Today Patrick and I discussed my right side wanting to lift or get fat to get the club to the top of the backswing. I told him I did this because this was my shoulders actually turning. Instead of thinking of the shoulders turning this way, I need to think about my shoulders turning with my right side being a straight line and turning around that line. That is why Patrick wants me to suck in with my lower right side and entire right side as we get to the top of the backswing.
Patrick worked on getting my left lat to drive under while my right side did not lift. It is definitely a learning process to quiet down my right side while my left side drives under. It does feel like my left lat is driving under which is what causes the club to “flatten”. My right elbow naturally wants to tuck when the left lat drives under.
Something Patrick added today was not feeling like I should steepen the shoulder plane with my shoulders. I should actually feel like my shoulders are flat while my posture, especially my right side needs to stay bent over to cause the leverage of the swing. This is extremely foreign to me. I have been getting the steep shoulder angle with my shoulders and not the bend of my hips. When Patrick put me at the top with my shoulders feeling more flat with my hip hinge causing the angle it was very awkward.
It is going to take quite some time for me to get the feel of my left side driving under and then making my shoulders feel flat at the top while keeping my hip angle which will keep the overall body over the ball. Wow. Every time I seem to have figured some things out, Patrick adds a completely new layer.
By the end of the lesson Patrick said to focus on getting the left side to come under and feel like I am going up on the second half of the backswing. We will address the hip hinge and the feel of the shoulder angle at the top sometime in the future.
There is just so much to learn when it comes to the golf swing. I asked Patrick how long it would take if someone was fully committed to getting lessons every day. He said he could do it in nine months but the first three months would only be hitting balls with the chipping motion. There would also be some core training and stretching with William to build the correct golf body. So, it seems that about 180 lessons are what it takes to become a very good golf with Patrick. I am only 27 lessons away. This means sometime in mid December I should be at a place where I am able to hit all the clubs in the bag. Let’s see if that happens.
UPDATE: I am a lesson #253 in April 2021 and I am just now comfortable starting to hit mid irons. We did start PKU where I see him every day during the week in September and it was well worth it. There is just so much to learn that it takes full commitment and not obsessing about things you simply don’t understand. I really don’t think many other amateur golfers could get 1/10th of the way through this process. It is crazy to think about how far we have come.
