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.

This is very unfortunate because it is a very efficient way to strike the golf ball and in my opinion a very interesting alternative for strong or less flexible players.

Muscular Thrust

Unlike the Swinger who manipulates centrifugal force, the pure Hitter ONLY uses his right arm to activate the Primary Lever Assembly (that is the Left Arm plus the club as a whole).
For those interested, the muscle involved here is the right triceps as it is responsible for straightening the arm. So if you are a boxer you should give the Hitting stroke a try !

The main action involved here is a muscular thrust of the right arm against the Primary Lever Assembly.
The clubhead is not thrown into orbit by the pivot; Instead, the hitter pushes radially (against the radius!) against the shaft with his right arm only.

Think of it like pushing against one spoke of a bicycle wheel to put the wheel into motion – Swinging would make you drag the rim of the wheel.

The proper action is to straighten the right arm without flattening the right wrist in a piston like action. 

Address: Impact Fix

It all starts at address – the Hitter usually sets up with his hands in a position that is called "Impact Fix":

This position, while not mandatory, allows for an easier pickup of the Primary Lever Assembly as a whole by the right arm (the right forearm takeaway). Also it establishes the proper impact alignments right away.

From this position all you have to do is to freeze your wrists into their position and move the whole thing back and forth with your right arm pretty much in a piston like motion.

A good way to feel this motion is, without a club, to hold your left wrist with your right hand and move your left arm back and forth. Simple enough? Well this is the principle of the Hitting motion.

Half Roll of the club face

Due to the way the club is moved, the clubface doesn’t open as much as the Swinging motion during the backswing and doesn’t close as much in the downstroke. Consequently, Hitting naturally produces what is called a "Half Roll" of the clubface: When you look at the clubface at both arms straight, you should see the clubface looking 45 degrees left (for righties) instead of 90 degrees left in the Swinging motion (full roll, clubface closed).

Funnily enough, this produces a no-roll feel which is very important to note as you might intuitively search to feel a roll.

This Half Roll also has a natural fade tendency. As a consequence, the Hitter tends to adopt stronger grips to counterbalance that effect and produce straight shots.

You should also take into account that the more forward the ball in your stance (Driver for example), the more the need for a closed face and a stronger grip because the more the layback of the clubface at this point.

Experience with your grip to find the correct amount of shut face to induce.

Face constantly looking at the ball

Another interesting fact is the way the clubface swivels during the swing.

Unlike the Swinger whose clubface almost immediately swivels against the plane of the swing, the Hitter doesn’t rotate the clubface but rather keep it "looking at the ball" during the backswing: The clubface stays at right angles against the face of the plane. This is the natural byproduct of the angled hinge and you must not intent to rotate it clockwise/open on the backswing or you will have to consciously rotate it back counterclockwise on the downswing for proper contact.

Establishing the Lag: Drive Loading

You will discover that the piston like action of the right arm produces a shorter backswing than the Swinger due to the position of the right elbow set to push against the shaft instead of pulling.

From there, usually the hands cannot go higher than shoulder high – which is called the Top.

But, from such a shorter backstroke, the tendency is to rush on the downstroke.

Make sure you give yourself enough time to transition from Top to Start Down and accomplish the necessary Drive Loading.

Uh? Drive Loading you said?

Let me explain: For the Hitter, an efficient way to establish the Lag is to resist the backstroke motion then perform a right arm thrust against this clubhead Lag striving to accelerate a pre stressed clubshaft from a slow startdown through impact and to both arms straight.

Here, the Pivot (Right Shoulder) must also provide the initial acceleration of the Power Package (Shoulders, Arms, Hands and Club).

But beware! From there, you only have your bent right arm to provide the Thrust. So, if the right arm begins to straighten too soon, you will have triggered the release, and you will run out of right arm before impact and product a nasty Clubhead Throwaway. 

Slow Start Down

As previously mentioned, for the Hitter a slow Start Down is mandatory to allow for the right arm to properly get into position.
In the transition from the Top to Start Down think very Slow and very Heavy and that should do the trick.

A word about Pivot Action

Unlike the Swinging motion, the Pivot (the body) doesn’t perform the blast of the left arm off the chest. Instead its purpose is to put the right shoulder into position (closer to the ball – down plane) as a platform to push against.

Think of a sprinter pushing against his starting-blocks.
Think also of the action of a boxer: before delivering its punch the boxer will get his right shoulder into position closer to his opponent to strike him with maximum force. In the Hitting stroke, you have to move your right shoulder down plane to get closer to the ball and deliver the right arm thrust.

One more word about the Pressure Points involved in the Hitting Procedure

Again, to find the location of the pressure points involved in the Hitting action we’ll do a little drill: grab a club, put the clubhead against something heavy and try to push this thing not by dragging with your body but rather by pushing with your right arm.

You’ll easily identify 3 pressure points:

• Pressure point #1: The palm of your right hand against the aft section of the grip and you left thumb.
• Pressure point #2: The last 3 fingers of your left hand.
• Pressure point #3: The index-trigger-finger of the right hand resisting against the club wanting to stay behind.

Establish those specific pressures during you downstroke while performing the Hitting stroke to become an expert Hitter! 

In the eye of the Hitter!

The Hitter thinks of delivering a cross line blow down and out from the top of his swing. As a result he mentally constructs a "Delivery Line" going down and out to "first base".

I thought it could be interesting and fun to show what the Hitter sees in his mind. This gives a very good sense of the Hitter’s intents during the stroke.

Click on the images to display the slideshow, and then use the PREVIOUS / NEXT controls to navigate through the images.

Summing things up

1. Set up at Impact Fix and "freeze" your wrists alignments.
2. Pick up the whole thing back in a "piston + fanning" like motion (a piston-only motion would make you look like starting a lawnmower which is not the motion we want).
3. Perform what feels like a shorter backstroke as what you are used to.
4. From the top, initiate a slow startdown by pushing against the shaft with your right arm only (pressure point #1 feel). The slow start down will give yourself enough time to get closer to the ball to deliver your blow.
5. Drive it strongly down and out. Destroy the ground!

Swing sequence

As a reminder, here are the sequences of the Hitting Procedure. Click on the images to display the slideshow, and then use the PREVIOUS/NEXT controls to navigate through the images.

Hitting stroke video

Hitting stroke sequence

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!

How does the highly skilled golfer reach this position so consistently?

The answer is Lag: His golf swing produces and sustains lag in the downswing.

All the swing positions of professionnal tour players we see analyzed in the golf magazines and that many teachers told us to reproduce (this is known as "position golf") are the result of, not the cause of, this Lag fundamental.

When you have Lag in your swing, it generates most and coordinates all of these actions and positions to produce a consistent solid ball striking downswing.