TOMMY FLEETWOOD

Average drive 300.8 yards

1 Lead-hand position and pressure

Lag is perhaps best viewed through the angle between the lead arm and the clubshaft; as the angle becomes more acute, lag increases. As we can see, wrists play a central role here. We need them to be soft and fluid to allow the hinge and cock that sets the clubhead gathering powerfully behind the body. Tommy keeps his wrists mobile...

By ensuring the handle runs through the base of the fingers. Anything up into the palm immobilises the wrist and stalls lag.

By ensuring the extra grip pressure needed to control the club at the change of direction doesn’t extend up into and lock his wrists.

CREATE LAG THROUGH BETTER SEQUENCING

This image captures Tommy in his typically powerful move from the top, the clubhead lagging well behind his driving body. To understand lag’s relevance to speed, power and distance, think of a simple hammer strike on a nail. During the short backstroke, the hammerhead starts to lag behind the hand/forearm as the wrist cocks. We time the downstroke so the head catches up at the strike… and not before. Put simply, lag is a lever we want to be using at the ball, and not before. While lag is important for impact power, it’s important to note that it is a by-product of other things.

Here are two ways

Tommy creates it...

2 Sequencing

We know that in the golf swing, power is created from the ground up and from the inside out. When you swing in this way, you will create lag naturally. But one thing stopping this happening is the concept of backswing and downswing. It implies one stops before the other starts. Watch Tommy at transition and you’ll see his lower body very definitely driving forward even as his upper half is still moving back. This is a move that sets the club definitively lagging behind the body.