioned Tiger said not to use the arms too much from the top which isn't true. He says not to use the shoulders too much before the arms come down.

LOL, maybe I should have just said "Don't throw the arms, but pull down the arms. My intentions of trying to paraphrase were genuine and I understood what he was saying but it didn't come out right. Thanks for posting the exact quote. Cheers.

[Ri_Redneck]

I think it would be best if everyone in this forum would designate between FEELS and MOTIONS when describing their swing/positions. AND, understand that what we convey as FEELS may be completely different from what is actually happening. Those FEELS may also not correlate to what others FEEL when doing the same motions. So arguing about specifics is pointless. We should ask questions and try our best to understand the information being conveyed AND understand how difficult it can be to understand the information as well.

 

We've all heard the phrase "Feel isn't real." which I absolutely detest! As golfers we HAVE to use feels because we cannot watch ourselves in real time as we are playing. When practicing/training we watch videos of ourselves immediately after we swing to relate the FEELS with what we see in the videos. Even then, What is ACTUALLY happening can still be incorrectly described. AMG uses tech that is available to only a tiny fraction of the golfing world and when they are describing what is happening, we have to take those words and turn them into FEELS. VERY HARD to do for most people. 

 

Lastly, if we are going to upload videos to show what we are doing, we should do our best to make them clear and have them be full swing videos with clubs and balls.

 

BT