Fulton: How Sabbatini generates winning lag

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Rory Sabbatini (shown here at Pebble Beach in February) has a large amount of lag on his downswing.

Rory Sabbatini now has six career wins on the the PGA TOUR after he held off a late charge at The Honda Classic from another up-and-coming international player -- Y.E. Yang. If you would've told me at the beginning of last year that at this point in the 2011 season the top three players in the FedExCup would be Mark Wilson, Jhonattan Vegas and Rory Sabbatini, I probably would not have believed you.

It's a different time on the PGA TOUR, as the game has become more international as ever ,with fields that seem to just keep getting deeper and deeper. This coming week in at TPC Blue Monster at the second of three World Golf Championship events, you have another extremely strong field where you would be hard-pressed to pick the winner.

After winning The Honda Classic last week, Rory Sabbatini will be in the field this week in the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship as well. Sabbatini over the years has been typically a very streaky player. This last week in Palm Beach Gardens, the guy certainly had it going the right way on the very difficult PGA National Champion's Course.

Sabbatini has a very powerful swing. After Sabbatini won his last golf tournament in May 2009 at the HP Byron Nelson Championship, I talked about how Rory was a good example of someone who maintains the lag on the downswing all the way to the low point of the swing arc. This component of the swing is a very powerful one and something that all PGA TOUR players are good at, but yet one of the things that doesn't show up in a lot of amateur's swing.

Lag is the concept of the clubhead trailing the butt end of the club all the way to impact and even slightly beyond to the swing's low point -- which in a good swing is adjacent to the lead shoulder. Lag is controlled primarily by the trail wrist staying bent which ensures the club shaft will be returned forward at impact assuring the clubhead is accelerating and descending.

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One of the most common errors in the golf swing is for an amateur to lose this angle in the trail wrist where the clubhead would pass the butt-end of the club before it reaches the swing's low point. As a result, a player loses power and accuracy in the full swing.

Often times, amateurs create an environment at address and/or during the backswing that doesn't promote lag.

For example, at the TOUR Academies we see a lot of players over rotate the clubface during the backswing where it opens up relative to the swing arc. As a result, the player slices the golf ball which leads to compensation over time to correct this. An open clubface during the backswing is when the toe of the club points up when the club shaft reaches parallel to the ground and then straight down at the top of the swing.

Usually when this occurs, a player is going to have a difficult time squaring the clubface through the efforts of the lead hand while maintaining the lag in the trail wrist. As a result over time, a player loses the angle of the trail wrist in attempt to square the clubface but yet "throws-away" the lag of the clubhead disrupting the proper impact dynamics as defined above.

To help promote lag, Sabbatini is a good person to watch and learn from. You may have noticed when Sabbatini reaches the halfway point of the backswing -- his clubface is pointing slightly down where the angle of the clubface is more consistent with his spine angle.

This clubface would be considered more square to the arc and would see the angle of the clubface run more parallel to the lead forearm at the top of the swing. Furthermore, when trying to incorporate more lag on the downswing -- even if the clubface got a little closed where the clubface would be looking more towards the sky - would not be all bad and would promote the proper lag on the downswing in order to not hook the ball.

The angle of the clubface is a function of two things:

1. Grip

2. How you use your lead hand. Generally speaking, the stronger the grip the more the clubface will close where the weaker the grip, the more the clubface will open. A strong grip is when you turn both hands away from the target where both V's you form between your thumb and first finger point towards the trail shoulder, where a weak grip sees the V's point toward the chin.

Secondly, how you use your left hand during the swing will determine the angle of the clubface as well. For example, the lead hand needs to rotate during the backswing in order for the club shaft to be on plane. Some amateurs will error where the lead hand will over rotate allowing the knuckles to face the sky at Position No. 1 where others will under rotate where the knuckles are towards the ground.

Regardless, the key is to blend the type of grip you have with the proper amount of rotation in the lead hand so the clubface can be square and the club shaft can be on-plane during the backswing. Again, when working on lag on the downswing, it is recommended to make sure the clubface is square too slightly closed during the backswing, so you can focus and be rewarded on the creation of lag on the downswing all the way through impact. Rory Sabbatini is a good one to watch and learn from when it comes to this.

Just Because

It's time to figure out this agreement between the NFL owners and players. You know, I have found myself thinking over the last week or so about what I would do if there wasn't actually an NFL season this year. Can you imagine?

You remember those discussions you had growing up that no matter how good or bad things got, "The sun is still going to come up the next morning?" If there is no agreements in place come this Friday night, I am not so sure if the sun will make it around by Saturday morning.

The bottom line is you can take baseball, take basketball, NASCAR or soccer, whatever you do, don't take football.