Casting the club: measure your lag on video

At the top of the backswing, your lead wrist is hinged, so there's an angle between your lead arm and the shaft. That stored angle is what golfers call lag.

In a good downswing, you keep most of that angle as the arms come down, and it releases late, through the ball. When you cast, the wrists unhinge right from the top, a bit like casting a fishing rod. The clubhead swings out wide and gets to the ball early.

From face-on, a cast looks like the club pointing at the ground or out toward the ball far earlier than it should. By the time the hands reach the ball, they're often level with it or behind it, rather than slightly ahead.

You need a face-on clip for this. Down-the-line hides the wrist angle behind your body. If you haven't filmed one yet, the filming guide shows where to put the phone.

Frame 1: top of the backswing

Set the speed to 0.25x and step to the frame where the club stops going back. Pick the angle tool and tap:

1. Your lead wrist first. That's the corner of the angle.
2. Your lead shoulder, so one side runs up the lead arm.
3. The clubhead (or as far down the shaft as you can see), so the other side runs along the shaft.

Write down the number.

Frame 2: lead arm parallel to the ground

Step forward frame by frame into the downswing until your lead arm is roughly parallel to the ground. Draw the same angle with the same three points.

Read the two numbers

Don't chase a "correct" angle. Bodies, wrists and clubs differ, so compare your two numbers with each other.

• If the angle at arm-parallel is about the same as at the top, or a little smaller, you're holding your lag.
• If it has opened up a lot, the club has already released, and you're casting.

Measure three or four swings. One clip can mislead you.

Casting moves the bottom of your swing arc back toward your trail foot and adds loft at impact. Coaches usually link it to:

• Weak, high shots. The clubface arrives with more loft than it should, so the ball balloons and comes up short.
• Fat shots. The club bottoms out behind the ball and hits the ground first.
• Thin shots. Trying to avoid the fat one, many golfers lift up and catch the ball on the bottom of the club.
• Lost distance. The clubhead speed peaks too early, before it reaches the ball.

If your irons go high and short, and your divots start behind the ball or don't appear at all, casting is worth checking first.

Casting is usually a symptom of something else. Look for these:

• Starting the downswing with the hands and arms. If the arms fire first from the top, the wrists unhinge with them. A downswing that starts with the lower body shifting toward the target gives the arms time to drop while the angle holds.
• Trying to help the ball into the air. Golfers who feel they need to scoop the ball up flip the wrists to add loft. The club's loft already does that job.
• Grip. A weak grip can leave the face open coming down, and casting is one way golfers instinctively try to square it. Tight grip pressure can also make the wrists hard to keep hinged. If you suspect your grip, a lesson is worth more than guesswork.
• An over-the-top move. Casting and over the top often show up together, since both can start with the arms and shoulders throwing the club from the top.

This drill teaches you what holding the angle feels like.

1. Swing to the top with a mid-iron.
2. Start down slowly until your lead arm is parallel to the ground. Stop and look at the club. The shaft should still point up, not out toward the ball.
3. Go back to the top, then down to arm-parallel again. That's two pumps.
4. On the third move, swing all the way through and hit the ball.

Keep the swings half speed at first. You're training the order of the downswing, not power.

Re-measure: film a face-on clip after a session of pump drills, and measure the arm-parallel frame again. You're looking for that second number to move closer to your top-of-backswing number.

This one trains the hands to lead the clubhead into impact.

1. Place an impact bag, or a thickly folded towel or old pillow against something solid, where the ball would be.
2. Make slow half swings into it, stopping at contact.
3. At contact, your hands should be slightly ahead of the clubhead, with your lead wrist flat rather than bent back.

If the clubhead hits the bag before your hands get there, you've cast. Slow down until the hands lead every time, then build up to longer swings.

Re-measure: film the face-on view again and pause at impact. Draw a vertical line up from the ball. With an iron, your hands should be on or slightly ahead of that line. Then check the arm-parallel angle too.

The lead arm-parallel frame in the downswing is the best single frame for a casting check, because that's where lag is either still there or already gone.

1. Pause on that frame from your face-on clip.
2. Tap AI on mobile or AI Coach on desktop, then Analyze Current Frame.
3. You'll get the swing phase it sees, up to three strengths, up to two fixes and one drill.

Only that paused frame is sent. Your video stays on your device. The AI reads a single still, so it can't see your tempo or ball flight. Use it alongside your two angle measurements, not instead of them.

It helps to see what holding lag looks like. Open the Rory McIlroy driver sample. It is split-screen: use the face-on view on the left. Measure the same two frames you measured on your own swing: the top, and lead arm parallel on the way down.

Look at how the angle changes between those frames, rather than the exact numbers. A driver and an iron won't give the same readings, and nobody needs to match a tour player degree for degree. The compare to a pro guide explains how to line up the same checkpoints on two swings.

For more on stepping through the downswing frame by frame, see slow-motion swing analysis, or the full six-checkpoint guide.