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How do we gather the club at the top of the golf swing? and what on earth does this mean? Keep reading and you’ll find out.

A big difference between most amateurs golf swings and Pros is the ability to swing the club in a patient manner. This means without any force or jerky hand action at the top of the golf swing.

Most amateurs want to hit the ball from the top of the swing with a fast transition. This generally leads to a shaft plane that’s too steep coming down and results in some club head throwaway before the club head reaches the ball.

The answer comes from learning to hang out at the top of the golf swing for a while. We all fight the urge to come down and hit the ball. But as a general rule, the guys who commit to pausing at the top make a better transition into the downswing. Which leads to a shallowing out of the shaft plane and the club attacking the ball more from the inside.

There’s a few important pieces of information you need to understand to achieve this. Firstly, you have to load the club in the first place.

What is Loading?

Loading simply means a full wrist cocking during the backswing, as well as a full pivoting action with the body and a full arm swing. If one of these things isn’t loaded properly it will affect the top of the swing position and in turn will affect the transition and downswing.

An important note on Loading..

Many older guys and girls sometimes complain during the course of a lesson that they are unable to fully load going back because of their physical condition. In my experience this is simply an unwillingness to commit to the new move. The brain gets in the way and says “this is different and mildly uncomfortable” so they become anxious about performing the move.

The whole idea behind a Modern Golf Swing is that it’s largely for everyone. There’s no more trying to keep your right knee flexed and load weight into your right thigh. The pressure should be in the left thigh, under both feet, with a gradual counterbalancing action under the left foot. Your right hip moves back behind you and your tailbone moves closer to the target. This is a much easier way to move the body, fully load up and give yourself the best chance of making a great downswing.

Now, back to gathering the club at the top. Loading the club is essential, but so is a patient transition!

have you noticed the amount of players on tour nowadays who have a slightly steeper shaft angle going back than they do coming down? This is deliberate.

During the backswing, The hands should be dragged back on the inside. If the right arm is attached to the torso it will also start to fold. It’s this folding action that actually cocks the left wrist. This, as well as the counterbalancing into the left leg and the side tilting of the spine toward the target, keep the club head outside the hands during the takeaway and produces a slightly steeper shaft plane during the backswing.

Providing your hands are placed on the club in an effective manner, by the time you reach the top of the swing the weight of the club head will produce pressure in the first joint of your right hand trigger finger. This is called pressure point #3 (pp#3).

From here, you’re going to want to feel as though you are hanging out for a little while before you unwind your body and sustain the lag all the way down through impact.

This also goes hand in hand with producing great rhythm in your swing.

A good golf swing isn’t simply an backswing (up) and a downswing (down).

It’s more along the lines of:
Up (fast)
Top of the swing (slow)
Downswing (fast)
Finish (slow)

So program your mind to start visualizing the swing in that manner – fast-slow———-fast, slow.

Check out the video below where I point out the gathering at the top of swing by some of the best in the business, and also talk more about the fast, slow—fast, slow drill to help with rhythm. Feel free to comment below.

To sustaining the LAG,

JP