The Real Clubhead Lag

[theswingengineer]

Here’s the illustrious Sean Foley explaining clubhead lag in a short video for Golf Digest.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSoD4uTDk-4

He begins: “Lag in the downswing is probably one of the most misinterpreted things in how golf instruction’s taught...” Mr Foley is absolutely correct. But then, like some self-fulfilling prophecy, only goes and misinterprets clubhead lag on the downswing.
Or does he? You’ve probably watched the video and thought “What’s the Swing Engineer getting at? He’s talking about keeping the clubhead behind the hands, that’s lag!”

Yes and no. There are two types of lag when it comes to the clubhead. There’s the type you’re all familiar with; that angle between the clubshaft and the left arm, keeping the hands ahead of the clubhead through impact. I’m all for that kind of lag, you’d struggle to hit the ball decently without it.

But there’s another kind of clubhead lag. It’s the lag touring pro’s use to hit balls with seemingly effortless power. This real clubhead lag is the secret to golf. It’s the lag few people can establish during their swing, and even fewer can maintain through impact.

It isn’t the lag between the hands and the clubhead. It’s the lag between the grip and the clubhead. In other words, it’s the bending of the clubshaft. Your goal during the downswing is to bend that clubshaft and keep it bent through impact. This is the only way to hit balls like a professional. It’s so important, Mr Kelley in The Golfing Machine says this about real clubhead lag; “Until mastered - consciously or sub-consciously - power golf is impossible. Working on anything else first is wasted time.”

Let’s compare two golfers and their downswing lags, as most people understand it.
On the left is Jason Zuback and on the right, Sergio Garcia. To the uninformed, you’d think Sergio hits the ball further. Just compare the lag halfway-down. On both swings that measurement between left arm and clubshaft was taken when the hands were around waist high. You’d be forgiven for thinking Zuback is an amateur, casting the club and throwing away all that lag compared to Garcia.

But, if you didn’t know already, Jason Zuback is a long drive champion who can hit a ball well over 400 yards. He has real clubhead lag, not that lag most people know and obsess over. So next time you’re at the range working on maintaining your lag, don’t concern yourself with that angle between the left arm and clubshaft. Work on the real clubhead lag and bend that clubshaft!

(P.S. ...and I wouldn't take Mr Foley’s advice and work on getting your right arm straight at impact.)

Attachments:

[rj]

In other words, it’s the bending of the clubshaft. Your goal during the downswing is to bend that clubshaft and keep it bent through impact.


Sorry to say that doesn't happen. It's a myth. The shaft is bending, twisting and flexing all over the place at different times in the swing, you cannot just bend it and keep it bent in one orientation as in a lagged position.


Better get some more information on this.

[theswingengineer]

Jan 22, 2013 19:03:22 GMT -5 rj said:

In other words, it’s the bending of the clubshaft. Your goal during the downswing is to bend that clubshaft and keep it bent through impact.


Sorry to say that doesn't happen. It's a myth. The shaft is bending, twisting and flexing all over the place at different times in the swing, you cannot just bend it and keep it bent in one orientation as in a lagged position.


Better get some more information on this.

RJ my friend, you seem to have misconstrued my post. Where exactly do I say the clubshaft bends in one orientation? I don't even imply that, because as you know, that's not true.

The clubshaft bends due to the resistance in change of velocity of the clubhead, both as acceleration and also as change of direction. You're right in pointing out the torque in the clubshaft too, not just the longitudinal bending.
As the forces applied to the clubhead are from different sources and directions during the downswing, of course the bending of the club will be in different orientations during the downswing.

The point I was making was this bending of the clubshaft- the clubhead not just lagging behind the hands, but lagging behind the opposite end of the clubshaft, was the real clubhead lag that is referred to in TGM, and is the source of real power.

Apologies for not going into masses of detail or providing figures for the amount of bending and torque during certain sections of the downswing. My post was written for the average Joe Public who visits golf forums looking for practical information on how the golf swing works and how to improve his own stroke.

[rj]

No need to apologize.

[theswingengineer]

[teeace]

So easy to fall in 2D-distortion..

[gmbtempe]

Yea not so sure thats a digital distortion in the last frame, I would like to see that same swing with a Phantom camera.

[cloran]

The club is longer than he is tall, lol.

[teeace]

Jan 28, 2013 20:22:04 GMT -5 gmbtempe said:

Yea not so sure thats a digital distortion in the last frame, I would like to see that same swing with a Phantom camera.

Not the shutter problem, but 2D distortion. When you look the shaft from that angle and its bent down (center up) it looks like forward bent.

[Richie3Jack]

Guys, this thread is in the teacher folder. So that stuff doesn't work here at all.






3JACK

[playa]

Hello swingengineer,

You apologized for not going into the details. Actually, it is very important to provide all the details so that everyone, average joes and not average joes, can have a clear idea what your point is. Until then, it is difficult to tell whether it is your intuition, interpretation, opinion, or some findings based on research or study.

[theswingengineer]

Hi there Playa,

The point I'm making in this thread is; don't fret over the angle between the left arm and clubshaft, thinking this is the lag that will allow you to hit "effortlessly powerful" golf shots. You should be concentrating on stressing the clubshaft instead. The clubhead lagging behind the opposite end of the shaft (the clubshaft bending) is the important lag to consider, and it's this lag which allows for that "effortless power".

As for where did I come to learn this, the answer is from observation, personal experience, and the basic physics explained in TGM relating to the matter.

But, as I said to RJ, I understand your disappointment at the lack of detail, but you're not my audience. Most of the folk who comment on this forum seem to be incredibly inquisitive and want to know the exact ins-and-out of the golf swing, right down to the microscopic, thousandth of a second, tiniest detail. And that's fantastic and I have a lot of respect for those who use modern technology to look into those things.
But I'm a "teaching" professional, not an "academic" professional. The golfers who come to me for lessons don't stand on the tee box thinking "Jeez, if only I had access to a peer reviewed paper on the orientation and magnitude of the stresses placed on the clubshaft during the swing... then I'd be able to play better golf."

The people for whom I wrote this thread are the golfers out there who perhaps aren't all that great, are tired of scoring in the 90s or whatever, and would like to know how to improve their game. They don't care so much for the science, they just want to know how to play better golf.

So for them, and for me, going into those kinds of details aren't important. Beating your friends at the weekend, winning the longest drive and nearest the pin competitions are what's important

[rj]

Whatever works is fine with me. I also think we know that we don't stand on the tee box thinking of those things you mentioned but I also don't think that thinking of stressing the shaft and trying to keep that stress is one of those things I would ever think about personally.


Just saying , each to his own.

[theswingengineer]

Jan 29, 2013 16:56:50 GMT -5 rj said:

Whatever works is fine with me. I also think we know that we don't stand on the tee box thinking of those things you mentioned but I also don't think that thinking of stressing the shaft and trying to keep that stress is one of those things I would ever think about personally.


Just saying , each to his own.

Absolutely, if it works, it works. And you're right, you wouldn't necessarily be concentrating on the clubshaft itself when you're swinging- more how that clubhead lags feels to you. If you were to just wave a club horizontally in front of you, trying to bend the clubshaft and maintain that flex (even if you're not actually bending it), you'd soon realise what the downswing should feel like- the clubhead would feel very heavy and you'd feel a lot of resistance in your hands. But that's into the realms of pressure points and whatnot- a topic for another day perhaps!

[Rich M]

Jan 29, 2013 16:41:18 GMT -5 theswingengineer said:

Hi there Playa,

The point I'm making in this thread is; don't fret over the angle between the left arm and clubshaft, thinking this is the lag that will allow you to hit "effortlessly powerful" golf shots. You should be concentrating on stressing the clubshaft instead. The clubhead lagging behind the opposite end of the shaft (the clubshaft bending) is the important lag to consider, and it's this lag which allows for that "effortless power".

As for where did I come to learn this, the answer is from observation, personal experience, and the basic physics explained in TGM relating to the matter.

But, as I said to RJ, I understand your disappointment at the lack of detail, but you're not my audience. Most of the folk who comment on this forum seem to be incredibly inquisitive and want to know the exact ins-and-out of the golf swing, right down to the microscopic, thousandth of a second, tiniest detail. And that's fantastic and I have a lot of respect for those who use modern technology to look into those things.
But I'm a "teaching" professional, not an "academic" professional. The golfers who come to me for lessons don't stand on the tee box thinking "Jeez, if only I had access to a peer reviewed paper on the orientation and magnitude of the stresses placed on the clubshaft during the swing... then I'd be able to play better golf."

The people for whom I wrote this thread are the golfers out there who perhaps aren't all that great, are tired of scoring in the 90s or whatever, and would like to know how to improve their game. They don't care so much for the science, they just want to know how to play better golf.

So for them, and for me, going into those kinds of details aren't important. Beating your friends at the weekend, winning the longest drive and nearest the pin competitions are what's important

I'm your type of guy. I could care less how fast my hips don't rotate while the club is being stressed out of its molecules, and my rate of closure is off the charts for someone of my SAT score ranking

In all seriousness, I can appreciate the attempts to explain the golf swing in scientific terms, but for someone like me who started to play golf as an adult, as a 35 handicapper slowly bringing the HC down into the 20's, all that other stuff is inconsequential and irrelevant to me. I'm not going for the PhD in Physics, but rather the applied physics, statistics, biomechanics to the game. Like you said, I just want to play better golf..............and shove it in my playing partners faces........I'm not opposed to winning skins either