We are still at Knight’s Play due to Coronavirus. Today Patrick continued to work on me getting as much depth as possible in my backswing. An addition he made was my right lat resists or stabilizes once I complete my takeaway and the second part of the backswing with my core. After my core starts turning, it should feel like my right nipple is actually going under my right tricep as my right lat becomes a stabilizer. In essence, my right side should not pull back on the backswing; it should maintain. It’s like my right side hits a wall and then my left side drives to the top of the backswing.
This feels really weird for me because once I get past #1 and #2 of the backswing, I always “pulled” up with my right side and arms to get to the top of the swing. When I did this, it would feel like I was standing up. Now, when I maintain my right side, it feels like my shoulders are turning on a flat plane. I come under my right shoulder and it feels like I am coming around.
This can be a challenge as sometimes I drop my head to the left as my lower left side and left lat drive under. I also struggle with maintaining the right lat as it wants to pull. It is going to take quite a few reps of this to make it a habit.
We then worked on the downswing. Something Patrick added was re-establishing my left knee to back over my left toes to start the downswing. My leg will then stay in that place throughout the entire downswing. I then allow my right butt cheek to fall behind my left butt cheek and drive under with my lower right side. When I do this, I need to maintain my left lat just like I do my right lat on the backswing.
If I can maintain with my left lat, I drive under with my right side and it feels like my left nipples is going under my left shoulder. If I can do this correctly, the release of the club is way past impact and it feels like my upper body is pointing 30 yards left of the target. When I did some of these practice swings with Patrick I started sweating my ass off. In fact, this was definitely the “sweatiest” day I have had in quite some time.
Patrick added one layer to my chipping motion. He wants my right knee actually touching the spot behind my left knee. If I do this, it doesn’t allow me to try to generate false power with my right leg. Remember, my right leg is a huge issue as it wants to create power when it should be a stabilizer. When I did a few of these, with my right lat maintaining, making my shoulder plane feel vertical, I hit some really, really good chips. It makes me feel the rotation much more when I do this.
There are still many tweaks we have to do to get my right side to maintain on the backswing and my left side to maintain on the downswing. Once that gets squared away, we should be a decent little golfer. Who knows.
UPDATE: There are so many roads Patrick has had to go down to get me to understand different parts of the golf swing. I am always learning and grasping concepts he talked about years ago. It is now February 2021 and I still work on some of the things mentioned in this lesson. It is a never ending process of trying to get better with the body and brain wanting to do something completely different.
