How I went from casting to having lag

[detonum]

I go practice to a dome once a week where I film my golf swing. Last week, I found out I was casting. (It's hard to get face on video there, so I didn't know before). I was getting into a very bad impact position, my hands were not in front of my body. I set out to investigate why this was happening.

For a couple of days I didn't know what to do, but then it hit me.

It's because I try to get my hands and arms in front of my body.

I like to use my whole body to power my swing, including arms. But what I was actually doing with my arms, was throwing them away from the body. The right elbow was nowhere near the right hip. Everything looked fine from down the line though, I was nicely on plane.

My solution?

I was reading JeffManns downswing information page. It said that when you initiate the downswing with lower body movement, the arms and hands should passively work towards the right impact position. Now I tried to power my swing only with my hips and shoulders, but let the arms be fully passive. I could feel how my right elbow passively goes very close to the right hip. When I watched a video of my swing, my hands are magically in front of my body at impact.

Seems like golf truly is a game of opposites. When I try to get my arms in front of me in the downswing, they lag behind leading to casting, however when I don't care anything about it, it just happens.

Casting:

http://www.zshare.net/download/ironfo2-avi.html

Lag:

http://www.zshare.net/download/driverfo2-avi.html

By the way, I've also changed ball position (closer to left armpit on all clubs now) and a couple of other little things in the last video.

Hopefully this helps someone.

Discussion about the subject / critique on my swing welcome.

[Jeff Mann]

Re: How I went from casting to having lag

I am delighted that my online golf swing review has helped you.

You have tremendous athleticism and amazing downswing movements. However, I think that you could even be better if you make a few swing changes.

Conisder another reason why you were casting in the first sequence using an iron.

See - http://perfectgolfswingreview.net/DT.jpg

The first two images were from the first video (when using an iron) and the second two images (third and fourth) were from the second video (when using a driver).

In the first sequence, note that you have a slight degree of reverse pivoting and your head is tilted so that your right eye is higher than the left eye. When one is in a reverse pivot position (with the weight more on the left side) it is more difficult to get the hips to shift-rotate to the left very fast. Note that you have less hip shift-rotation and less forward lower body drive in this sequence (compared to the driver sequence). More importantly, when your upper body is tilted to the left at the end of the bacskwing, you have to first tilt your upper body to the right before your hands can get pulled down toward the ball. That causes a delay in your upper body movement (relative to the hips) => note that your right elbow is only barely below the left forearm in the early downswing. Also, note that you are already casting. That is due to the fact that your hands had to move momentarily to the right and away from the target (as you corrected your spinal tilt in the early downswing) - before your hands could move downwards, and it is also partly due to the slow movement of the right elbow down to the right hip.

In the driver sequence, you had a much better backswing pivot, and your spine is tilted to the right, and your hands are not as far behind your head, at the end of the backswing. Therefore, you are in a perfect position to start the downswing. Note how fast your legs and hips move . Also, note that your right elbow gets well below the left forearm very fast and that you have an amazing amount of wrist lag (as much as Ben Hogan and Sergio Garcia).

In other words, you need to concentrate on avoiding reverse pivoting, which predisposes to casting and loss of swing power.

See this video on how to execute a good backwsing pivot movement.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...16692383&hl=en

Finally, I think that you would get even more swing power and less casting if you shorten your backswing so that your hands never get inside your right foot at the end of the backswing, and if you avoid overswinging (I suspect that your clubhead may have crossed the line at the top). I think that you shouldn't allow your left arm to get beyond 10:30 o'clock at the end-backswing position.

Jeff.

p.s. Two minor points - i) your ball position is too far back when using the iron. With your amazing lower body drive, you should position your ball about 3" inside your left heel for all fairway shots; ii) you didn't have enough rightwards tilt of the spine at address. A centralised spine and a centralised ball position at address, mentally predisposes one to reverse pivoting.

[Jeff Mann]

Re: How I went from casting to having lag

Here is a series of photos that demonstrates how an excellent golfer (DT) can reverse pivot because of a poor setup posture - spine not angled to the right at address.

See - http://perfectgolfswingreview.net/An...susBCpivot.jpg

Yellow lines were placed alongside the head at address.

A blue line indicates the spine position at address.

The green dotted line indicates the spine position at that particular point in the backswing.

In the first series (above) note that the spine is tilted to the left at address, and that it remains tilted to the left throughout the backswing resulting in a reverse pivot end-backswing position. Note that there is no space under the arms at the end-backswing position, and the golfer therefore has to re-route the arms in a slightly over-the-top backwards direction at the start of the downswing, and this initial downswing move predisposes to casting.

In the second series (below) the spine is appropriately pre-tilted to the right at adress, and the spine remains tilted to the right throughout the backswing. Note how the right pelvis is tilted to the left at the end-backswing position, and note how this creates space under the arms - for the arms to drop into the "slot" when the downswing begins.

The difference is subtle - but critical.

See this video for a good description of "how to create space" during the backswing pivot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvOr5...elated&search=

The end-result is a huge difference in the degree of wrist lag, and casting, as a result of the difference in the two end-backswing positions.

See - http://perfectgolfswingreview.net/An...RPversusBP.jpg

Jeff.

[detonum]

Re: How I went from casting to having lag

Thanks for your advice Jeff.

The bad ball position in the iron video pretty much causes my lack of tilt to the right. When I noticed that I had been using a wrong ball position for every iron shot (middle of stance or a little forward) and started using the left armpit rule, my tilt increased.

That video about the reverse pivot was very good. Even though I have pretty good pivot now, my weight is centered/leaning to the left at the top of the backswing. This is causing me to straighten my right leg quite a bit, see how the toes of my right foot come off a little bit when I'm at the top? I guess I should work on transferring my weight to the right better.

I also noticed the resemblence to Sergio Garcia and Ben Hogan. When I watched down the line video of my "lag" swing, it's very similar to Sergio's swing when he had massive lag. The shallowing of the clubshaft at the beginning of the downswing is quite similar. Also our arms are quite similar at impact looking from dtl.

http://www.zshare.net/download/hybriddtl3-avi.html

edit: your reply came up when I was writing this, nice analysis there!

[Jeff Mann]

Re: How I went from casting to having lag

I looked at your DTL video and I agree about your ability to maintain a large amount of wrist lag. You have one of the best downswings that I have ever seen. Absolutely first class.

One question. I am concluding that you had a casting problem when hitting the 2-iron because you were reverse pivoting. Am I missing some other factor, and therefore coming to an incorrect conclusion? Were you deliberately doing something else different in that swing?

Jeff.

[detonum]

Re: How I went from casting to having lag

If you read my first post, I was swinging with dead arms and hands in the driver sequence. Active ones in the iron.

However, I was just in front of the mirror, practicing and feeling the difference between reverse pivot and the correct pivot.
When I try to initiate downswings from both of these swings (with dead hands, so that I get my right elbow in the correct position so that I get lag...) it feels alot easier with a good pivot. With the reverse pivot, I feel like I have to change the whole position of my body before I can fire through. With a good pivot I was already in a good position, I could just fire through without changing my body position.

So, what I'm saying, that I may have found a swing key for me that enables me to get into a good delivery and impact position from the top, even with a reverse pivot. Might be, that because of this swing key or thought, I started to use a proper pivot, so that I didn't have to change my body positions in the transition.

[Jeff Mann]

Re: How I went from casting to having lag

You mention that you were hitting with active hands when using the iron. I realise that, but can you avoid using active hands when in the reverse pivot position? I suspect that active hands happens because it is difficult to use passive hands from a reverse pivot position, because one needs to change position before the hands can be pulled down towards the ball. With a good backswing pivot, one only has to think of shift-rotating the hips and pulling the right elbow down to the right hip => the hands are pulled down passively with no need for conscious thought. Can you achieve that "passive hands" feeling from a reverse pivot position, and still get a large amount of wrist lag?

Jeff.

[detonum]

Re: How I went from casting to having lag

After spending some more mirror time with my swing, I can say that I propably would not have nearly the same amount of lag with a reverse pivot.

With a reverse pivot, it feels really hard to get the right elbow to the correct delivery position, especially with passive hands and arms. It can be done, but I really need to tilt my shoulder in the transition if I were to do it, and that alone would cost power and lag.

I would say that reverse pivot encourages bad arm action. I can avoid using active arms from reverse pivot, because I can confidently let my arms be dead. I don't have the instinct to hit the ball with my arms/hands. But beginner/average golfers might find it really tough to swing with dead hands and arms, because they don't feel confident with that. It's really easy to throw your hands outwards from a reverse pivot - there is little space for them to come from the inside. I can definately feel the space difference now with the reverse pivot and good pivot.

[shootin4par]

Re: How I went from casting to having lag

in a compound pivot action, which looks like a reverse pivot, physics dictate that you actually get more lag if the pivot is done correctly but that is very hard to explain into words. would I want to try to get lag from a reverse pivot, I would not want that pivot option. Mike austin threw the club from the top but he appears to have a lot of lag, more then one way to skin a cat, but there is an optimum way

[golfndawg]

Re: How I went from casting to having lag

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...16692383&hl=en

Hey

I hit the ball better than ever after watching this video........I think I had a little sway mixed with a bit ott and/or reverse pivot....Keeping the front hip forward did wonders.