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It’s often wondered whether professional golfers have some great secret that they’ve discovered which has led to their success… perhaps a certain way of holding their clubs or some mysterious motion that they perform as the club head impacts the ball. There is a secret to how they manage to do so well on the golf course, though; they’ve taken the time over their years of practice to find out exactly what works for them, and they’ve developed it into their own personal perfect swings. You can do this as well, provided that you’re willing to put in a lot of practice developing the aspects and skill sets that your perfect swing will most likely need.

Discovering your perfect swing will most likely require you to work on two distinct points of your golfing abilities… you’ll need to learn to improve your focus, and also to be able to get the most out of club head lag. If you aren’t sure what’s meant by improving your focus or even what club head lag is, don’t worry; a large number of golfers are in the same boat. All will be explained, and for now all that you really need to understand about these two factors is that learning more about them and incorporating them into your game will result in straighter shots, longer drives, and a noticeable reduction in strokes.

The Role of Focus

Your focus isn’t just making sure that your next stroke is lined up just right… it also affects everything from how you take wind resistance into account to the angle at which the club head strikes the ball. The more focused you are on your stroke; the less likely you are to become distracted or accidentally hit the ball ever-so-slightly in the wrong direction. Proper focus allows you to learn from your smallest mistakes, and makes sure that you are aware of every slight motion that you might make which would affect your stroke. Once you learn to focus properly in your golf game then you’ll be able to make the small adjustments necessary to perfect your swing.

Improving Your Focus

The key to improving your focus is patience. Take the time to work through every piece of your swing before you allow the club to touch the ball. Practice your swing over and over, considering everything from the way that you grip the club to the precise motions of your arm as you transition from your back-swing to ball contact to your follow-through. When at the driving range, allow your focus to shift from your swing to the ball so that you can pick up on subtle hooks and slices that your swing might be causing. It can take a lot of work to improve your focus, but in time you’ll be able to recognize tiny changes in your swing and be able to figure out what you can to do correct them. The end result of focus training will be straighter drives and much more ball control for increased accuracy.

Defining Club Head Lag

The other major influencing factor in developing your perfect swing is club head lag, which is how far behind your swing the head of the club is actually traveling. Think about your standard stroke… do you make contact with the ball at the exact moment that your arms line up with it, or is the club tilted at a slight angle so that the head strikes the ball just slightly after your arms pass the tee? This brief lag is what you want to have in your swing; it allows you to convey a bit more power into your stroke, as your arms are entering into your follow-through when the club head strikes and you’re at the peak of your momentum. Even a slight bit of lag can cause a dramatic increase in the power of your golf swing.

Developing Club Head Lag

Club head lag can require some practice to develop effectively, as it’s created by a combination of the angle that your hands are holding the club at and the way that the club bends as you apply pressure to it with your swing. The more consistent your grip is and the more constant the force of your strokes are, then the more likely you’re going to be to be able to produce the sort of lag that you want. You don’t want to try and add extra force with your hands or to flick your wrist at the last moment, as this actually will defeat your lag and can add loft to your strokes; just work on maintaining a steady swing so that your acceleration is constant and that your hands are arriving to the peak of your swing before the head of the club. You can practice your lag by trying to hit balls low instead of simply working on a long drive… a well-lagged stroke will keep the ball relatively low to the ground, but at the same time will impart a lot more power into the ball which will result in a much longer drive. Just like with learning focus, developing proper lag may take a lot of work but the end result will be a significant improvement in your game.

Creating Your Perfect Swing

By now, you should be starting to realize exactly how focus and lag can be combined to help you create the perfect golf swing for your particular play style. Once you’ve begun learning how to focus on every aspect of your stroke, then you’ll be getting an idea of how you can affect your lag you’re creating. You may start to realize the little adjustments that need to be made in order to increase your lag, and over time you’ll get a good feeling for exactly how much lag you need to get the maximum distance out of your strokes. Before you know it, you’ll be able to surpass some of your previous drives without even making use of a driver. Your distances off of the tee will be some of the longest that you’ve ever had.

It’s important that you keep in mind, however, that there’s a significant difference between a stroke that’s better than what you used to do and one that really is the perfect swing for you. As you start to notice an improvement in your performance on the course, you need to make sure that you keep practicing and working on improving both your focus and your club head lag. So long as you continue to work at it, you will more than likely continue noticing ways that you can change your swing in order to improve lag and get even better distances and control out of your strokes. The real secret comes in realizing that your perfect swing is constantly a work in progress… so long as you continue to study it and work toward making improvements, and then you’re always going to be inching even further beyond what you dreamed.