How to Create Lag in Your Downswing Without Overthinking It

What Is Lag and Why It Matters

Lag is the angle created between the shaft of the golf club and your lead arm during the downswing.

When this angle is maintained properly as you move toward impact, it stores potential energy — almost like a loaded spring — that gets released at the bottom of your swing.

The result? Faster clubhead speed, better compression, and a more powerful strike.

You’ll often see pros in slow-motion replays where their hands are well ahead of the clubhead halfway down. That’s lag in action.

The clubhead is “trailing” behind their hands, not flipping or catching up too early. The key is that the lag is not something they’re forcing — it’s happening as a natural result of their sequence and body mechanics.

When you release lag too early, a move known as “casting,” you lose that stored energy prematurely.

The clubhead reaches its maximum speed too soon and begins to decelerate before impact, leading to weak contact and inconsistent ball flight.

Maintaining lag until just before impact allows you to deliver the most speed at the perfect moment, maximizing your potential distance and control.

But here’s the critical thing: lag isn’t just about keeping your wrists cocked.

It’s the result of good sequencing — when your lower body initiates the downswing and your upper body and arms follow, the club naturally trails. And that’s what we’ll explore next.

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The Problems With Forcing Lag

One of the most common mistakes golfers make is trying to intentionally hold or “manufacture” lag.

They’ve seen it in swing videos or read that lag equals power, so they start pulling their hands down aggressively, locking in wrist angles, or trying to delay the release as long as possible.

The result? Often a swing that feels tight, rushed, and out of sync — and contact that’s worse than before.

Forced lag typically leads to several negative outcomes.

You might “stall” your hips and body rotation in an attempt to hold the angle, causing your hands and arms to overwork through the swing.

This throws off the natural flow of your motion and often causes blocks, pulls, or even dreaded shanks.

Other players cast the club from the top while trying to control it — an early release that leads to weak, high spin shots and poor compression.

The truth is, real lag isn’t something you manually create by tensing your wrists or trying to hold angles.

It’s a byproduct of correct sequencing, tempo, and efficient movement. In fact, trying to force lag can be one of the fastest ways to destroy the timing of your release altogether.

Instead of thinking about lag as something to “add,” think of it as something that “shows up” when you’re doing everything else right.

In the next section, we’ll look at how starting your downswing with your lower body is the real engine behind natural, effortless lag.

Let the Lower Body Lead

If you want to create lag without forcing it, you have to start by sequencing your downswing correctly — and that means initiating the move with your lower body, not your hands or arms.

When your legs and hips begin the transition from backswing to downswing, it creates a chain reaction: your torso follows, then your arms, and finally the club.

That natural delay — where the club “lags” behind everything else — is what real lag is all about.

When golfers try to create lag by manipulating the wrists or pulling the hands down first, they often end up “outpacing” their lower body.

This causes the upper body to dominate the motion, and the club gets thrown off path early. Instead of storing energy, the swing loses its coil and power.

To feel the proper lower body initiation, try a step drill: take your normal backswing, then step toward the target with your lead foot as you begin the downswing. This forces your weight shift and hips to lead the motion naturally.

Another useful move is the pump drill, where you pause halfway down a few times to rehearse the club staying back as your body begins rotating toward the target.

The more you train your legs and hips to start the swing, the easier it becomes to let the club fall into the slot and naturally “lag” behind.

You won’t need to hold anything — you’ll simply be creating space and time for the club to build speed. And most importantly, you’ll stay in rhythm and balance, which makes solid contact far more likely.

Maintain Wrist Structure — Don’t Try to Add Lag

Another key to building natural lag is to maintain the wrist structure you created at the top of your backswing — rather than trying to artificially increase or hold the angle during the downswing.

When you preserve the position of your lead wrist and allow the club to drop as your body rotates, lag forms automatically.

Many amateur golfers unknowingly cup the lead wrist early in the downswing, which opens the clubface and causes the club to cast outward. This not only eliminates lag, but it also leads to slices, weak contact, and timing issues.

Instead, your lead wrist should stay flat — or slightly bowed — as you start the downswing. This helps keep the club on plane and trailing behind your hands as your lower body rotates through.

What you don’t want is excessive tension in your wrists and forearms while trying to “hold” the lag angle.

That tension makes it difficult to rotate freely and usually leads to deceleration. Think of retaining pressure, not force. You want to feel the weight of the clubhead staying behind your hands without actively yanking on it.

A great way to feel this is the trail-hand-off drill. Take a normal backswing, then release your trail hand at the top and let the lead arm and body bring the club down.

You’ll feel how the club naturally falls behind your hand path as your body rotates. Another variation is the pause-and-drop drill, where you pause halfway down, then let the club drop gently while continuing your rotation through impact.

Lag is built on maintaining structure — not adding force. Keep your wrists organized, stay soft in your grip, and let the club react to your motion. The lag will follow.

Feel the Club Shallow and Drop

One of the biggest contributors to natural lag is the shallowing motion — when the club shaft moves slightly flatter (more horizontal) in the early downswing.

This movement allows the clubhead to stay behind your hands and rotate into a better delivery position without you having to force anything.

When shallowing is paired with proper lower body movement, lag becomes the natural result.

If the club stays steep (more vertical) in transition, you’re more likely to come over the top, lose lag early, and struggle with slices or pulls. Instead, you want to feel the club “drop” behind you just after the top of your backswing, not thrown out in front.

This motion creates a slot where the hands can move downward while the clubhead stays inside and behind them — that’s the essence of lag.

The key here is gravity and rotation, not tension and pulling. When your arms and hands stay relaxed and your body rotates through the target, the clubhead automatically trails behind and then whips through impact with stored speed.

Trying to “hold” lag by actively cocking the wrists or manipulating the clubface ruins this flow.

A simple way to train this is the split grip drill. Hold the club with a split between your hands — one at the top of the grip, one at the bottom.

Swing to the top, then start your downswing slowly while feeling the trail hand guide the clubhead down and behind you. This exaggerates the shallowing move and gives you the feel of the drop.

Another good drill is slow-motion tempo swings with full awareness of the club’s weight. Let the club fall into position as you unwind your body, and you’ll start to feel the natural “snap” of the lag working for you.

Train for Contact, Then Speed

A common mistake golfers make when chasing lag is trying to increase speed before they’ve mastered solid contact.

But lag — and the distance it creates — only pays off if you can strike the ball cleanly. Otherwise, all that stored energy is wasted.

That’s why you need to prioritize center-face contact and consistent delivery first, before layering in additional speed.

When you focus too much on speed or angles, you often rush your tempo and throw off your timing. Instead, begin by training your swing in slow motion, rehearsing a synced-up sequence from the ground up.

Make half-speed swings where you feel the club naturally falling behind you as your body rotates. Pay attention to where you’re striking the ball on the face and how the club interacts with the turf.

As your consistency improves, gradually add speed while maintaining your feel for contact. Dry reps without a ball, video feedback, and mirror work are all useful tools here.

The more you ingrain the proper sequence and flow, the more effortless your lag will become — and the more speed you’ll unlock naturally.

Think of it this way: lag and speed are not the goal. They are the reward for building a swing that moves in the right order, with the right tempo, and with the club arriving square at impact.

When you train for clean contact first, you give your body the trust it needs to swing freely — and that’s where the real distance gains happen.

Conclusion

Lag doesn’t come from trying to hold angles or force mechanics — it comes from moving in the right sequence.

When your lower body starts the downswing, your torso and arms follow, and your wrists maintain their structure, the club will naturally trail behind your hands.

That’s lag. You don’t need to create it — you need to allow it.

The biggest mistake golfers make is chasing lag with tension.

But the real secret is fluidity. When your swing is built on balance, rhythm, and a proper transition, lag becomes a byproduct — not something you have to manipulate. The more you try to control it, the more it disappears.

Instead, focus on shallowing the club, maintaining your wrist structure, and swinging through with relaxed speed.

Train your contact first, trust your motion, and let the club do what it’s built to do. With the right approach, you’ll discover that real, effortless lag doesn’t just add power — it brings consistency, too.

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Thanks for reading today’s article!

Nick Foy – Golf Instructor