A few years ago, my divot location was starting just under the ball and I thought that was not too bad. I was shocked when I discovered how much ahead of the ball it should be if you really hit DOWN on the ball and compress it properly. It’s common for Tour Players to create divots starting 3 inches after the ball!!!

Lets have a closer look at this phenomenon and tell me if you’re as shocked as I once was!

Check the video first!

Stroke sequence (Hitting!) – Details

Ball first, turf second: keep moving your hands forward!

The divot located in front of the ball with irons is a natural byproduct of clubhead Lag. As a consequence, you can look at your divots to check how well you are compressing the ball with a descending blow.

If your divots start before the ball, you certainly stop/decelerate your hands at the ball.

The only way to create a divot after the ball is to drag your hands as far as you can towards the target on the downstroke. If you are used to stop your hands at the ball it will feel like your hands are going past your left leg at impact (and of course this is not the reality but just the correct FEEL!).

Here’s the story: My wife, Carine, is a casual player who started golf a few years ago and plays around 30. But due to her pregnancy she hasn’t touched a golf club for two years and she only played 4 practice rounds since (!):

• May 5, 2008: One bucket of practice balls
• Aug 24, 2008: One bucket of practice balls
• Sept 1, 2008: Two hours working on Lag & proper swing dynamics
• Feb 13, 2009: One bucket of practice balls with a great smile !

Carine did the first two practice sessions with her old Swing. But at the end of the second session in August, she wasn’t totally pleased by her game and she decided it was time to do something…

As I got great improvements on my own game by introducing Lag in it, I proposed her to give it a try.

And this is what we got (click on the thumbs for the details):

Old Swing – Iron play – Date: May 5, 2008

This is Carine’s old swing.
This swing sequence may look good at first sight but still images tell the truth: The Left Wrist bends at impact due to clubhead throw away. Leverage is lost leading to power loss and poor accuracy.

Old Swing – Driver – Date: Aug 24, 2008

Carine hasn’t touched a club since her last session three months ago. However the same flaws can be seen here again.

They are also magnified by using the Driver in an attempt to hit it hard…

After that session, we watched the videos and she asked me what could be done to improve her golf swing.

I was happy to oblige and gently proposed she’d be my Guinea Pig for some experiments during her next practice session

New Swing – Iron Play – Date: Sept 1, 2008

One week later (without touching a club in between) we managed to get together for that "lab" session.

First, we did a few exercises to make her understand Lag pressure – Dynamics of the stroke.
Second, I explained the correct Geometry of the stroke and how to comply with it.

She gently, diligently and blindly (this must be love!) did all the strange things I asked her to do during the first 45 minutes.

We then moved to an area where we can hit balls a bit longer. After 10 balls, I took the first Swing video: She was performing perfect "Acquired Motion" strokes!

The second Video was shot a few minutes later: She loved the new feels and was looking to compress the ball with increased authority!

New Swing – Driver

As a reward we headed to the range to hit some Drives. I was wondering if she could reproduce the feel with the big stick…

Well, see for yourself!

Absolutely no clubhead throw away here and a nice looking golf swing on still images!

New Swing – Hungry for Lag – Date: Feb 2, 2009

And the final test: She hasn’t seen a golf ball since the last session more than 7 months ago!!! I told you she was a casual player!

I took the video 5 minutes after we arrived – she did it immediately right as if she had played the day before!

That was funny because she loved the Lag Pressure Feel so much that she was compressing the ball like crazy!

She was so concerned by driving it down that she never thought of her finish and always stopped at the end of her follow through – the both arms straight station.

Woah!

Pretty amazing don’t you think?

Isn’t it a great proof that switching to the correct dynamics can lead to huge improvements on the Golf game?

And most important: by accepting to change your conception of the golf stroke those improvements can come pretty fast!

What kind of black magic is in use here?

As I think you are dying to know what magic was used, let me explain exactly what we did to achieve those tremendous changes almost instantly.
I’m sure this will benefit to a lot of you who don’t know where to start to go from Hackville to Lagville!

My goal was to get rid of her clubhead throw away.
I knew I had to make her feel Lag pressure because the more the Lag Pressure, the harder to throw it away – pretty simple.

But before hitting any ball, we talked 15 minutes about the geometry of the stroke.

From there she understood the need of hitting down (& out) on the golf ball instead of scooping at it.

She then realized that a Flat Left Wrist at impact was mandatory to achieve this and that the clubhead must never travel faster than the hands (the clubhead must stay below the hands until both arms straight).

I told her that one way to ensure a Flat Left Wrist at impact is to think of maintaining the right wrist bent at all times.

With that in mind, she was now ready to get introduced to Mr. Lag Pressure and ingrain that feel in her mind.

We just did a variant of the "Drag the Wet Mop" drill:
With an 8 iron, walk down the fairway while strongly dragging the leading edge of the Golf club. Your goal is to bend the shaft and maintain that stress as you walk. This puts quite a strong pressure into your index trigger finger of the right hand that can’t go unnoticed!

Do it for 3 minutes and keep that feeling in your mind and in your finger.

Now, you are ready to hit some "Basic Motion" shots: This is only a miniature swing where the emphasis is put into the impact zone – two feet back and two feet through.
The goal is to feel exactly the same strong pressure in the index as in the previous exercise while maintaining a Flat Left Wrist (or a Bent Right Wrist) and driving the ball down into the ground.

We did that 15 minutes and moved to "Acquired Motion": Still a miniature full swing (and not a pitch shot), hands no further back than shoulder high and stop to both arms straight with the clubhead below the hands.

The risk when you move to longer shots is to go faster because you subconsciously think of the distance the ball must travel.
To keep her away from that I asked her to think "Slow and Heavy".

That’s all folks: Nothing more than Lag Pressure Feel (good dynamics) applied to a correct conception of the Golf Stroke (good geometry)…

The player’s feel

She told me what she felt different from her old way of swinging the golf club:

1. Compressing the ball by visualizing a line going down and out into the ground and through the ball and that she needed to aim down that line.
   Before that, she was seeing a line going towards the target and laying on the ground.
2. She immediately loved the feel and was "greedy" for more compression!
3. She felt maintaining the Left Wrist Flat by maintaining the Right Wrist Bend.
4. She tried to reproduce the pressure in the index trigger finger of the right hand witnessed during the Drag the Wet Mop drill.
5. Thinking "Slow and Heavy" as a mantra to keep away from over accelerating the clubhead and sensing a heavy Lag Pressure.

I’ll try to perform that little experiment again to see if I can manage to get the same amazing improvements on someone else.
I’ll keep you informed if I manage to find another gentle Guinea Pig!

In the meantime, feel free to try this curriculum by yourself and share the results with others on the comments area.

Using the same principle as the drawing on the downward impact, we can geometrically represent the golf swing from a top view (above the player’s head) like this: 

Although many players understand why it is geometrically correct to hit down on the ball, very few realize that the very same principle applies to the outward component of the stroke.

The outmost point of the club-head orbit is exactly in front of the leading shoulder as it is the center of the swing circle. As the ball is positioned before this point (with the exception of the driver where the ball may be positioned an inch before this point), you will strike the ball first then take a divot down but also OUT until you reach the outmost point of the radius of the swing.

This is what is called a “three dimensional impact”, forward, downward and outward, and is mandatory to strike a golf ball with maximum compression.

Of course, including Lag in your golf swing is an easy way to achieve this proper impact: To create Lag, you apply pressure on your golf shaft. But that pressure has to be directed in a very precise direction. Previously, we talked about a tip named “drag the wet mop”; this tip helps to feel Lag as a pressure against the shaft in the trigger finger of you trailing hand. But if you think about it, dragging a wet mop directs the pressure mainly forward as we can’t drive the mop under the ground.
But you know understand that you need to direct that pressure not only forward but also downward and outward.

Try it and you’ll know what compression on a golf ball means!

Take a look at the picture below:

In order to strike the ball with maximum power, you must use the full leverage provided by the leading arm and the club. Poor players break their left wrist prior to impact resulting in an important loss of power mainly because the lever used is half the length as it should be.

This said, the Golf swing is nothing more than a circular motion of the club and leading arm assembly (also called the Power Package) operating on an inclined plane. The center of the club-head orbit is the leading shoulder. Thus, we conclude that the low point of ANY swing is exactly below the leading shoulder joint!

When you strike a golf ball with the driver, you hit the ball almost in the low point of your swing. But you still must hit down on the ball in a attempt to take an “air divot” behind the ball!

Using a mid iron, you place the ball somewhere between your feet and behind the low point if your swing. Therefore you will hit the ball first then take a divot until you reach low point.

This is why you take pretty deep and large divots with your short irons and less deeper ones with long irons or fairway woods.

Did you noticed that the angle of approach of your club-head hitting the ball then going to low point is pretty steep? Yet, you must aim this way on the golf ball, from wedges to driver!

Hitting down on the ball is vital to produce good swing dynamics and to use the full leverage of the leading arm plus club which in turn translates into power. This leverage is obtained by maintaining a mandatory flat left wrist and a bent right wrist (for right-handed players). You will also notice a very different sound and a solid feel because of the compression of the ball.

If you don’t know that you’ve hit down on the ball, assume that you don’t!

Stay tuned: on the next post we’ll talk about the “out” component of a geometrically perfect golf swing which I’m sure not much of you are aware of!