Had a lesson from Ian Poulter...well, sort of...

[Lemonhead]

I was at The Masters this year for the Monday practice round. Ended up sitting at the 7th green when Ian, Paul Casey, and Justin Rose were coming through. They finished practicing on the green and went to the 8th tee. Thus the lesson began....

I took a video of Ian's swing and when I got home and analysed it I saw how much lag he holds through the ball. I shot a video of my swing and saw where my power was going away. I alway hit the ball straight, but lacked the distance I should have had. I thought I was holding my lag, but not at all what I should have been doing. So I began tweaking my swing to bring in more lag.

The results: 20+yds on every club with a much smoother swing - when I get in the groove it feels effortless. It's still not consistent but it's made a huge difference - especially in my irons. I'm still learning to get the driver back consistently straight.

Once I get it better grooved, I'll post a before and after video.

Lemonhead

[MCDavis]

Ok, explain the "lag" to me.

[Lemonhead]

When I watched the video, frame-by-frame, I noticed that the angle of his left arm to the shaft was about 67degrees at the top. When his arm was parallel to the ground the angle dropped to 42 degrees. When his arm was about 45 degrees below parallel to the ground, the angle was back to around 65 degrees. Meanwhile, his belt buckle had long since rotated toward the fairway since he starts his downswing properly - hips first.

This video showed me very clearly what "lag" was all about. He was holding that arm-shaft angle as long as possible. It makes for a much easier swing - which is another thing I noticed - he seemed to swing very easy but get a long drive nonetheless.

When I compared it to one of my swings, I wasn't keeping anything close to those angles. I never had the feeling of losing my arm-shaft angle, to the contrary, I have always had the opposite feeling. However, video doesn't lie. I wasn't coming over the top, but I wasn't holding the angle, much less reducing it, in my downswing which resulted in a substantial loss of distance.

Forward to now, and I am working on getting the feeling of a much more acute arm-shaft angle on my downswing. I also am working on getting much smoother in clearing my hips.

Distances: Previously I would hit a 6i 150 and would have to feel like I really hit it solid. Now, I hit a 6i 170 with a 3/4 swing and I don't feel like I'm really trying. If I really try and swing "hard" I still revert back to bad habits so I'm working on slowly building as my body gets used to the new timing.

Lemonhead