I tried this, and it worked! I’ve had an early release forever, despite trying hard to change it. Today on the range, I recalled this video answer and decided to try it. I positioned my 9 iron like a baseball bat, and made some baseball swings, feeling the release. Then I lowered the swing down to be all on one plane rather than starting with the “bat” pointing skyward. In that lower plane I was simulating hitting a pitch coming in a foot off the ground.
When I thought I had the feeling, I hit a shot. Wow. I didn’t go any farther than normal, but it was in the center of the face, and the trajectory and feel were perfect. As opposed to the rainbow I normally hit by catching the ball right at the bottom of the swing. I can’t tell you how many thousands of balls I’ve hit, and methods/tips/etc. used, trying to accomplish what happened today in one swing.
I think the answer to Daniel’s mystery of why lag doesn’t just happen is that it is a mental block laid down by us golfers. We don’t get three strikes plus foul balls, we don’t lose a tennis game or set from just a few errant shots. Not to mention we get a second serve. But in golf, every bad shot counts, and often compounds to even more lost strokes. It doesn’t take long for the golf brain to do whatever it takes to try to suppress errors. Lag is a casualty of that process. Most golfers never even get lag in the first place, because by the time they’ve learned to reliably get the ball airborne, they are already well into the process of suppressing things. The golf brain is dominated by fear, in my opinion.
Anyway, I’ve decided to make this baseball release impact discovery the centerpiece of my personal swing. Thanks!
I tried this, and it worked! I’ve had an early release forever, despite trying hard to change it. Today on the range, I recalled this video answer and decided to try it. I positioned my 9 iron like a baseball bat, and made some baseball swings, feeling the release. Then I lowered the swing down to be all on one plane rather than starting with the “bat” pointing skyward. In that lower plane I was simulating hitting a pitch coming in a foot off the ground.
When I thought I had the feeling, I hit a shot. Wow. I didn’t go any farther than normal, but it was in the center of the face, and the trajectory and feel were perfect. As opposed to the rainbow I normally hit by catching the ball right at the bottom of the swing. I can’t tell you how many thousands of balls I’ve hit, and methods/tips/etc. used, trying to accomplish what happened today in one swing.
I think the answer to Daniel’s mystery of why lag doesn’t just happen is that it is a mental block laid down by us golfers. We don’t get three strikes plus foul balls, we don’t lose a tennis game or set from just a few errant shots. Not to mention we get a second serve. But in golf, every bad shot counts, and often compounds to even more lost strokes. It doesn’t take long for the golf brain to do whatever it takes to try to suppress errors. Lag is a casualty of that process. Most golfers never even get lag in the first place, because by the time they’ve learned to reliably get the ball airborne, they are already well into the process of suppressing things. The golf brain is dominated by fear, in my opinion.
Anyway, I’ve decided to make this baseball release impact discovery the centerpiece of my personal swing. Thanks!